‘Her whole bedroom is full of sewage’: 65-year-old woman and son endure sewage floods for more than a year

By Jacob Phillips, Local Democracy Reporter 

A 65-year-old mum and her son have been forced to sleep in the living room of their home as they’ve been flooded by leaking sewage for more than a year.

Tola Anozie and his mother claim they have had sewage bursting through the drains in their bathroom every couple of months.

The family, who live on the Central Hill Estate in Crystal Palace, have had to put up with a horrible brown liquid spewing out of the toilet and bath for hours at a time.

Tola said: “It’s gone through to my mum’s room. My mum is having to sleep in the living room. Her whole bedroom is full of sewage. We have had to lift [all her belongings] up.

“I have literally got every window open in my house. It just smells of sewage. It will flow again and again. It took [Lambeth council] three days to come out. It ruins the carpets. We’ve had to get everything cleaned and have had to throw clothes away.”

Video footage from a recent leak shows Tola’s mother’s room coated in brown sludge, while water can be heard flowing quickly in the nearby bathroom.

Photographs taken at the time show a bath full of sewage water that has come up through the plug hole, and you can see where Tola has had to put blankets down to try and stop the water from flowing into more areas of the family home.

The first incident occurred a year ago and, according to Tola, every time a neighbour takes a bath or shower there is a risk of sewage water spilling into his home.

Each time the dirty water spills out Tola has to rush over with old rags to try and stop it from spreading.

He added: “It flows through the day on and off. The carpet is full of sewage. I’m working from home and the whole time I can smell it. I have to keep trying to stop it as much as I can.”

A Lambeth council spokesman said: “We have been working to repair this issue for some time, but it is a complex problem in an area of the estate that has experienced a number of blockages in recent months.

“The work has unfortunately taken more time than we had hoped. We apologise for this problem and the distress it has caused to this family in the meantime.

“Contractors have visited the site a number of times this week to clear drains, including a blocked drain at the side of the property. They are today unblocking the drain and restoring the full flow to this property, using high pressure water jetting.”

Pictured top: Tola Anozie has had sewage leaking into his home for the past year (Picture: Tola Anozie)