There's a Strange Smell Round Here!

I don't want to put you off your meal, but the picture above is of raw sewage! Why on earth, you are probably asking, have I put this picture there?

Well, lets go back a litle bit in time. ( By the way, it's not our raw sewage!!!)

As regular readers of my blog will know, we had a new kitchen fitted a little while ago, and this involved all the necessary plumbing and pipe work fitting as well. All has gone well, except for the last few days I have noticed a strange gurgling sound as the dregs of the sink emptied.

So this morning after I had taken her ladyship to the hair salon I said I would investigate the gurgling. It just happened to be in the midst of a torrential downpour! The first thing I noticed was that the drain outside the kitchen seemed to be full and almost overflowing, so I took the grate off it and proceeded to proddle down it with a long crowbar. Five minutes proddling produced no tangible results, so I lifted the sewage inspection cover, because the water from the kitchen drain drains into this.

I got quite a surprise as the inspection chamber was almost full to overflowing with baby wipes, disintigrating toilet paper and lots of other associated goodies!

The inspection chamber is between two and three feet deep and there was no way I was going to be able to unblock it, so I rang for a drainage clearing company to come and rod it out and high pressure clean it.

Thirty minutes later, and with little success the drainage cleaning guy informed me that he was unable to clear the blockage due to a) the amount of it, and b) the fact that the pipe was blocked at least two houses up and two houses down from ours. He had lifted their insepction covers and found they too were just about to overflow!

He told me that he had been back to a house further up the road twice to unblock their drains, and it was suspected that the adjoining property were flushing non disposable nappies down the toilet.

He suggested I call Environmental Health. I did, and reported the information I had been given, pointing out that we had a health hazard on our hands. The gentleman who took my message promised that, "We will be out within 24 hours."

I suggested that he might like to try and make that sooner or he may be wading up a drive covered with brown sausages!

Our next door neighbour has two children under 3 years old and he has also been in touch with Environmental Health. Demanding that something is done about it very quickly. I've got to say I don't hold out much hope!