A mum living in New Cross has been left for more than 10 days with other people’s poo overflowing from her toilet onto her bathroom floor.

Lewisham Homes, who are responsible for the building the flat is in, originally refused to send a clean-up team to the home at Fenton House in Achilles Street following the communal pipe blockage.

A spokesperson has since apologised and admitted that their “service fell short” on this occasion and that the mum was “incorrectly advised that the clean-up was her responsibility”.

The woman who lives in the flat, who would like to remain anonymous, first reported the problem to the repairs team at Lewisham Homes on Friday, October 21.

She was told by the repair team that she must call out her own plumber as she is a lease hold tenant of the ground floor flat – and claims that this emergency call out cost her £150.

When the plumber attended, they told her that they were unable to fix the issue because the problem was not located within her property, but instead somewhere communal.

The blocked pipe was repaired, but the mum was not contacted by Lewisham Homes when this happened.

The woman explained: “I asked Lewisham Homes when someone had attended to fix the problem because I noticed the toilet was no longer blocked.

“However, since that Friday my toilet has been backing up with everybody’s waste that lives above me, their faeces, everything, is all over my bathroom.

“It’s not my waste, it is not my kid’s waste, it is every tenant that lives above me – I’m not qualified to clean such mess.

“The bathroom is a biohazard - human waste carries so many diseases and germs.

“Lewisham Homes just told me that they do not have that information – so they could not tell me when the external pipe was unblocked.”

Lewisham Homes initially refused to send a biohazard clean up team to the house, which the woman claims would have cost her more than £1,000 if she had to pay for it out of her own pocket.

However, on October 31 the organisation said that they were “arranging for a full bio-clean and sanitization of the bathroom to be carried out” - ten days after the problem was first reported.

The woman added: “They told me it was my responsibility because I’m a leasehold tenant and that I needed to take it up with my insurance but are of the blockage was not on my premises, it was on theirs.

“I told them that I'm going to need to know when exactly it was fixed for my insurance purposes because if I do get my own cleaning team then is this problem is still going to continue afterwards if they could not confirm when it was fixed?

“I don’t think I should face the financial burden for this clean up to be honest, I reported it within good time and they didn’t do anything about it.

“I'm suffering even though I'm paying my mortgage and I'm paying my service charge for the building and they are causing me financial distress to tell me to pay more money that I don't have because they have failed to upkeep their buildings.

“If somebody had just attended when I first reported the issue on Friday, it would not have got to the state or to the stage that I would have even needed a clean-up team - but they refused and told me to sort it myself.

“It has caused me a lot of stress emotionally and financially as my son and I are still unable to return home since October 21.

“We have been going back and forth from people’s homes, or Sainsbury’s toilets.

“It has made me so stressed and depressed to be honest.”

Glen Martin, Head of Repairs at Lewisham Homes, said: “We would like to apologise to Ms (redacted) for the delays and inconvenience caused while this matter was rectified.

“On this occasion our service fell short, and Ms (redacted) was incorrectly advised that the clean-up was her responsibility.

“As the issue causing the mess in the bathroom was due to a blockage in a communal pipe, the repair work and clean-up was the responsibility of Lewisham Homes.

“We have contacted Ms (redacted) to arrange for a full bio-clean and sanitization of the bathroom to be carried out.”

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