The Mirarmar bathroom soon after the sewage incident.\u00a0<\/span>Photo:\u00a0Supplied<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n “I feel disgusting, because the house stinks of poop. It’s given me a bit of a headache.”<\/p>\n Ed said that he immediately rang his neighbour, Jiten, and heard that the same thing had happened to him.<\/p>\n They then encountered the Wellington Water contractors on their street and saw that several other residents had been out to speak with them as well.<\/p>\n Jiten felt that he was being partially blamed for what happened.\u00a0<\/span>Photo:\u00a0RNZ \/ Mark Papalii<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Jiten said their attempts to contact authorities were frustrating.<\/p>\n “We had to chase them a lot of times, at 11am they said they would be there (to clean) in an hour, and at last they turned up at 6pm in the evening” Jiten said.<\/p>\n Jiten said he felt as though the staff he dealt with were partially blaming him for what happened. Ed said he felt a similar way.<\/p>\n “They said ‘you should have had your lid down, and it wouldn’t have happened if you’d kept it down,’ Ed said.<\/p>\n “I said that the force came through so much that even if the seat was down, it would’ve been just as bad anyway. They didn’t believe me.”<\/p>\n Some MIramar residents have had to deal with sewage explosions.\u00a0<\/span>Photo:\u00a0RNZ \/ Mark Papalii<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Meanwhile, a few doors down, Lee had experienced the second toilet incident of the week, after an earlier one on Monday.<\/p>\n She said she had come home for her lunch break when the smell of faeces hit her.<\/p>\n “When I came to the hallway and I looked to the toilet, I saw the floor completely wet right to the doorway.”<\/p>\n “I can only describe it almost like a whiff of shit. I spent my lunch break with gloves and anti-bacterial spray.”<\/p>\n Lee left for work, after cleaning up the mess herself, unsure and nervous.<\/p>\n “There was no warning, so I’m not sure if it is going to happen again.”<\/p>\n Cleaners came in to help clean up the bathroom on Thursday evening.\u00a0<\/span>Photo:\u00a0Supplied<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Wellington Water said they sincerely apologise for the shock, stress and inconvenience.<\/p>\n “Wellington Water was first alerted to an issue through a call from a plumber about a blockage in a wastewater pipe, caused by a build-up of household grease and oil,” they said in a statement.<\/p>\n “To address this, our crews carried out a wastewater flush in Miramar yesterday to clear the full wastewater main. During this work, there was an unexpected ‘blowback’ in the network, which resulted in sewage entering several residents’ bathrooms.”<\/p>\n It also acknowledged that they hadn’t given sufficient notice to residents about the planned works and the potential risks.<\/p>\n “While there is always some level of risk associated with clearing a blocked wastewater main, we accept that our mitigations should have been stronger and communication clearer.”<\/p>\n “Immediately after the incident, Wellington Water arranged for a contractor to clean the four affected properties, with residents’ permission. This work has now been completed, and we have advised residents to contact their insurers for damage-related claims.”<\/p>\n It said its customer experience team prides itself on its service and professionalism.<\/p>\n “We acknowledge the comments made in today’s article, and we will be following up with the residents to discuss our communication style during this incident and where we can make any improvements.”<\/p>\n ~ RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This story contains photos of the sewage-affected bathroom which may upset some readers. Residents in the Wellington suburb of Miramar are disturbed after sewage exploded out of their toilets during plumbing work on their street, with Wellington Water apologising for the “shock, stress, and inconvenience”. Wellington Water said it did not provide sufficient notice to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":16690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16691,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16689\/revisions\/16691"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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Wellington Water apologises<\/h3>\n