I live in Rayfield Close and returned home from work to find an awful sewerage smell from the back of the house. The foul drainage system that picks up houses no. 1 through to no. 32 before discharging into the main road had become blocked. The drainage system runs through the back gardens of each house.
A very kind gentleman and neighbour, took it upon himself to undertake the huge task of clearing the problem and spent around 5 hours rodding through the manholes that go house-to-house, and was for the entire evening up to his neck in muck-and-bullets! Unfortunately for me the manhole in my garden is one of the deepest and with the drainage pipework so small (by modern standards) it become easily blocked so I ended up with human excrement, tissue paper, cotton buds, wipes etc overflowing all over my garden. Not a very pleasant sight and extremely unhygienic.
Eventually after much rodding and subsequent clearing up we managed to clear the problem.
The cause of the problem is clear, generally it seemed to be wet wipes, face wipes, cotton buds etc that had been flushed down the sewerage system and over time had caused a back log. Surely people are aware of their responsibilities with regards to what should and shouldn't be flushed down the toilet? I have lived in Rayfield Close for 18 years and the above issue has occurred 4 or 5 times now
I was nearly at the point of calling out a specialist drainage clearing company as it did look like we couldn't clear the problem and I would have no doubt have been faced with a £200-£300 bill to resolve a problem caused by probably one or two negligent neighbours further up the drainage system! What would have happened if I couldn't afford to pay to have the issue professionally dealt with?
I would be pleased to hear your thoughts as to how all the residents of the village can do their bit to alleviate this problem occuring in the future. The issue is probably as a result of only one or two households that for whatever reason flush everything down the toilet rather than bin and recycle.
Your thoughts please.
p.s. thanks again to Richard!
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