Rained at last after several weeks with only a drop or two. Woke up to a sewage smell but thought nothing of it. Should have been suspicious when the loo flush didn’t go down properly.
An hour later the neighbour came round with big wellies on looking a bit upset. Seemed the drains in the street had blocked and raw sewage was covering her neighbours drive.
Is it the local council or the county council who look after street drains. Yes and no. United Utilities need to investigate but depending on the problem it might be the county council. Discovered UU have a novel way of spending your money by putting a long message about there being no hosepipe ban before you speak to anyone.
At 10am we logged our call with UU and were told it would be 3-4 hours for an engineer to assess it with a warning that as it’s a joint street drain / sewage drain it would be a council job to clear it.
Rang the council to see if it could be speeded but was told it needed logging with UU and they usually turn up within 4hrs.
9pm no-one has turned up even though at 3pm we were told it he’d be here in an hour. Smell is still about and the drains round our house and in the street are still full. Also I hadn’t noticed but our back garden has a lot of white stuff that seems to be also on the front of the neighbours.
There’s still raw sewage at the neighbours. Can’t say I’m impressed by United Utilities how much sXXt in the garden does it take to get attention.
UPDATE 10.30PM. Call from United Utilities saying they’ve been delayed but can come round. Told them if they do they can see from the road that the grid is full. Either now or first thing. So that is impressive from United Utilities, they’re trying to make up even at this hour.
UPDATE DAY AFTER: They turned up at noon the following day and then a tanker with a very large hose arrived around 5pm and worked for a few hours. Fixed it, although it gurgled badly that night when it rained. Staff very courteous.