I guess I’m lucky.  In my 30+ years of home ownership I’ve never had a sewer backup.  When I designed and built my house 25 years ago I made sure they installed PVC for the sewer line going from the house to the street.  Roots don’t seek out that which leaves no evidence of moisture being present.

What I didn’t count on is the city lines getting clogged.  And they did, about 75 feet from the house. And that was enough to allow for limited usage of the plumbing in the house without leaving obvious signs of a sewer backup.

The first warning was the dishes were coming out of the dishwasher with a film on them.  We thought it was the water source or the soap or maybe the dishwasher was getting old.

Next came the mysterious water mark on the kitchen floor.  It looked like the source was the dishwasher.  But maybe someone spilled something and didn’t clean it up?

Then came the gurgling sound coming from the 1st floor bathroom.  This started happening about a week before the backup.  I thought the city was working on the water or sewer lines.

Finally came the dripping sound quickly followed by water flwoing onto the 1st floor bathroom floor.  This happened when there was a shower runing upstairs.  By then it was too late.

Of course, even if we had suspected a problem, no one here was about to volunteer to run out and rent a rodder and lug it down into the basement, let alone open the clean out and subject themselves to some seriously unpleasant odors.

BTW, after they cleared the sewer line, our dishes came out of the dishwasher sparkling again.