A group of Vancouver residents is furious after old sewer pipes caused some major household flooding problems, twice in the past year.

When a wicked storm system pummeled Metro Vancouver in August of 2013, a sewer backup flooded Mai and Bruce McHardy’s Cambie area home.

"We had this huge rain shower that came down and Friday morning we came down to do laundry and it was just black soot and debris everywhere," said Bruce McHardy.  

The sewer back-up caused tens of thousands of dollars damage to the McHardy's basement.

"We called the city and they came out, looked at it, and told us there was nothing wrong, that it wasn't our problem, that it was a city issue," said Bruce.   

The McHardy's did the costly repairs, but ten months later another storm system hit. Again, the sewer system couldn't handle the storm water. The sewer back-up came up their toilet and the shower drain, leaving their floors covered in black sludge.

The McHardy's weren't alone. Many of their neighbours, like Cary Chow, also suffered two disastrous sewer backups. In Chow’s case, the floods caused up to $70,000 damage.

“Water was everywhere. I mean ten months ago they were brand new hardwood floors, ten months later it's trash," said Chow.

The residents blame the flooding on old sewer pipes and densification of the neighbourhood, which is seeing small homes on big lots, replaced by mega homes with no lawns for rain to soak into.

The city denies that saying development rules are in place to ensure proper drainage on residential properties.

Still, the McHardy's claim officials are not listening to their concerns.

"I’ve contacted multiple departments and each department says yeah it's not their problem, it's someone else's problem," said Bruce.  

The head of Engineering Services says the City of Vancouver is spending $30 million a year installing separate storm and sewer pipes in older neighbourhoods.

"It will take time to separate the rest of the city, up until 2050. It's a big expense for taxpayers, but we're getting that done as quickly as we can," said Peter Judd, general manager of Engineering Services. 

The Oakridge-Cambie neighbourhood is scheduled to have its storm and sewer pipes separated and upgraded next summer. And if another mega storm hits?

"The storm that caused the issues in the area  was a one in 100-year storm, so a one per cent chance in any given year that that will occur," reassured Judd. 

But the McHardy's aren't convinced.

"Every time it rains I get nervous and run down to the basement to see if it's flooded again. I get this sick feeling that this is going to happen again," said Mai. 

After making two big claims in a short period of time the couple’s insurance company is talking about not insuring them next time around.

The City of Vancouver has been going in and replacing old sewer pipes since the 1970's. The old systems use just one pipe for both sanitary and storm water and they just can't handle a big rain event. The new systems being installed have two pipes, a big one just to handle storm water, and a separate one for sanitary water.