Still living by an open sewer!

Couldn’t sleep this morning, so got up and went out to look.  The drain is still overflowing and sewage is still running out.  It has been 11 days since the problem started and 7 days since Amey/Severn Trent first visited the house.

Yesterday Lauren from the escalation team promised to phone me first thing to let me know what progress had been made. No call by 9am so I phoned Severn Trent AGAIN!  I asked to be put through to Lauren and was told that she wasn’t working today.  However, they promised a call back from another member of the team and 10 minutes later I had Peter on the phone, who explained that Lauren had been moved over to another job temporarily.

Peter checked with Amey.  This time they came out overnight and then discovered that they couldn’t raise the manhole cover!  Can you believe it?  They claimed that they didn’t have the right tools!!!!!  What kind of boss sends men out on a job without the right tools? Why didn’t someone go back to base and GET the right tools?

John contacted our insurance company yesterday and is now starting the official complaints procedure.  We are both dumbfounded by the complete and utter chaos we have encountered on this job:

  • There has been a total lack of customer service. Just a daily reassuring phone call with explanations would have helped, but this was NOT FORTHCOMING. We have had to phone them every day to find out why the problem was still on-going.
  • The procedure for contacting Severn Trent leaves a lot to be desired.  You are put on hold and forced to listen to very irritating, tension building music while you wait for someone to answer.  When they do answer you get platitudes and false sounding apologies, but no positive action.
  • The sewage sub-contractor, Amey, seems even more incompetent. Wrong tools for the job, no sense of urgency, no customer information on progress,  excuses, suspension of jobs because of the end of a shift, the list goes on!

This is, by far, the worst service we have had from any company since we returned to the UK in 2005.  I’m totally sickened and disgusted.

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