STURTEVANT — Two months after a major rainfall, Andrea Minton continues to clean up damage to her basement. She has no doubt who’s responsible for a sewer backup that ruined three computers and several pieces of furniture in the town home she rents.

“Where does raw sewage come from?” she said.

But officials say it’s not the village’s fault. A Sturtevant committee on Tuesday night recommended denying a second round of claims, based on an insurance company’s judgment that the village was not negligent.

As of Tuesday, 24 residents had filed claims against the village. Minton already received a letter rejecting her claim for about $3,500 to cover damage from the June 19 storm.

Had there been a sewer blockage the village staff knew about for a while and ignored, it might have constituted negligence, but that wasn’t the case, Village Administrator Mark Janiuk said.

Although the storm hit Sturtevant especially hard, officials can’t prevent rain, he said. Many of the complaints were for clear water.

What Minton saw covering her gray floor was unmistakably sewage, she said.

“You couldn’t even see the gray,” she said. “It was just black.”

Dan Mielcarek has seen heavy rain before, but he finds it odd that it was the first time in 19 years he had any sewage problems. He recently took on more insurance, but it still wasn’t enough to cover up to $16,000 in carpeting and walls that had to be replaced. The Village Board denied Mielcarek’s claim last week.

As a preventive measure, Janiuk suggested residents ask their insurance agents about add-ons to their policies to cover things like sewer backups and water damage.