Sump Pump

We are so sick of having a swamp in our backyard. After getting no action from the city, we decided while we need to keep after them, at least we could get rid of the majority of the water. We bought a sump pump and pumped the water almost to the sidewalk on the other side of the fence.
Our house was built with a basin for a sump pump in case of floods inside by the water heater. Knowing we have a high water table, we figured it would be a good idea to get one that would turn on automatically if water was ever an issue. So we just made sure it would also work for pumping water out of the backyard.
This is after Nate started the pump. You can see how bad it got after the city "fixed" the problem
Looking from our yard into the empty lot. We are the lowest yard on the slope since there is an electrical box just down from us and the city made that plenty high. We get all the water from everywhere pooling behind our house.

Obviously the city didn't really fix their problems either.

It continues all the way along our neighbors yards, but ours is definitely the worst.

We're planning on bringing in more dirt and raising the back 10-15 feet of our yard so it's not such a slope. We'll have to raise the sprinklers and then bring in more sod. We'd love to have the city pay for it, and we're still hopeful to get some results. We just found out Richmond is going to start building next to us, and while we're thrilled for neighbors and to get rid of the ugly empty lot next door, we want to be able to get our cement and yard finished before we're closed in. Nate can rent a skidsteer from work for fairly cheap. There is plenty of fill dirt where they are building houses around us (apparently the market is picking up because in the last two weeks they started 3 homes with 1 more about to begin). I think our only option because of time is going to have to be a day off that we were hoping to use for the holidays. Sorry!