A woman says a noisy Thames Water generator located just yards from her back door is ruining her life.
Fed up Rachel Freeston, 55, claims she has to endure a "constant" racket and fumes from the machine at the bottom of her garden in Lambourn, Berkshire.
She says the pollution means she "may as well smoke 50 cigarettes a day" - while the "droning" sounds mean she only gets a few hours sleep each night.
Thames Water claim that the "filter unit" is "vital" for protecting the river Lambourn from untreated sewage - but say they are looking at "what more can be done to minimise the impact on neighbours".
But Mrs Freeston, who lives with her husband Stephen, 60, and their 14-year-old son, is desperate for it to be moved - saying it has become "unbearable".
Fed up Rachel Freeston, 55, claims she has to endure a "constant" racket and fumes from the machine at the bottom of her garden in Lambourn, Berkshire.
She says the pollution means she "may as well smoke 50 cigarettes a day" - while the "droning" sounds mean she only gets a few hours sleep each night.
Thames Water claim that the "filter unit" is "vital" for protecting the river Lambourn from untreated sewage - but say they are looking at "what more can be done to minimise the impact on neighbours".
But Mrs Freeston, who lives with her husband Stephen, 60, and their 14-year-old son, is desperate for it to be moved - saying it has become "unbearable".
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FunTranscript
00:00I'm Rachel, I've been living here for 25 years.
00:08Now behind the back of your garden you've got sewage pumps. When did they first get installed?
00:15They've been here on and off for over 10 years.
00:19What do they do?
00:20Essentially because the groundwater gets too high and it floods into the sewers and the sewers bubble over into the street, which isn't ideal.
00:31So they try and reduce the groundwater level by using diesel pumps to pump the groundwater to try and resolve it.
00:40And obviously it's diesel generators and pumps. How has it been for you living with them? Is it noisy? Is there a fuse?
00:49It is relentless. It's noisy constantly. I can't open my bedroom windows. I haven't been able to use my garden. It's the first time in I don't know how long.
01:00Ah, there you go. Good idea. And the smoke drifted out and into the gardens and the houses.
01:07The fumes are disgusting. It's diesel and it just literally pumps out black smoke and it just wafts into the garden.
01:17And it comes into the house so you can't open a door, you can't open a window. It's horrible.
01:25They have been saying there's a five year plan and they have been doing some work.
01:30And they've done some work lining the sewers, I know, in Upper Lambourne.
01:37But when this does get turned off and in the last 16 months, this has been here for 12 of them.
01:46Well, the problem is here. We don't see any Thames water coming and doing anything.
01:52It's like now the groundwater is low enough. So for the last week, they've actually turned it off, which is wonderful.
02:00So where are Thames water? They keep saying they need the groundwater to be low enough for them to do work.
02:06But there's no one here.
02:09And when they are running, are they running 24-7?
02:14Yeah, it affects everybody, you know, even sort of neighbours a bit further around in the place here.
02:19They can feel it vibrating because our house is built on pylons and you can feel it vibrating.
02:26I feel like I've been quite understanding over the last 10 years because I know this isn't a quick fix.
02:33But there's apparently a five year plan. Well, it's been here for 10 now, on and off.
02:38And they've got to actually do something to sort it out. It can't carry on like this.
02:44This is becoming a permanent fixture. And I can't live like this.