Shared Sewer

[Ineedsleeprightnow]

We live in a row of 6 very old terraced houses in a rural location, been here 20 years. We are the end house and the drains all connect through the back gardens. I’m the last houses so all the drains run through mine to the main sewer.

Yesterday my immediate newish neighbour knocked and said his drain was blocked, he’d had a word with neighbours further up the row and had told him l was the problem house! I inspected my drain and all l have going into the drain is downstairs sink and washing machine, bathroom at the front of the house so different stench pipe. My drain is running clear into the main sewer, however the pipe running from the remaining 5 houses appears blocked with cloudy sediment, to be clear my drain doesn’t run into this, it’s runs to the right into the main sewer. Clearly what’s happened is that over time neighbours waste (many gave downstairs toilets and dishwashers etc running into drain) have blocked the drain along the row and won’t go past mine so is backing up.

Neighbour is expecting me to clear the blockage, AIBU to say that it’s everyone’s responsibility, not mine alone.

Let him come and look for himself and see it’s clear at yours, therefore he and the other neighbours have the blockage somewhere and they can sort it

Generally, a person is responsible for the part inside their boundary. Thus, if the blockage is within your boundary, ultimately you would be responsible unfortunately. That said, I agree with the previous poster, show your neighbour that you drains are not blocked, and suggest they call dynorod as the blockage clearly hasn't been caused by you.

Then let him fight out the cost with everyone upstream.

Good luck.

Do you mean your sink runs into the blockage, or nothing from your house? If isn't clear. The 5 or 6 houses linked to that drain need to pay for a drain clearing service.

I think you might find the water company are responsible. My drain connects to my neighbour and then hers to the main sewer drain. It does back up on the way to hers. The water company always deal with it.

If your drain is clear and the blockage is further up the line, then it's not your problem as far as I'm aware.
On my property, I have a drain that is shared with my immediate neighbour, but the manhole is on my property.
I had to have a rather awkward conversation with my neighbour because she has twice blocked it up now with sanitary towels.
It got blocked again a couple of months ago, due to her flushing them down her loo. I took the manhole cover off and it was absolutely rammed to the cover with shit and towels, which took me ages to shift.
It's on my property so therefore it's my responsibility, despite it not being me causing the blockage.
I told her that the next time I had to dig it out, to expect every shovel full of shit to be going over her fence!

To add, I realised it was blocked again when I emptied my bath and it caused a tsunami of shit to explode in my downstairs toilet, hence I well and truly lost the plot with her.

Not unless the pipe is only used by you. We have a pipe that runs up our drive but is fed by 4 houses, it is NOT our responsibility when it blocks.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/water/water-supply/sewerage/who-is-responsible-for-repairing-drains-and-sewers/ "You are responsible for repairing or maintaining any drains inside the boundaries of your property - these are your private drains. You don't have to maintain or repair lateral drains that you share with your neighbour - your water company is responsible for these"

Sounds to me like the water company might be responsible here..... but if not I would say you only contribute if anything of yours actually drains into this blocked drain (not clear from your post).

That's good to know.

If it's a shared drain it's the responsibility of the water company. I've just had Yorkshire water out to sort ours as it had backed up and exploded onto our garden.
They unblocked it and disinfected the area.

Thanks… to clarify my drain is clear, the pipe that flows from the other 5 houses that flows through my manhole appears to be blocked therefore it’s backing up causing my immediate neighbour an issue. My house flows into a different exit within the same manhole if that makes sense. The manhole cover is in my garden so technically the blockage is within our boundaries, however a quick google suggest since we all share the sewer is is deemed a private shared sewer? I’ll let neighbours have a look at mine later today when we’re back home and take it from there.

I lived in a 1930s built house with sewers like that in London. Every time the drains blocked like that we just called out Thames Water for free.

Check due to the age of the houses whether your water company is responsible for the shared drains.

We have the same. We uses to have tonshare the cost amongst the neighbours bit then the law changed and now the water company comes out and clears any blockages when they happen.

PissedOffNeighbour22, Rosesbloomingnow and myself are all saying the same thing.

Check before having a needless argument with your neighbours.

My sewers are like that - the water company deals with it, it's a shared sewer so their responsibility.

It doesn’t affect you as the blockage is in a part of the system that your waste does not flow in to. It is not your responsibility to fix. The other owners should contact the water company and get them to fix it. Your neighbour is cheeky, and doesn’t have a clue about responsibility in this situation.

Yes the law was changed and now shared drains are responsibility of the water company.

Out old house was the same OP. There was a row of 6 terraces which the actual sewer cover was on our driveway with a hill either side of our house. Three times during lockdown we had human waste flying out of the cover and creating a poonami. It was dank. However even though it was on our property within our boundary as it was shared Thames Water came out within the hour and unblocked it. We would always get a hint something was going to happen as things stopped draining properly. The engineer on every occasion found insane amounts of sanitary products being flushed causing the issue.

Call your water company first. Ours clears shared drains free of charge

Shared drains are water company's responsibility in my area.

The water company will have copies of the public sewer maps. I used to work for a water company.

It used to be the case that the water company was only responsible for the main sewer under the street, with the only exception being that shared sewers on private land for properties built pre October 1937 also being water company responsibility (under section 24 of the water industry act).
However water companies have taken responsibility for all shared sewers irrespective of the age of the property in recent years.

I live in an almost identical situation, and the water company have to sort it.

The magic words are "shared drains" and "sewage backing up" have always got them out quite quickly.

The magic words "don't put wet wipes down the loo" don't seem to get through to the people at the number 6 house, who never actually suffer because numbers 1 to 4 get all the shit first.

Our waste pipes service 3 houses: my adjoining neighbour and my detached neighbour. Mine is the middle house, and the pipe joins the main sewer outside detached neighbour's house.

When adjoining neighbour's daughter was a baby, they put nappies down the lav and (oddly) loads of kitchen roll. It all backed up in neighbour's drive, and I came home one day to find her trying to clear the drain with a shovel.
She was understandably livid with them, and tried to get them to pay towards having it cleared, but never got anywhere.

They didn't speak for years, but are friendly again now.

@Ineedsleeprightnow definitely go with the water company or council, they bill each house a share. I made the mistake of calling dyno-rod and ended up pay8ng the whole bill.

Every time ours have backed up and the water company has been called it has been wipes in the drains. It is usually me that calls as we are the ones that notice first, as we are near the end of the line and our downstairs loo is so close to the drain, when it backs up the water stops draining from out downstairs loo. The end house is not covered by the water company as their bit of the drain is for their house alone, so we as the second house in, make the call.

In August 2005, in the middle of a heatwave (pre the water company taking on the shared drains) I came home to the neighbours all unblocking a stinking poonami caused by nappes, and was mortified in case they thought it was us (I had 2 in nappies at the time). Some nutter was flushing nappies down the toilet. We were glad to have arrived home after the horrible job was completed - there were adults puking from the smell etc.