MEMPHIS, Tenn. — An East Memphis mother says she’s living in a home that smells like a zoo.
The problem that was created by a nasty sewage leak is affecting more than just her life.
Latricka Garth says her children sprint to the front door to keep from taking a whiff of the smell.
“They run to the front door and they say, ‘Hurry up. Open the door,” Garth said.
It stinks because everything that goes down comes right back up in her front yard.
“It runs all they way down the street if it doesn’t get unclogged sometimes. It sits in the yard with tissue and everything else that flushes,” she said.
She says there’s a big difference between her yard and all the yards around her, because she can’t find anyone willing to mow around the sewage.
Garth has only been calling Lucerne Avenue home for a month, but now she’s learning the plumbing issues may not be new.
“I don’t know that he knew if there were plumbing issues before he rented the house out. The city says they came and unclogged sewage Feb. 4, but I didn’t know about the house until the 14th,” Garth said.
The city used to unclog the sewage for her.
They did it six times before they told her to have the landlord fix it.
“This is not how I live, so I would rather it be fixed or he needs to give me my money back. No one should be living like this,” she said.
WREG reached out to the landlord J.D. who sent a plumber over and seemed to be on the ball after code enforcement found violations Wednesday.