A Market Drayton woman has expressed disgust at a north Shropshire housing association after a four-day wait to clear sewage from outside her home.
Michelle Knight returned home from shopping on Christmas Eve to find “raw sewage” running from a neighbour’s blocked drain.
Mrs Knight, of Dalelands West, said she reported the problem to Meres and Mosses Housing Association (MMHA) at least three times between December 24 and 27.
Contractors eventually arrived on December 28 to clear up the sewage and MMHA have apologised to Mrs Knight for the delay.
Mrs Knight said: “I went shopping on Christmas Eve, came back in the evening and noticed that the drain in our next door neighbour’s driveway was leaking down the road.
“I reported it to MMHA’s out-of-hours service and the person I spoke to said they would get someone to look at it. On Boxing Day, I noticed a bit more sewage in the road, reported the leak again and was told that something would be done about it.
“But nobody came out and I rang them again on December 27 to say the problem hadn’t been resolved and there was a great big river of sewage outside my house.”
MMHA, a member of Shropshire Housing Group, took over responsibility for housing previously maintained by the former North Shropshire District Council in July 2008.
Mrs Knight said contractors eventually traced the blockage to empty pop bottles found in the drain but added that the problem should have been resolved sooner.
She said: “Usually they are pretty good at coming out and I thought it was absolutely disgusting that it took so long to clear up the problem.
“There was raw sewage floating around outside our house, with cars going past and splashing it onto our front door.”
Paul Sutton, executive director for assets and development at Shropshire Housing Group, said: “We have apologised personally to Mrs Knight for the fact that our contractor was unable to attend to the drain blockage until December 28 2010.
“The initial delay in responding appears to have arisen due to a breakdown in communication at our end.
“An error meant that the urgent call-out request from our out-of-hours service was mistakenly left with an operative who was not on duty and therefore not checking for messages.
“We have reminded our out-of-hours call service how critical communication is so as to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
By Winston Brown