Constant sewage flooding - building uninhabitable?

jwelly

Hello,

We have a serious, recurring situation within our building.

The basement of our 5-year old building floods with sewage water and waste, including human waste, several times a year.

This causes us great distress as you can imagine, not to mention the following impacts:

• The huge health hazard of walking through sewage and human excrement
• We cannot access our vehicles which we need for work
• We cannot access the bin shed to take rubbish out
• The indescribably bad smell
• The damp this causes and the impact on the building's structural integrity, and the fact that on a previous occasion, some of the walls rotted which needed fixing.
  
• Some apartments are actually on the the basement floor (not ours)

Every time this happens the HA do send someone to clean it up and unblock the drains, but they simply blame it on residents and our waste disposal behaviours like cooking oil. Nevertheless, the most recent incident was likely caused by rain which fell shortly before the flooding. UK = rain so this building absolutely should have been designed with this in mind.

Anyway, we have decided that we want out. This is absolutely no way for us to live and we are appalled with the way that the housing association has failed to address this issue with a long term solution, and instead disregarded it with the excuse of "cooking oil build-up" and £50 compensation...

We believe that we have grounds to put forward the idea that our building and its design, including its plumbing, is not fit for purpose for a residential property with over 100 units. In a perfect world we would insist that the HA buys back our share of the property to free us (we have shared ownership), but obviously there is a lot to be done before we can even get close to this outcome.

Does anyone have any experience of this or any advice for how we can engage with the HA and anyone else to investigate whether this building is fit for purpose?

Thank you.

Grumpy_chap

jwelly said:

Hello,

We have a serious, recurring situation within our building.

The basement of our 5-year old building floods with sewage water and waste, including human waste, several times a year.

This causes us great distress as you can imagine, not to mention the following impacts:

• The huge health hazard of walking through sewage and human excrement
• We cannot access our vehicles which we need for work
• We cannot access the bin shed to take rubbish out
• The indescribably bad smell
• The damp this causes and the impact on the building's structural integrity, and the fact that on a previous occasion, some of the walls rotted which needed fixing.
  
• Some apartments are actually on the the basement floor (not ours)

Every time this happens the HA do send someone to clean it up and unblock the drains, but they simply blame it on residents and our waste disposal behaviours like cooking oil. Nevertheless, the most recent incident was likely caused by rain which fell shortly before the flooding. UK = rain so this building absolutely should have been designed with this in mind.

Anyway, we have decided that we want out. This is absolutely no way for us to live and we are appalled with the way that the housing association has failed to address this issue with a long term solution, and instead disregarded it with the excuse of "cooking oil build-up" and £50 compensation...

We believe that we have grounds to put forward the idea that our building and its design, including its plumbing, is not fit for purpose for a residential property with over 100 units. In a perfect world we would insist that the HA buys back our share of the property to free us (we have shared ownership), but obviously there is a lot to be done before we can even get close to this outcome.

Does anyone have any experience of this or any advice for how we can engage with the HA and anyone else to investigate whether this building is fit for purpose?

Thank you.

It may be worth trying to understand yourself where the drainage routes are and whether there is a pumping station in the system that then lifts the waste water into the public sewer.
It is possible (but not guaranteed) that the drainage is the responsibility of the local statutory sewerage undertaker (water authority / company).  

At the same time, try to understand where the rain water drainage goes to or should go to.  It is not usual for modern buildings to be granted consent to connect surface (including roof) drainage to the foul sewer network.

This should not need to be your job to do, the HA / Management Company should manage the utilities in proper fashion.  However, it may be that you can identify and actual cause that is easily resolved (in a DIY fashion).  Even if not, it helps to be able to understand the complexity of a solution.  You may get a far better reception from the HA / Management Company if they see that the residents understand the system rather than simply saying that it is their problem to resolve.

As this is such a new build, the plans should be available on line and include drainage strategy and details.

jwelly

Thanks for your response.

However, it may be that you can identify and actual cause that is easily resolved (in a DIY fashion)

I don't understand this sentence. Could you please clarify?

You may get a far better reception from the HA / Management Company if they see that the residents understand the system rather than simply saying that it is their problem to resolve.

Are you suggesting that if I somehow am able to access and decipher a drainage plan..  I can potentially determine whether there is a flaw somewhere at bring this to the HA?

In any case, is this not the HA's problem to resolve even if it means they have to engage with the local water authority / sewage company, whether I am able to find these plans or not?

Grumpy_chap

jwelly said:

Thanks for your response.

However, it may be that you can identify and actual cause that is easily resolved (in a DIY fashion)

I don't understand this sentence. Could you please clarify?

You may get a far better reception from the HA / Management Company if they see that the residents understand the system rather than simply saying that it is their problem to resolve.

Are you suggesting that if I somehow am able to access and decipher a drainage plan..  I can potentially determine whether there is a flaw somewhere at bring this to the HA?

In any case, is this not the HA's problem to resolve even if it means they have to engage with the local water authority / sewage company, whether I am able to find these plans or not?

I was trying to say that there may be a simple solution if you, as residents, do some basic investigation to understand the system.

It is, ultimately, the HA / Management Company that are responsible, assuming the drainage has not been adopted by the local water authority.

If you don't wish to spend time investigating the drainage and who owns it, you could lodge a complaint with the local water authority that the sewer is flooding and coming out to an internal location so causing you inconvenience, unable to access car or bin shed.  (I assume internal as the car park in inside the basement of the building.)
The local water company will do one of the following:

• know they don't own the system and tell you so and then do nothing more
• know they do own the system so respond to investigate and resolve
• not know whether they own the system or not, so respond to investigate and resolve the first time and then possibly advise you it's nothing to do with them in the future.

That call to the local water authority has to be done when there is actually an overflow situation.
Even if the water authority do not own the system, if the issue is really caused by surface water (including roof) drainage overwhelming the sewer network, as statutory sewer undertaker, the water authority do have powers to compel the HA / Management Company to rectify the issue.  That would be more powerful than residents raising the issue, but may result in a charge back to individual flat owners depending upon how the maintenance costs for the block are met.

ThorOdinson

Do you have legal cover on your home insurance?

gwynlas

Write or visit your local MP as their complaints are more effective with HAs.
Involve the local press

jwelly

Thank you all for your comments so far.

For now I have raised this issue with the environmental health team of our council.

I will escalate this to our MP if I don't get much movement from that team.