Tenant kicks up a stink over sewage stench in council flat

A MAN whose council flat has stunk of sewage for five years says he is at the end of his tether after repeated attempts to get the problem solved.

• Mark Duncan says he has made numerous complaints to the council

Mark Duncan moved into the ground floor flat at Cable Wynd House in Leith in 2005 when his grandmother lived there, and she was already troubled by the smell. Now Mr Duncan, 40, says it is still overwhelming and makes his life a misery.

The supermarket worker said: "When I first moved in my gran stayed here. She had problems with it, and I've had problems ever since then. I've phoned the council and told them and told them.

"I've had about three people have a look in my house and the last plumber was six months ago. He said it was an internal problem, inside the building not the drains in the street, and he reported it, and I've heard nothing since then."

Although the smell comes and goes, he said it was making his life a misery: "It affects me a lot, if you're taking your friends to your house, you open the front door and the smell is hitting you in your face.

"As soon as I go in I've got to open the windows. I'm at the end of my tether.

"If you can imagine passing Seafield on a nice hot summer day, that's what my flat smells like."

He said he was amazed that the problem hadn't been solved, even though the council was putting money into renovations at the block, which is also known as the banana flats because of its curved shape.

He added: "The council are revamping it, they're actually getting everybody new windows, everybody's getting new kitchens and new bathrooms.

"They said that they were going to move me to temporary accommodation, but I said no, I want the problem fixed."

A council spokesman said that since Mr Duncan had made his latest complaint on Friday morning, a housing manager had ordered a team to jet clean the pipes.

He said: "We are in contact with Mr Duncan and have taken urgent measures to tackle the problem. Beyond that we'll continue to monitor the situation."

Leith ward councillor Gordon Munro said: "I fully sympathise with this case."

He added: "I find it difficult to believe that we still can't find out what the problem is here.

"Given the level of complaints I would have thought that a more robust approach would have been taken here to discern what the real problem is.

"I can understand how this can happen, but surely a proper use of resources would be to say: 'We've had x amount of complaints from this flat, we should really get in there and work out what the cause of the problem is'."