{"id":389427,"date":"2026-04-09T07:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T07:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/389427\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T07:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T07:26:09","slug":"tenant-describes-nightmare-of-neighbours-sewage-flowing-in-to-her-home-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/389427\/","title":{"rendered":"Tenant describes \u2018nightmare\u2019 of neighbour\u2019s sewage flowing in to her home \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A special needs assistant living in a Dublin City Council<\/a> flat complex has described a \u201cnightmare\u201d she is experiencing with sewage coming up through her toilet and into her home. <\/p>\n

Lynsey McGrath (42), who lives on the ground floor of Mercer House in Dublin 2<\/a>, says the issue first arose four years ago and is now occurring every six to eight weeks. <\/p>\n

McGrath lives in the three-bedroom flat with her husband, who works as a plumber, and their four children aged 15, 13, 10 and three. <\/p>\n

She says the problem appears to be caused by a blocked stack pipe, located on the external wall of the flat complex, which carries wastewater out to the underground sewer system. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it\u2019s blocked, every time someone flushes in the flats above me, the toilet overflows in my house. You\u2019re talking poo, tissue and everything else,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy husband has to break the cap off the pipe outside to let it out, because otherwise it\u2019s coming up through our toilet and into our house. You\u2019d rather have it outside than inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

McGrath says she notifies the council each time it happens, and council workers then flush the pipes and put the cap back on. The issue has occurred about eight times since January 2025, she says, with the latest incident last February. \u201cThere is obviously a problem,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n

\"LynseyLynsey McGrath, who lives in the Mercer House flat complex in Dublin, is experiencing mould and sewage leaking from an exterior drain pipe. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni <\/p>\n

\u201cDifferent people come out and they say: \u2018We need to get the camera down the pipe to look,\u2019 but that never happens. They never actually send someone out to do it. They just flush the pipe and basically wait for it to happen again. The problem is not actually getting fixed,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

When the toilet floods again, she says, she has to ask her neighbours not to flush their toilets. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t be asking people not to flush their toilet. Then I can\u2019t use the toilet and I have to go into the neighbours, which is mental.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Irish public \u2018emotionally checking out\u2019 after succession of crisesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

McGrath, who has lived in the flat since she was seven and pays \u20ac110 rent per week to the council, says it is also \u201criddled\u201d with damp and mould. She was diagnosed with asthma aged 33, and says her condition is \u201creally bad at the moment\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere was always a problem with rising dampness for as far as I can remember,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve had the place painted twice since Christmas and you can see the black comes back almost automatically.\u201d <\/p>\n

She says kitchen cupboard items such as salt and stock cubes are often damp.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy little one has a material bed and the mould set into the back of her bed. It\u2019s a nightmare. My little fella put his coat in the wardrobe when they broke up for the Christmas break and when he took it back out when they were going back to school it was full of mould. He couldn\u2019t wear it.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"TheThe Mercer House flat complex in Dublin. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni <\/p>\n

McGrath always maintained she would \u201cnever\u201d move out of the complex but, because of the sewage and mould problems, she says \u201cwe would at this stage\u201d. They are on the council\u2019s transfer list.<\/p>\n

Mercer House, built in the 1930s and designed by renowned city architect Herbert Simms, is a protected structure. <\/p>\n

Dublin City Council said it continues to liaise with Uisce \u00c9ireann on \u201can issue with the sewer lines in the public road\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A special needs assistant living in a Dublin City Council flat complex has described a \u201cnightmare\u201d she is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[615,13288,4507,3662,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-389427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-dublin","tag-dublin-city-council","tag-dublin-2","tag-housing-crisis","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}