‘There’s faeces everywhere’: Carol’s home regularly floods with sewage. It’s a sign of a ‘neglected’ public housing system

Carol Edwards says her home has been flooded – sometimes with her neighbours’ sewage, sometimes with grey water when they run their dishwasher or washing machine. Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian

Earlier this month, Carol Edwards woke to find the entire downstairs floor of her inner-Sydney terrace house covered in human excrement.

Faeces, urine, and balls of toilet paper from her neighbours’ homes had bubbled up from a drain in her laundry cupboard and spilled across the floor of her kitchen, past her dining table, through to the lounge – almost to the front door of her Alexandria home.