Mum's drain 'nightmare' (From Gazette Series)

Mum's drain 'nightmare'

A DURSLEY mother spoken of her nightmare trying to get Severn Trent Water to clear a blocked drain.

Sarah Albiston, of Broadwell Terrace, who has a seven-month-old son, could not use flush her loo or wash nappies for a week in case the situation worsened.

When she reported the problem, she was told somebody would call her back or a contractor would soon be out. But it took a week for the drain to be unblocked.

Miss Albiston said: "It has been a nightmare. The problem was a blocked drain on the Bymacks site. We had work done on our drain last year so we had the same company come and have a look. They said the problem was not in our garden and they couldn't do anything because it was too far away. We phoned the council, who told us to call Severn Trent.

"On the Tuesday I got a phone call and they told me that somebody was going be out that day but they didn't send anybody out. On the Wednesday somebody came to the house to remove the blockage. When I came back home I found they had flooded the patio with sewage. I came into the house, packed my bags and left. It absolutely stank.

"The problem got sorted out in the end but we didn't know about it because we weren't there. My husband came home because he had to go to work and found a note had been pushed through the cat-flap."

Miss Albiston wrote a letter of complaint because she felt so appalled at the level of customer service.

She explained: "I had a woman phone up and say I was going to get an automatic rebate of £25 and I said it wasn't good enough. In the end they said they would send a cheque for £100 as a goodwill gesture.

"They don't understand that it wasn't being out of pocket that was the problem. The problem was that I had spent the entire week waiting for somebody to call me back or for somebody to fix the problem."

Miss Albiston sent a second letter but so far had not had a reply.

Severn Trent spokeswoman Jo Smith said yesterday: "Severn Trent has a procedure to respond to customers' complaints within five working days. We responded to this customer's complaint within that time period. We received another letter, dated September 28, and a response was sent out on Wednesday.

"The flooding that took place happened during a period of bad weather and we were inundated with flooding complaints. Our priority is to deal with internal flooding then external flooding. We met our obligation to clear the blockage."