Disgusting long rant about neighbors, any advice welcome...

[jenP_97]

Lawyers out there - if you're willing to make suggestions on 
this situation, I'm willing to hear them.

My husband and I live in a small town of about 30,000 people.  
We bought our house (our first house!) 4 years ago this July, 
and because we don't make a whole lot of money (especially now 
that I'm staying at home with Ginger), we tried to buy a house 
that was less expensive than what we could qualify for, 
mortgage-wise.  This meant an smaller, older home in a 
neighborhood close to the center of town.  The neighborhood 
isn't the greatest, but not the worst, either.  Mostly rentals, 
now.

Well, we've got these neighbors.  Our orignial complaint when 
they moved in (about 3.5 years ago) was that their dogs 
constantly got out and pooped in our yard.  But that's nothing 
compared to this.

About a year ago, Chris heard some weird noise coming out of 
their house.  Went to investigate, and discovered that their 
sewage line had backed up somehow and their toilet (they only 
have one bathroom, and the "owner" of the house rents out 2 
of her 3 bedrooms, so there are at least 4 adults (and two 
kids) living in the house at the same time, sharing the one 
bathroom) is overflowing into the side yard that backs up to 
our driveway.  Raw sewage is all over the ground.  After 
hubby's stomach comes back down from his throat, he goes over 
and explains situation.  Answer?  "Yeah, we know about that - 
we haven't gotten around to fixing that yet."  First thought?  
How can someone KNOW about this and not try to fix it right 
away?  We give it a day, nothing.  Go over again.  "We're 
working on it."  Give it another day, thinking they've got a 
busy plumber coming out as soon as he can.  Nothing.  Finally, 
we call the health department.  Next day?  The guys who rent 
out the rooms are BADLY fixing the plumbing problem (now 
there's a 4in PVC pipe sticking out of the middle of the side 
yard), and just covering up the problem with dirt.  We call 
the health department again, but apparently, there's nothing 
that can be done.

Cut to yesterday.  We hosted the division social for my 
hubby's colleagues yesterday afternoon.  10+ people from the 
division, plus spouses, plus kids... most of the adults with 
advanced degrees of some kind... eating and making merry in 
our backyard.  Chris is playing basketball in our driveway 
with his colleagues' kids.  Guess what he hears.  Yep.  He 
doesn't even have to look - the SMELL tells him what's going 
on.  Can you believe it?  He hustles the kids into the 
backyard (where the smell's not very apparent), and cancels 
the game.  What else can you do?  Would YOU want to eat with 
that stuff going on?

Of course, this happens over the weekend, when the health 
department isn't taking complaints, so we have to wait until 
tomorrow.  Of course, nothing's being done currently.  We're 
not even going to the neighbors this time... we know they're 
not going to do anything until they're forced to.

So... what can we do to make sure this doesn't happen again?  
Can we INSIST that the health department oversee the cleanup 
and repair?  Can we do anything besides make the phone call?  
This is NOT something I should have to deal with!  And it's 
really a health risk for me - I mean, I'm pregnant, for crying 
out loud, and the rate of Hepatitis A (which is passed through 
fecal matter) around here is SKY HIGH!  We've got this long 
list of things to tell the health department tomorrow onthe 
phone, but is there any kind of smoking gun that we can use?

Any advice (or sympathy, or just "ew gross!" responses) would 
be very much appreciated.

Jen, the disgusted.