Blocked Shared Sewer - Thames Water

Dragonflly

So on Saturday I noticed that our downstairs toilet was filling up when I flushed indicating that the shared sewer was blocked once again (it happens about once a year) so on Monday I phoned Thames Water and reported the problem when they said that someone would contact me within 72 hours.72 hours later no one had phoned so I phoned them back to be told that they would investigate and get back to me. 24 hours later (now Thursday).. nothing.. so I phoned again and was passed through to the contractor who told me that no one would probably attend that day but he adamantly promised that someone would contact me and sort out the blockage by 12 noon the next day (Friday).
Guess what.. by Friday afternoon no one had contacted me or arrived to sort out the problem. I phoned again to be told that they would prioritise this job (in fact they were now calling it an "old" job and couldn't understand why it hadn't been sorted yet, not a good thing for a company who was failing to do anything to be telling you) and that someone would call me back by 12 noon on Saturday. 
By now the problem was getting worse. The sewer had backed up so much that it was sucking (as water drained through the blockage it was syphoning the water out) the water out of the downstairs toilet letting fowl smelling air into the house, the open drain (linked to the sewer) is close to overflowing threatening to flood out gravel patio and garden with raw sewage and on top of this we were advised by Thames water on Wednesday that we should stop using our washing machine or the downstairs toilet. Unfortunately my partner has a medical condition which means having to walk upstairs to go to the loo multiple times a day is beginning to affect her condition, plus this doesn't stop the 10 houses upstream from carrying on as normal and constantly adding to the problem (Thames Water has refused to inform them of the issue and advise them to be careful).
So here we are on day 6 with no resolution in sight. I have phoned them at 1pm (after being promised they would attend this (Saturday) morning) only to be told that the engineers where not answering their call.
So my question. Given this saga am I within my rights to call out someone like Dynorod and them send the bill the Thames Water as they seem unable to actually meet their promises and sort this issue out. If I do this how likely am I to get my money back that this will cost to resolve ?

Thank you.

ps. I have to say that throughout the staff at Thames Water have been polite and very apologetic (i get the feeling their hands are tied and they re as frustrated with the contractors/engineers as me) but this still doesn't help resolve the issue.

TadleyBaggie

I'd be very surprised if Dynarod etc. agreed to touch this for liability reasons, if they damaged the infrastructure they could be on the hook for a large repair bill.

I had exactly the same issue, the main sewer blocked downstream every 18 months or so and Thames Water poked it for years before finally they finally fixed it.

Dragonflly

Thank you.

Dynarod did it many years ago (the first time) as Thames Water refused to accept it was a shared sewer. I got Dynarod in and their engineer asked why they weren't doing it as it was a shared sewer. Dynarod then kindly gave me a letter stating that it was a shared sewer which I them sent to Thames Water with their bill. Eventually they refunded the money but did also write me a rather strongly worded letter asking why I hadn't contacted them first. I did reply, also strongly worded, telling them I had but they refused to accept liability.

Trouble is, this time Thames Water know it's their problem.

I just want to stop raw sewage from flooding our patio and garden, which it has done before, because after 6 days of backing up it's getting dangerously close to the top of the open drain.

JJ_Egan

Shared and downstream  does this not come under your insurance policy .

Grumpy_chap

Forget past annoyance and keep it simple.  However angry you are, calling and bleating about failed response is a distraction and muddles the message.

Phone Thames Water 0800 316 980 and report blocked main sewer overflowing risking environmental pollution and external plus internal property flooding.

They will send Lanes for Drains to pump it out.

Ask what the KPI is to respond.  I think it is 2 hours based on the key words.
I had to do this on NY Day, and they met the KPI response time, though getting them to answer the phone was very slow (about an hour).

Grumpy_chap

Out of interest, does the blocked drain impact any one else?  If you can get your neighbours to call in as well, it will escalate the priority.  They all need to alert the same concerns - pollution, internal and external flooding.  At 4 and 8 independent notifications, is a trigger point to raise the response level and decrease the KPI time.