ONE Mary Tavy resident had an unpleasant start to the New Year when she returned home to find her garden flooded with sewage on Saturday.

Blocked drains on the main A386 caused a back up of sewage from 70 or so properties which all flooded into Lisa Luxton's garden in Station Road. It was two days before the site returned to normal.

Lisa explained: 'It was pretty horrible. There was sewage everywhere and toilet paper and wet wipes all over the garden.

'It was not flooding into the back of the house but it was just like a thick sludge.

South West Water came with a tanker to sort it out on Sunday and they came back on Monday to clear the rest of it.'

Lisa said this had happened three or four times before but it had never been as bad or left for as long: 'We had a lot of rain on Friday night and South West Water said the drain on the main road had become blocked with fat deposits.

'All the sewerage pipes from the 14 properties in Station Road and 60 or so bungalows in Great Felling Field go into the inspection chamber under my garden.

'Apparently when the main road drain gets blocked, everything backs up and floods into my place.'

Lisa said when she arrived home on Saturday morning she was alerted by a neighbour that sewage was running down the road 'like a river' and the manhole cover on Station Road was dislodged.

'Three times someone came out on Saturday and they could not fix it for one reason or another — it was a disaster,' she said.

'Finally a tanker came out on Sunday afternoon and tackled the problem.

'Fortunately it was not the week before when I had the stomach bug because that would have been very unpleasant!'

A spokeswoman for South West Water said the blockage was caused by a large amount of grease in the drain and a tanker was used to suck it out.

'Usually something like this happens around takeaways and restaurants but occasionally it happens in residential areas, especially around this time of year when the Christmas turkeys have been cooked and there is a lot of fat around to dispose of,' she said.

'We would ask people not to put fat and grease down the sink. We will be doing a leaflet drop in the area to educate people.'

The spokeswoman said when a blockage occurred in the network the drain contents would find the easiest way out and unfortunately this was Mrs Luxton's garden.

In April last year South Water Water attended the same location when a brick was obstructing the pipes.

South West Water is urging people to contact it with any problems of blocked drains by calling the 24-hour helpline 0344 346 2020.