We are undertaking some house construction work. Because of it the entire year was on standby for us since the builders were not committing on a date. Finally it started on the last week of October.
There was much glee in our family when they put the scaffoldings up and started work. We noticed the day's progress with the curiosity of kids. I went to pick the girls up from school in the evening wondering how they would respond to the changes. We parked near our house and I saw some muddy water coming down our driveway. I though the builders had cleaned something with cement and left the water on. We carefully came in and then once we were near the back yard of our house, we saw the manhole was bursting open. We immediately called the builders. They said it was nothing to do with the work they had done during the day but anyways came to inspect.
We learnt a lot about the way the sewerage system works that day! It so happens that all the toilets across the street join up and flush down through common pipes. Our house happens to be on the top of a hill. There seemed to be some sort of blockage which was causing the water to hold up. And somehow it had chosen our manhole to burst open. So all the fecal matter that was pent up on the drainage was bursting out from the manhole in our backyard. Also any time anyone flushed, the drains were being impacted and and there was an outburst of poo and everything people were flushing. It was going through like rivers around the house and flowing onto the street forming poo ponds where ever it could find the crevices.
The stench was horrible especially once we realised that it was poo. We needed to call the central company that deals with such issues. We were constantly on their customer service. Our case was registered but we were informed that it could take upto 3 days for it to get sorted. K and I were quite nervous about the whole scenario. We initially refrained from using the toilets etc. But then we were advised that it would be OK. We somehow manage to go through the river of poo and drop the kids at school the next day. We had a lot of options thank God like going to my sisters house or taking a room in a hotel. But we decided it would be OK to just live it out.
K and I wore some water proof boots and plastic bags in our hands and approached the manhole. Since the lid of the manhole was being pushed open everytime anyone was flushing the sewerage was coming out every single time. We decided to brave it, make it to the middle of the pool of poo, close the lid and put something heavy on it. First we had to clean the area the best we could so that we could put our four feet. The sludge of shit was dangerous to stand on. After that we dragged the lid and closed the manhole. Last year in one of the storms a portion of our wall had broken. We had kept all the heavy slabs from the broken wall. We dragged 2 of them and put it on top of the lid of the manhole. That prevented any further flushes from pushing the lid open.
The next day was a super rainy one and we did not have much hope of the issue getting sorted. We rang up customer service again to highlight the severity of the issue. Thankfully we had some people come over around 9:28. I know the exact precise time because that is how keenly I was following the events 😅 They had the expression on the face of shit having actually hit the fan. They started investigating from the house next to ours. There were people staring at what was happening. It was a proper scene! Then they came to our back yard and started their clean up..gawd the stench. They then went over to the manholes in the street and cleaned up and found a big mass of clog. People had been flushing wet wipes down the toilets which had caused such a massacre.
K was supremely humbled the entire experience. He went and got boxes of biscuits for all of them. We had to get some new hose pipes and the weekend there was a round of super deep cleaning.
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