An Edinburgh man has told how his bathroom was flooded with sewage after telecoms engineers mistakenly cut a pipe outside his house. John Morgan, 51, said his bathroom floor was covered in the rancid wastewater and was forced to clean up the mess after it poured out of his shower plughole.
Around three months ago John noticed part of his street outside his home in Craiglockhart, Edinburgh, had been dug up. An engineer from CityFibre later told him fibre optic cables were being fitted outside on the street.
At first John didn't noticed a problem but about two weeks ago his downstairs toilet began to overflow with excrement, urine and used toilet roll. He called a plumber who told him the sewage pipe outside his house had be cut.
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Dad-of-three John said: "CityFibre who were installing the cables had cut the sewage pipe clean through. "For three months the sewage had been backing up.
"Then about two weeks ago the sewage starting coming out of the shower plughole and the toilet was blocked and overflowing. When you flushed the toilet upstairs s*** and used toilet paper was coming out of the shower plughole, it was disgusting.
"It was pouring out of the shower, the bath and the toilet onto the floor. The bathroom floor was swimming in sewage."
IT contractor John reported the cut pipe to Scottish Water on June 12 and said it was finally fixed on Tuesday (June 28). John, who rents out part of his property through Airbnb, has had to inform guests they couldn't use the bathroom.
He added: "I was worried it was going to overflow into the street so I called Scottish Water and said it was an emergency. It finally got fixed yesterday (Tue) but it had been going on for two weeks.
"It was awful, I had to clean it all up. They [CityFibre] have carte blanche to turn up on people's streets and start digging, but they're disrupting people's lives. They don't seem to be bothered about the neighbourhood."
Paul Wakefield, Edinburgh Area Manager for CityFibre, said: "Following works on Full Fibre deployment in the Firrhill area, we received report of damage to a sewage pipe. Scottish Water is working to investigate the cause of the issue and is making repairs.
"We have been working closely with Scottish Water and have been engaging with the resident through the City of Edinburgh Council."
A Scottish Water spokesperson said: "We attended and investigated the burst pipe on June 12, the day it was reported to us. Unfortunately, due to some issues with locating the where the issue was and the need for additional equipment to carry out the repair, it took longer than expected to plan the work. We apologise for any inconvenience and for the time it has taken to start this work."
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