Sewage Ejector System Problems
New home owner here. I have never lived in a home with one of these systems, so this is new to me and I might be explaining it wrong.
I have what appears to be a Sewage Ejector System in my basement.
It looks like a black tub sunk into the floor in the unfinished part of the basement, with 2 PVC pipes coming out of it and leading into a larger black PVC pipe that appears to go into the wall (and out to the sewer I am guessing). The tub is about 20-24" across, and I am not sure how deep. There is a power cable attached to a float or something that I can see through an opening in the top of the tank.
I noticed that the toilets were flushing in a weird way, and some of the sinks were draining slowly, so I began to investigate. That's when I saw some water around this tank, like it had overflowed slightly. It also doesn't smell too great, and before this, I have never noticed a smell in the basement at all, despite the opening in the lid of the tank. I also noticed that the pump does not appear to be turning on, when normally any time I ran a sink or flushed the toilet in the basement that I could hear it turn on.
Is this something I can fix myself? Searching around on the internet and this site it looks like a likely cause might be that something is stuck IN the pump itself. Seeing as I have a daughter that flushes things indiscriminately and uses way too much toilet paper, this seems even more likely. However, I am concerned that I will be dealing with "raw sewage" by taking this thing apart. Would it be easier to have a plumber come out and take a look?