Seaforth woman furious after sewage spills through backyard

A  Seaforth resident is battling sewage in her backyard after concrete mysteriously blocked-in a nearby underground sewer pipe.

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A Seaforth resident is battling sewage in her backyard after concrete mysteriously blocked-in a nearby underground sewer pipe.

Louise Gallet claims the chaos unfolded after support beams for a noise wall being constructed along the Burnt Bridge deviation were dropped five foot into the ground outside her back fence.

“We started having the toilet not flushing properly and then they put the cement in and then everyone’s sewage started pouring into my yard,” she said.

“When I got up on the Tuesday morning, I had a lake of toilet paper floating in the back garden and in my laundry,” she said.

“The stench is bad enough but the risk of disease was also a concern.”

While Ms Gallet claims the issue has been caused by the beams put in the ground to support the noise wall, a Roads and Maritime Services spokesman said the works were not responsible for a sewage overflow.

The sewage that filled Ms Gallet’s backyard.

“A noise wall being built on Hope Street in Seaforth, as part of a $4.38 million project under the Noise Abatement Program to separate residents from road traffic noise is unrelated to the sewage issue,” he said.

The spokesman also said before work started, areas of the road were resurfaced to ensure there was no conflict with the sewer main or property connections.

Ms Gallet said strong industrial cement was used and workers were struggling to drill through it to unblock the main.

She said: “They think they may have to go around with another pipe again and they don’t even know how far up the cement runs yet.”

Sydney Water, who are now attempting to fix the problem, have confirmed there is concrete in the pipe.

“We can confirm that there is concrete inside the sewage pipes and we are working to clear the concrete away as quickly and unobtrusively as we can,” said a spokesman.

“We are also investigating how the concrete entered the pipes.”

The spokesman said a crew attended the home last Friday, the same day they received the report of a sewer blockage at Ms Gallet’s home. “We have now put a bypass in place so sewage from the blocked pipe will no longer flow on to the resident’s backyard.”

Unable to use her toilet since last Tuesday, Ms Gallet said she was over it.

The Sydney Water spokesman said they would continue to work with Ms Gallet to fix the issue.