Given how much we depend on our drains to drain and our toilets to flush, many of us would have found somewhere else to stay if we had experienced the ordeal of Steve Lang and his sister Angela. Whistleblower reporter Lora Pabst reported today how the siblings improvised for five days after a Wi-Fi pole installed by the city of Minneapolis may have crushed the home’s wastewater service pipe. Here are two photos Pabst took of the open air shower:

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In light of the colossal failure of regulators to stop the rampant fraud and incompetence that put us in our economic mess, this busy new administration is applying the Washington solution - proposing a new federal agency to bring some law and order to the wild world of financial products. In his weekly address on June 20, President Obama described the Consumer Financial Protection Agency this way:

It will have the power to set tough new rules so that companies compete by offering innovative products that consumers actually want – and actually understand. Those ridiculous contracts – pages of fine print that no one can figure out – will be a thing of the past. You’ll be able to compare products – with descriptions in plain language – to see what is best for you. The most unfair practices will be banned. The rules will be enforced.

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Late Friday afternoon, I got word from the state Department of Revenue that they were raiding the assets of the biggest fish on the list of revoked sales tax permits - a defunct Lake Street car audio joint called Bass Zone, Inc. that I wrote about in April. My colleague Katie Humphrey, stationed in Burnsville, went to the scene of the seizure - another car audio business, BZ3 - and produced this video, as well as contributing to this story. Stay tuned for a state of Minnesota warehouse sale for some tire rims, car speakers and a 2003 Lexus.

Fellow Star Tribune Whistleblower Lora Pabst traveled to New Prague for her inaugural Sunday column, which detailed the limits of a city’s help in dealing with problems caused by a city-hired contractor. It’s one of the recurring themes of Whistleblower: just because government is involved doesn’t mean government is responsible.

Pete Nelson, photographed with his wife Ethel by my colleague Kyndell Harkness, reported a stream of driveby gawkers on Smithtown Terrace after my Sunday story about his efforts to get the Metropolitan Council to pay for fixing damage to his property from a $7 million sewer project. A day later, Met Council staff faced some skeptical questions from the Victoria City Council, which is scheduled to vote July 13 on allowing the project’s next phase. That involves digging a tunnel 100 feet underground to accommodate a 6-foot-diameter sewer to serve the Victoria, Waconia and St. Bonifacius area.

Kim Roden is the council member who has been most publicly critical about the Met Council’s behavior toward property owners with gripes about its sewer project.

“I don’t want to stop them. I want to see the project go forward,” Roden told me earlier this week. “I need to know what’s going to change so we don’t have a mess… [At Monday’s meeting] I told these guys, you may think of me from the council woman from hell, but I got to tell you something, you guys have just totally messed this up.”

Bonnie Kollodge, a Met Council spokeswoman, told me in an email that the Met Council Environmental Services “is refining its proposed written procedure pertaining to construction related concerns and claims. Staff plan to discuss with Victoria staff prior to transmitting a proposed procedure to the City Council as part of amending our cooperative agreement.”

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