First, I’d like to say thank you to the employees of Dixon’s sewage treatment plant who came to my house twice within 10 minutes of my calling them on Aug. 20.

The rest of this letter is intended to warn homeowners who don’t know whether they have sewage backup insurance on their homeowner’s policy. Find out whether you do. It doesn’t cost much to add it, and I’d guess that sewage backing up in my basement is probably more likely to happen than a fire.

On Aug. 20, I woke to find 2 inches of sewage in my basement caused by a blockage that was more than two blocks away and on a different street than mine. I made the mistake of assuming that my homeowner’s insurance would cover the damage. I was wrong, and now I have a mess.