Wallerfield HDC tenant endures raw sewage in yard since 2008

A ruptured sewage line has been running in her yard in Demerara Heights, Wallerfield, since 2008, says Nicole De Silva – and she's been complaining to the authorities about it since then, to no avail.

De Silva, who lives with her daughter, occupies a Housing Development Corporation (HDC) unit. The house is at the end of the street and the leaking sewage line is at at the side of the house.

She said waste, including faecal matter and toilet paper, coming from the toilets of all of her neighbours along the street overflows into her yard from the line.

“It has become a ritual now. Every year I go and make a report, sometimes twice for the year,” said the frustrated De Silva. She said she has reported it to both the HDC and the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA).

“WASA will tell me it’s HDC, and when I go to the HDC, they will tell me it's WASA. It has been like this since 2008,” she said.

And while each state agency passes the buck to the other, De Silva said she is the one in the middle suffering from a messy situation.

Nevertheless, she said, "I am not blaming anybody, because I don’t know who is responsible.

"What I do know is that I am not supposed to be running to them all the time. Since I have been living here, I’ve probably (gone) to them (both WASA and the HDC) about 19 times.”

She said on a bad day, the smell from the leaking line is overpowering and fills her home, especially the bathroom. Even her next-door neighbour shares her stress.

De Silva said last Friday, an HDC representative spent a few hours on the property to examine the pipe.

She was told the HDC would have to contact WASA to have the situation rectified.

De Silva said the manager from the waste water department of the north-east division of WASA contacted her the following day.

“He said he remembered coming (to the house) seven years ago to unclog the line.”

But, she said, the WASA manager told her that if the problem is still occurring after all these years, it is no longer WASA's responsibility.

"And so it has been going for years and years. If every year you have to unclog the line, that means there is a bigger underlying problem, not so?”

De Silva said she was then told someone from WASA would come on Tuesday to unclog the line again, but this time at the HDC’s request.

“I think the HDC needs to check over the plumbing structure of their housing units here,” De Silva said.

When Newsday contacted WASA for comment, an official said the system in that area was not under WASA's control, and it is the HDC which has to deal with the matter.

The HDC's corporate communications department, in a statement to Newsday, said to clear the blockage, specific equipment is required.

“The HDC doesn’t possess this type of equipment so a request for assistance was made to WASA. We hope that this assistance will be provided in the shortest possible time so that the home-owner can receive relief,” the HDC statement said.