Hardworking family’s home is flooded with sewage after street work goes horribly wrong – and you won’t believe the response from council
A young Queensland family is asking their council to take action and help them after workers on a street drain caused their home to flood.
Sumit and Sucheta Kapoor, both hard-working hospital nurses, moved to their Toowoomba home with their two primary school-aged children in 2018.
But in November last year the entire family had to evacuate after the council hired tradesmen to clear a blocked drain during a heavy storm, leaving their home soaked with ‘ankle-deep’ contaminated water.
“My son was just screaming and you could see something, like black water coming out of the doors very slowly,” Ms Kapoor said. A current issue.
Mr and Mrs Kapoor pleaded with Toowoomba Council to help them financially but were told they could not be held liable for the accident.
Sumit and Sucheta Kapoor (pictured) are asking Toowoomba Council to step in and help them after their home was flooded due to council work
They had been away briefly in November 2023 and when they returned they found their floor covered in sewage
The Kapoor family had gone out and returned home to find that sewage had seeped into the bathroom through a shower drain and spread throughout the house.
The couple spoke to crew members working across the street and asked them to come inside their home to look at the damage, but they refused, saying they were not allowed to enter people’s homes.
“I actually begged them, ‘Please come in and see what you’ve done,’” Ms. Kapoor said.
‘Everything is damaged in our room, my son’s room, everything.
“And the smell… within an hour you couldn’t stand it anymore.”
The couple said the tradies told them it was not unusual for drainage work to cause problems, but when a council supervisor turned up later that day to inspect the damage, he was shocked.
“We went in and the man, the counselor, just shook his head,” Sumit said.
“He said, ‘Oh, this is really upsetting,’ and … he apologized for what happened.”
He entered another manhole on their property and cleared the drain, but the damage to their home had already been done.
The dirty water had seeped up through a shower drain and covered the floor of the entire property
Many of their belongings have been destroyed and they have had to find temporary shelter. They moved five times in four months.
They said the frequent moves had been costly and had caused them to use up all their annual leave with all the packing and unpacking.
Fortunately, the family had insurance, so the construction work to strip the floor and rebuild it was covered, although the family had to pay a large deductible.
They said Toowoomba Council had provided funding for a few nights’ stay in a hotel, but have since refused to provide them with any financial support.
‘We are under a lot of pressure financially… We are struggling with everything.’ said Mrs. Kapoor.
They recently wrote to the council asking for help, but they said the council responded by brushing off the situation.
The Council said in its response that the events leading to the flooding were unpredictable and that they could not be held liable.
The council told ACA that ‘as the matter is yet to be finalised, it would be inappropriate to comment’.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Toowoomba Council for comment.