Day 5 of living with a large pool of raw sewage simmering in front of my apartment door. (TX)

Location: Houston, TX.

We just moved to an apartment about 6 weeks ago. On Saturday (for the second time since we’ve been here) a drain in the concrete sidewalk that leads to my front door flooded and now there’s big pool of raw sewage. I’m talking 2”-3” turds floating in and around it, I have to hold my breath when I go out to my car! It wasn’t as bad the first time, but it looks like they just cleaned it up and put gravel down. This time it’s really bad. Also, the downstairs toilet stopped working, we have no pressure in some faucets, and our shower doesn’t drain well. They said it would get fixed by today but they haven’t come.

I think that at the very least we should not have to pay (prorated) on the days the sewage was present. My bf thinks we should just ignore this, just let them fix the problems on their own pace. His fear is they will kick us out if we don’t pay the full amount next month. That would make us breaking our lease technically. I have that fear too but this seems too serious to ignore. Why should we have to pay rent when we’re forced to live next to a biohazard?? Rent is expensive anyway, now I have to contend with human feces?!?

I know people are going to say get tf out of that apartment. The thing is, we looked SO LONG to find it to have the right requirements and distances to work and doctors. The place is old but nice and very quiet, it’s in a good neighborhood. We do not want to move again!

Since they told us they were going to fix it we haven’t called the city. Should I call anyway? I don’t know wtf to do with this. Raw sewage is dangerous even to breathe around, as it gets warmer out I can smell it from inside the apartment too. Haven’t talked to anyone else in this small complex, I don’t know anyone and have barely seen my neighbors. What should I do?! I should get something out of this! I wish I could post pictures of it but I guess you can use your imagination .