Family’s £900,000 dream home flooded with raw sewage twice in three years

A couple’s £900,000 home is now ‘worthless’ after it was flooded twice with raw sewage which made their ten-month-old daughter and disabled son ill.

Helen and Ashley Northway’s three-bedroom property in Raunds, Northamptonshire, was overwhelmed with foul water during storms last week – despite £230,000 being spent on flood defences and drain upgrades in the town two years ago.

It was the second time the house, which is located in a natural dip, had been struck by disaster in just over three years.

On Christmas Eve 2020, the Northways had to scramble to save presents and valuables after the ground floor of the 380-year-old stone farmhouse was covered in three feet of waste water from a faulty sewage pipe.

The flood left the family with an enormous clean-up bill.

Recruitment manager Helen, 42, said: ‘Before we bought the house, there had been two floods in 100 years but since we moved in, there have been two in three years.

‘Every time it rains, we know we are at serious risk of being flooded out. It means we cannot leave the house.

‘We have had to cancel holidays, attending funerals, even our honeymoon was cut short so we could come back and pump out water.’

Last week’s floods resulted in more serious consequences, with the couple, their daughter Evelyn, their son Archie and Helen’s 89-year-old grandmother June all becoming ‘very sick’.

Helen said: ‘All five members of my household had to be assessed by an emergency doctor and prescribed antibiotics for chest infections, following exposure to the raw sewage, and thereafter chemicals to treat it.

‘My husband has been coughing up blood.

‘With vulnerable people including my elderly grandmother and young baby being affected with chest infections, I am not willing to allow this to drag on as there is serious risk to health, let alone the property damage.’

Helen and husband Ashley, 43, a veteran army bomb disposal expert with the Royal Engineers, bought the house in 2017 and spent £200,000 it into a family home.

Their work on the property included a fully-equipped annexe for June.

But now their investment has turned into a ‘massive life-long problem’, according to Helen.

She believes the construction of 400 homes at the end of her road has exacerbated the problems, with drains being overwhelmed after developers ‘cut down about 20 huge trees which acted as a natural flood defence’.

She said: ‘During the latest floods, my grandmother was so distressed she was crying and crying and saying “I want to be dead, I want to be dead”.

‘It’s horrific. There’s a threat to human health – mental and physical.

‘We are uninsurable for floods now. The house has been valued at between £850,000 and £900,000 but it’s worthless now.

‘We’ve worked all our lives, my husband has served the country but what are our children going to be left with?’

A North Northamptonshire Council spokesman said: ‘Investigations are ongoing due to the cause of flooding to the property.’

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