My toilet EXPLODED with poo & sewage flooded my home leaving me in a ‘coma' in hospital – I'm lucky to be alive
Amoin Brou, 59, says the harrowing ordeal saw her entire home covered in faeces, and she was hospitalised with a serious chest infection and pneumonia caused by the filthy living conditions.
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The catastrophic plumbing disaster earlier this summer led to Amoin's toilet and bathtub flooding with sewage and human waste - which she says continued for four days.
She awoke at her home in North Woolwich, London, on May 18 to find the initial flooding, and despite the efforts of emergency council workers to quell the water, all her possessions were destroyed.
The next day she says she fainted and was rushed to hospital, where she was put on a drip in intensive care.
Amoin and her two-year-old daughter Niatomie were moved to the Manor Park Hotel by Newham Council as temporary accommodation while the ongoing issue was tackled.
On briefly returning to the property to collect her clothes, she discovered the sewage was still finding its way in and everything was ruined.
She says she has had problems with the flat for years, having reported damp as far back as 2010 and two years ago even saw steam rising from the floorboards.
The desperate mum told The Sun: "Any human being cannot live like this. This is a sick person with a two-year-old daughter.
" They dried the sewage and they dried the flat. The firefighters said this lady cannot stay in this flat.
"So they put me in a hotel for two days then sent me back, they couldn't pay for the hotel for me anymore.
"The water flooded my flat for four days, water past my knee."
I scrub my council house walls but they're COVERED in mould & crumbling away - I have two disabled kids, it's disgusting
Amoin added: "It made me sick, I was in hospital. There was a stink coming out of the floor, the floor was wet everywhere."
She and her daughter are now back in the same hotel again.
She claims that the property was left in a filthy and humid condition following the toilet flood, saying: "The house has a high level of humidity, damp and mould."
She added: "I got pneumonia and was in the hospital in a coma."
During the flood, Amoin had to take desperate measures to protect herself and her daughter from the unhygienic conditions in the flat.
She can be seen in footage wandering around her ruined flat with plastic bags on her feet to protect them from the sewage.
Disgusting video and pictures show the floor of the property covered in toilet water as Amoin desperately tries to block the doorway of the bathroom with clothes to prevent the flood from spreading.
Amoin said: "In the building, people's s*** was coming to me, I put my daughter on my back and stood in the hall."
She eventually called the fire brigade, not knowing what to do, and they contacted the council for her.
Amoin said that sandbags were placed in her flat to protect her neighbours from the wave of sewage that was spreading from her bathroom throughout the property.
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The floor of her home was left sodden with water and sewage as the mum struggled to control the flow of water from her damaged toilet.
She was hospitalised twice, once in April and once in May, which she claims is a result of the damp conditions in her flat.
The pair currently live in a hotel room while she waits for her flat to be returned to a liveable condition.
Amoin said she had problems with the plumbing in the property for years, especially around the toilet and the bath.
A Newham Council spokesperson said: 'Within an hour of Ms Brou contacting Newham Council's out-of-hours emergency line about her blocked toilet, we had a plumber on the way to her.
"On inspection it was found that a blocked drain outside the housing association property was causing sewage to back up.
'A specialist contractor was called who carried out remedial work. This was checked two days later and discovered further work was needed, at which point Ms Brou was rehoused in a local hotel.
"The following week a housing officer visited the property and more work was done to clear the drain.
'While we understand and sympathise with the tenant, blocked drains are a common problem.
"Council tenants are advised to take out household contents insurance to provide protection in the event of damage to personal property.
'The property was cleaned twice by contractors who have video footage of their work on both occasions.'
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