Sochi residents complained about the flooded sewage basement in the apartment building.

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For about ten years, the basement of the apartment building on Lesnaya Street in Sochi has been flooded with sewage. Residents fear that the wastewater is undermining the foundation, complain about violations of sanitary and epidemiological standards, the lack of a safe place to hide in case of an air attack, and the bureaucratic responses from officials and responsible persons.

In the Blinovo microdistrict of the Adler district, residents of the 70-apartment five-story building No. 11 on Lesnaya Street have been living in conditions of sanitary-epidemiological and communal disaster for about ten years.

On August 3, they appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation demanding immediate action due to the threat to the life and health of more than 200 residents. A copy of the appeal is available to the KU. They plan to appeal to the court demanding the return of the money that the management company received for the entire period without providing services for the maintenance of common property.

Since 2022, the problem of unsanitary conditions has been compounded by the inability to hide from drone attacks in their own basement, which is almost waist-deep in waste, residents told a correspondent from "Caucasian Knot".

At the same time, the management company charges residents about 1 million 200 thousand rubles a year for the maintenance of the basement, which is part of the common property. Over the entire time of "service," residents estimate they have paid more than 10 million rubles.

"For many years, only last month did we manage, with the help of the utility workers themselves, to establish the cause and those responsible for this mess and document it," said resident Irina Pavlova.

According to her, it turned out that "due to the destruction of the underground sewage pipeline, untreated fecal waste from the higher nine-story building No. 15 flows directly into the ground, undermining the foundation and flooding the basement of building No. 11, built in 1985."

A year ago, Sochi Mayor Andrey Proshunin reported on his Telegram channel that basement premises in apartment buildings should be designated for sheltering citizens in case of drone attacks. According to his information at that time, "in Sochi, more than 1200 basements in apartment buildings are suitable for protecting people."

City officials informed about the existence of certain lists of "suitable shelters from drone attacks basements," which were handed over to the heads of TOCs and house committees. However, as the correspondent of "Caucasian Knot" found out by calling several TOCs and house committees, including TOC "Blinovo," they had not even heard of such lists.

Residents fear for the safety of the building

"The Blinovo microdistrict appeared 40 years ago. It is located on a complex mountainous terrain in the Adler district. The features of the local landscape require maximum precision in the operation of engineering networks: any soil erosion threatens soil shifts and landslides. However, building No. 11 on Lesnaya Street has found itself at the epicenter of a communal disaster due to the neighbor above - the nine-story building No. 15, whose sewage system has failed critically. And none of the utility workers intended to fix this failure," said a long-time resident of the building Viktor Pavlovich.

For almost ten years, sewage has been flowing from under the foundation of the neighboring house directly across the surface, through the soil and storm drains - and all of this is going into our basement.

"Recently, the situation has crossed all reasonable boundaries: feces flow right under my windows! Mosquitoes and gnats breed in swarms from the basement, the stench rises through the ventilation shafts directly into the apartments. For almost ten years, sewage has been flowing from under the foundation of the neighboring house directly across the surface, through the soil and storm drains - and all of this is going into our basement! As they say, water wears away stone. The sewage is also wearing away the foundation of our house. I know that our problem is not the only one. It is a city-wide issue due to the wear and tear of networks that are 40 to 100 years old, depending on the microdistrict and its construction," shared the problems with the correspondent of "Caucasian Knot" 30-year-old resident of the house Elena V.

Anatoly S moved into this house 20 years ago, and since then, he says, he has noticed dangerous changes in the soil structure around the foundation. "There is a broken pipe underground, from which the wastewater from the 15th house should flow out. It stands higher than our 11th. As a result, all the sewage flows not through the main line, but into the ground. Cavities have already formed under the house - a void has formed under the broken pipe, and it is visually evident how the soil has subsided around the foundation. Part of the wastewater goes through the storm drain along the street, and what goes into the ground is a real spring with a characteristic smell that hits our basement," he told the correspondent of "Caucasian Knot".

Sergiy pointed out the danger of the situation. "Our basement is listed as a simple shelter in case of emergencies and air threats. But it is impossible to enter there - there is a stinking puddle of sewage, and there is no air to breathe. In case of real danger, the residents of our five-story building simply have nowhere to hide. At the same time, for all our appeals, the administration sends standard replies stating that they will respond in a month or forwards them to someone, where it all dies out," he informed the correspondent of "Caucasian Knot".

They are busy shuffling papers while our house rots beneath our feet.

Disabled Grigory Ivanovich lives on the first floor of the house "like in a cesspool." "The stench in the apartment is incredible. Especially in summer when it is hot. We have been writing to all instances for 10 years! We have documents from six years ago stating that our internal house pipes are clean and intact, and the water utility, the administration officials, and the management company are not to blame. They are busy shuffling papers while our house rots beneath our feet," he lamented in a conversation with the correspondent of "Caucasian Knot".

Officials identified the cause of the flooding but refused to eliminate it

Utility workers have been trying for years to blame the problem on the residents themselves, Irina told the correspondent of "Caucasian Knot". "They tried to respond with all sorts of excuses over the years! They insisted on some "clogs," saying that the residents were to blame for throwing something into the toilets. But when on July 9 we literally forced the management company "Doverie" and the water utility to come with equipment, all their excuses collapsed," she noted.

