Rented property - costs of clearing a blocked drain

Smith_007

Flushing a wet wipe down the kharzi isn't ideal, but it should not cause a blockage.

I'd suggest the wet wipes are exacerbating an underlying problem that needs fixing. Perhaps the tree roots?

Tell this to the landlord, not the agency. The landlord will have an interest in maintaining the property properly and carrying out correct preventative maintenance rather than finding somebody to blame.

Also, is the drain shared with anybody else?

Petef15h

Just an update for anyone who was following this thread / posted a reply - After the first blockage was cleared (well we thought it was cleared!), it backed up again, same private contractor came out and said it was still wet wipes that were coming through the pipes in the house, and he cleared them again.

Drain was blocked and overflowing again at the weekend, called the lettings agancy again, who this time called Wessex Water themselves, after speaking to the private contractor who insisted that he had done everything right.

Wessex Water attended this afternoon, and CONFIRMED that ours is a SHARED drain, (with the manhole cover only on private property and the blockages were not our fault, and that it would be almost impossible to block a mains drain with wet wipes unless several packets were flushed at the same time!.

This is why, in the past, Wessex water have cleared the drains for us (we were not 'lucky' ) and that the original operator that came out should have done it, and the private contractor that came out couldnt have done the work properly as he would have realised where the blockage was from.

I'll leave it to the lettings agents / private contractor & Wessex Water to argue the private contractors bill!!

G_M

Thanks for the update.