A woman who has had sewage pumped out of her garden for 250 days said she was “so surprised” when the CEO of Thames Water turned up at her house to apologise.
The company has been carrying out repair works through a manhole on Melissa’s Stroud’s property in Pamber Heath, Hampshire, since June last year.
She said the meeting came about “through sheer persistence” following many emails and phone calls to the company.
Thames Water has previously said the prolonged operation at the site was “due to the challenging geology of the area and the depth of the sewer”.
Mrs Stroud has had tankers constantly parked outside her house, and is providing 24-hour access to a manhole in her garden.
The smell is so bad she is unable to open the windows of her home and said the odour hangs around the house and inside her car.
“We have up to 16 lorries coming every single day,” she said.
“They’re still there all the time and now they tanker up sometimes to one o’clock in the morning.
“They try really hard not to tank through the night but needless to say it’s disturbing and it wakes us up.”
‘Disruptive’
Mrs Stroud first heard that there may be some kind of meeting at her Oakfield Road property when she received a letter from Thames Water boss Chris Weston.
In it he said he appreciated “how challenging and disruptive the ongoing tankering and repair work has been for you, your family and your neighbours”.
The CEO said while his own diary was “extremely limited”, he would arrange for head of operations Simon Brittain to visit.
It meant Weston’s subsequent appearance alongside Brittain was a surprise to Mrs Stroud.
“I just wasn’t expecting it and it’s been going on so very long,” the homeowner said.
“Obviously, I’ve communicated with the company a lot. I’ve had to do a lot to get me to where I am today.
“I think he was quite surprised at how surprised I looked, and I welcomed him in, made him a cup of coffee with his water that I’ve paid his company for, and we sat down and talked about it and they were very apologetic.”
She added: “It’s a shame that it took 50 to 80 emails.
“But I was fortunate to have that audience and to be able to get my points across and then I emailed him the points raised in the meeting.”
Mrs Stroud said she was told the issue would be resolved in the first week of March.
Thames Water previously predicted it would complete the works in February.
The BBC has contacted the water operator for comment.
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