Health & Environment Real Estate

Tenants Living With Feces in North End Building

Photo of the situation, by fecesbasement

Tenants in a North End building turned to Reddit to complain about feces, and more, backing up in their basement. They love the neighborhood but feel they can’t live in the situation anymore. Fecesbasement posts:

As soon as we moved in (June 1st) it flooded with feces and other industrial chemicals (aka everything that people in the building were flushing down their toilets) We contacted our landlord who had a repairman shovel up and vacuum the refuse in the basement and set up a fan to run full time inside.

Since then we barricaded the door with duct tape and several items of furniture and life was fine until the past week our showers and toilet began to drain extremely slowly culminating today with the return of the familiar feces smell. We contacted the landlord again who sent the repairman who explained to us that there’s nothing he can do to fix it and it will happen as long as people in the building continue to “flush napkins down their toilets.”

We’re currently awaiting the guy with the vacuum to arrive tomorrow to try to reset the situation but we’ve still got 11 months left on the lease and we don’t think we can survive living under these conditions. 2/3 of us are complaining of headaches and since I’ve been working from home I’ve been sick and lethargic.

The tenants asked about their options, of which most commenters advised contacting Inspectional Services. Read more at Reddit, including this video of cleaning up.

H/T to Adam Balsam for the tip.

 

8 Replies to “Tenants Living With Feces in North End Building

  1. The same thing happened in my building on North Square. Turned out it wasn’t people recently flushing napkins, it was a longterm problem related to the old pipes in the North End. The problem was finally solved after Public Works got involved, I believe. The landlord was great, he did everything he could. It was the City that finally had to solve a city problem.

  2. I am glad to hear the landlord was cooperative. North Enders are going to experience feces but it will be coming from RATS.

    This is going to be a very cold winter, therefore, I advise everyone to keep your toilet bowl covers down & make sure your building doors are tightly closed.

    Rats are running rampant in the neighborhood & they are not leaving, the selection of restaurants are too great, why would they.

    The size of these rats are similar to those of cats. You know they are being well feed.

    We have to report any trash on our streets & any dog droppings. We may not be able to get rid of all these rats, but there are
    things we can all do to try to make it harder for them to feast off of trash & dog feces. Report any of these problems to the
    City immediately. The fines have to be increased. Hit these misfits in the pocket where it counts.

  3. Might be a drain collapse. I think the way it goes is if it is under the building, it is the owner’s responsibility, if it is under the sidewalk and beyond, it is the City. Owner should first call water and sewer to see whether they can find blockage on their side. If not, you will have to call a drain specialist to run a camera to the trap. Hopefully your drains have a clean out valve. Some of the buildings are so old that they don’t have clean out valves. Then things get a little expensive.

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