In need of a plumbers advice

[lostmumsarah989]

May seem like a really silly question but I haven't got a clue to what it could be and I really am useless with DIY things. So...
I have two bathrooms in my house my main at the back of the house and an en-suite at the front which has in it a shower, sink and toilet. My overflow pipe at the front of the house is leaking and has been for roughly a year now, I'm in a private rented house and have contacted the landlord numerous times (he's doing nothing). I haven't used the toilet in there for at least a year now so hasn't been flushed so the water in the cistern is pretty much non existent. I know the constant leaking on to the side of house must be doing some sort of damage to the property as the ground is always soaking wet. Anyway my question is why is it still leaking if there is no water going into the cistern? Where can it be coming from? And how do I stop it as my water bill is getting ridiculous now?
Any help is really appreciated

Show us a picture!
If there isn't any water in you loo cistern, then its not that I'm afraid. It is almost certainly a stuck ball cock (the float on a long metal arm in a water tank) which isn't telling the water to shut off when the tank is full. It may well be the feed and expansion cistern from your boiler. Where is your boiler and what does it look like? If it's a combi boiler (so small and doesn't have a big hot water tank) then you won't have a feed and expansion cistern. In that case, it could well be your cold water tank in the loft, but again you may not have one. Stick your head up in your loft and have a look. If you find a tank anywhere, try lifting up the float to check it can move freely. Or take pictures and come back!

Have you opened the cistern to check its empty or are you assuming it's empty because it's all dripped out?
If it's the latter - the cistern doesn't need to be flushed to fill back up. It will top up whenever there is a drop in water level. If it's only a small amount each time you probably won't even notice so basically it's like running a constantly dripping tap which means that it's constantly leaking out the overflow. It may be that you have a problem with the ball value or inlet valve.

Thank you for your help, having checked everything and realising that there was water in the cistern it was constantly running so the water was going straight out the over flow pipe outside, no wonder my water bills were so high. I told you I'm no good with all that stuff. Google helped a lot especially when I broke the ball joint and had to turn all the water off, with a good long search on the net I managed to find out there was a valve that shut off just the water to the toilet and will now need to replace the whole valve and arm. Hoping to do this myself as the video online shows how easy it looks to do, fingers crossed for me then lol!!
Thank you though