Legal Question in Civil Litigation in Illinois

Collapsed drain tiles on your property are your problem unless the pressure from backwash caused the failure, but just try to prove it..... Today we can't mix storm water and sewer water and if your town has "combined" sewers (meaning your downspouts and toilets wind up in the same sewer, and it sounds like it) you should be disconnecting downspouts, running storm water overland to streets and street drains, and capping off your drain tile system. As to backup in the basement, it appears your sanitary and storm lines are combined, and it sounds like you're getting sewage backwash when the system is overloaded. First deal with your downspouts and drain tile system (if the house is over 40 years old it's likely barely functional at best). In heavy rain that should help prevent the stormwater from pushing things back into your basement. As to the municipal lines in the street, well, our good old American infrastructure varies between 50-100 years old or more and yes much of it is questionable. Governments are trying to cut back to essential services because tax dollars have been flat or going backwards with the economy. Should the municipality fix them (assume it is theirs and not the county's....)? Yes. Do they have the money to? No idea. But once you get off your property, it becomes the government's issue...AND yours as taxpayers. Insurance generally doesn't pay for aged and obsolete infrastructure, only the consequence of it -- and you may or may not have homeowner insurance but even it you do it won't cover the water per se -- just if it damages other things, like say a washing machine you have in your basement.. And the municipality? Insurance. Same thing and they probably don't have any anyhow -- it probably self-insures meaning it has no insurance (years ago people started suing their communities and the insurance rates skyrocketed so many communities pulled out to save money and some insurance companies simply stopped writing insurance for municipalities). Bottom line, you have a right to protect your property as long as you don't damage others'. About the only thing you may be able to do is see if you can get a check valve with cleanout installed and try to get the municipality to reimburse you. Call a licensed plumbing contractor to see if it's even feasible. But this may only prevent backwash -- it won't fix the problem AND during periods of heavy rain if you flush your toilets or run your water it will back up immediately since the check valve will prevent outflow so you can't run water or flush toilets for some time after the rain event if you're currently getting reversed water pressure. You may need to install a standpipe in your basement floor drain, that is taller than the outside grade, but even this is no guaranty. Water...you gotta love it. So at the same time if your neighborhood (or the entire town if it's that small) has a problem, you all may need to dig deep for taxes or for a special assessment, and it could be extremely costly considering today the state of the art is to have a separate storm system (only for streets and runoff but NOT connected to homes) and sanitary (sewage) for sinks, toilets, etc.. Or you all could decide to seek approval to disconnect and install septic fields and tanks....(lovely). And then again where is the sewage treatment plant? It may have maximized capacity, and that could prevent further construction of new and additional plumbing fixtures. There's no easy answer. I hope you now have enough information to become a hydrological activist for your community. Good luck.