Okay so I live in a house that was turned into two apartments so it still has shared water well they bought a portable washer for inside their apartment and not too long after I came down to my basement to do a load of laundry and the neighbor was doing theirs down there and soap suds were coming up the basement floor and then a couple days later the house smelled of pure sewage well now it comes and goes and has for the last 3 yrs we have told the landlord he said he would send someone to smell it but anyway what does it sound like happened?

on the simplest side you have a partially clogged drain and it needs to be cleaned.

the worst case scenario is a broken pipe underground and someone needs to excavate and replace it.

it is also possible that there is a small drywell that some of your drains connect to. that may need attention?

this is an issue for 3 years and still unresolved? If so I would say your landlord is not motivated to resolve it.

Could be a lot of reasons. May be the drain was functioning marginally and once suds is introduced upstream it no longer drain or vent properly due to the suds and the wastewater being discharged at a higher rate with a pump.

Could be a partial blockage.

Could also be the upstairs tenant unknowingly tapped into a vent downstairs to use it as a drain for the washer. You said it is a portable washer, do you know how it was connected to the house's drain system? Or do they roll it out do the wash and discharge into say a sink or tub?



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