Fetcham garden flooded with sewage after heavy rain
A COUPLE whose garden flooded with sewage have criticised Thames Water for failing to help.
Debbie and Steve Cole, of Cannon Way in Fetcham, woke up on Monday to find foul-smelling sewage in their garden and an outhouse connected to their kitchen, after a drain overflowed due to heavy rain.
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Steve Cole and his father-in-law John Richards try to keep the sewage out
Speaking on Monday, Mrs Cole, 52, said: "Because we're the lowest point of the road, all the water is coming onto our property and the sewerage system is being affected.
"It's a health hazard – our garden's contaminated, but no one cares about it."
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A Thames Water representative arrived at 10.30am on Monday to assess the situation and deemed it had subsided.
But by 2pm the drain was once again overflowing with sewage.
The couple say Thames Water then told them not to clean up the mess and wait for an engineer, but no one arrived so Mr Cole, a carpenter, took matters into his own hands.
"We had to clean it up ourselves," Mrs Cole said.
"It absolutely stunk. We couldn't go to bed like that so Steve bought cleaning products and a pump and fitted it so if it overflows now it will go out onto the road."
Mrs Cole called Thames Water four times on Monday, but by Tuesday morning she was still waiting.
"They won't give you anything," she said. "They say they'll get in touch but they don't.
"They say it's the rain, but then they should build something adequate for the rain."
The couple have lived in the house for 11 months, and have now learned from a neighbour that this same problem had occurred several times in the past.
Mrs Cole said: "This is the fifth time this has happened so I said 'why haven't you done anything about it?' and the Thames Water representative said there's two years between each incident so they don't have to.
"They could have done something about this, but they make their little rules so they don't have to fix it."
A Thames Water spokesman said: "We are very sorry we did not have engineers available on Monday to attend the Coles' property to sort out this horrible problem."
A Thames Water engineer visited the Coles on Tuesday and will now recommend a larger sewage holding tank for Cannon Way.
Comments
by tsneller
Monday, June 25 2012, 5:01PM
“This has been a problem with this property since at least 1972. I remember many times seeing several of the houses on the corner with this problem. It was always blamed on the small pumping station behind number 17. The problem was however worse after the houses from 26 owards were built in the mid 70's. As a teenager I can remember helping Jan to pin the manhole covers down with sandbags to reduce the contamination.”
by 1stephen
Sunday, June 17 2012, 12:46PM
“Another example of a private enterprise utility putting profit before service. Shareholders before hygiene and captive customers' welfare.”