Irina managed, according to her, to "pull" officials from the city administration, representatives of the water utility, and employees of the management company to the scene. "To identify hidden damage to the utility mains, a video endoscope was used. This is a system for television inspection or endoscopy. It is a specialized flexible probe with a high-resolution video camera and LED lighting. The cable is pushed inside the pipeline and transmits the internal state of the network to the operator's monitor in real time, allowing for precise identification of cracks, subsidence, and blockages," she explained.

The inspectors were very reluctant for us to film the whole story on our cameras on July 9, proving the true cause and those responsible, the water utility and the city administration.

According to Irina, the inspection by the water utility conducted on July 9 completely refuted the version of clogs. "In two places, the pipe is simply destroyed! It physically does not exist! By launching the probe from the collector, the specialists managed to reach a certain distance where the path was blocked. When launching the probe from the side of the house - they similarly encountered destruction. The inspectors were very reluctant for us to film the whole story on our cameras on July 9, proving the true cause and those responsible, the water utility and the city administration! And after a while, we received more idiotic responses from the water utility, the city administration, and the management company, as if everything had supposedly been "eliminated" on July 7. And we went on another round of complaints, as only a complete replacement of the destroyed underground sewage collector can eliminate "everything," she added.

Residents of the house presented the correspondent of "Caucasian Knot" with a mass of replies made by officials in response to their complaints. In the last act of the control inspection of the municipal unitary enterprise "Vodokanal" dated July 9, it is clearly recorded that fecal waters flow not through pipes, but through the soil. "During the inspection of the territory at the address: Lesnaya St., 15, a leak was detected on the terrain. The sewage pipe with a diameter of 100 mm (metal), exiting from the basement of house 15, has damage behind the wall of the house (in the area of the foundation) in two places. The effluents flow along the terrain towards house 11," the act states.

Rospotrebnadzor for the Krasnodar Territory reported on July 23 that based on the results of the field inspection, the supervisory authority officially confirmed the discharge of household wastewater onto the terrain. Rospotrebnadzor sent an official demand to the municipal unitary enterprise of Sochi "Vodokanal" to take immediate measures to eliminate the emergency situation.

In its response, the management company emphasizes that "the internal engineering networks of wastewater disposal of house No. 11 are in a sealed and working condition, have no ruptures, and the flooding of the basement occurs due to the destruction of external wastewater networks, which are outside the management company's service area."

Problems with engineering networks were recorded back in 2020 when similar facts of flooding the basement of house No. 11 with sewage were recorded, although residents claim that the problem has existed for 10 years, and the utility workers simply refused to document it. Throughout all these years, bureaucratic structures limited themselves to temporary "flushes" and replies, taking no measures for major repairs or, in this case, replacing the destroyed main line with a new one.

We decided not to write complaints at the local level anymore and appealed today to the Prosecutor General's Office.

The Prosecutor's Office of the Adler District of Sochi, instead of issuing representations and initiating cases of administrative offenses, redirected the collective appeal of the residents of the house to the head of the Sochi administration, A. Proshunin. "We decided not to write complaints at the local level anymore and appealed today to the Prosecutor General's Office," said Elena V.

The problem of flooded basements is characteristic of Sochi

The correspondent of "Caucasian Knot" interviewed residents of these houses, and they admitted that since then, virtually nothing has changed.

"Wastewater, just like 10 years ago, continues to flow under the foundations of the houses and destroy our apartments, flooding the basement, although we regularly pay for the maintenance of common property. I know that such situations are widespread in apartment buildings built in the 1960s-1980s. In the scale of the city, this amounts to billions of rubles for virtually unprovided utility services," said a resident of one of these apartment buildings in Matsesta Elena Elshina.

Lawyer Valery Sokolov told the correspondent of "Caucasian Knot" how residents should act in such situations.

In fact, this is their direct competence and duty.

According to him, the situation with house 11 on Lesnaya Street is typical for Sochi because management companies only formally undertake to maintain common property, while municipal services are supposed to repair the networks leading to the houses with the money consumers pay in the tariff. But in reality, everyone is inactive, and instead of replacing the 100 percent destroyed communications, they pretend that there is no need for it. "In fact, this is their direct competence and duty," assures the lawyer.

He referred to the Resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 491. "The boundary of responsibility of the management company is the outer wall of the apartment building. Since the internal networks of house No. 11 and house No. 15 (inside the basements) are intact, the destroyed inter-yard section belongs to the external engineering communications of wastewater disposal. According to Articles 8 and 12 of Federal Law No. 416-FZ "On Water Supply and Wastewater Disposal," the body responsible for organizing wastewater disposal in the territory of the municipal formation is the administration of the city district of the resort city of Sochi (represented by the Department of Urban Economy). The direct executor is the guaranteeing organization in the field of wastewater disposal, which in the city is the municipal unitary enterprise of Sochi "Vodokanal." Frequent references by the water utility to the fact that the networks of subscribers are allegedly "private" or "subscriber" are legally untenable: if the network does not have a registered private owner ensuring its maintenance, the local self-government body is obliged to register it as ownerless and transfer it to the guaranteeing organization for maintenance. Years of failure to eliminate emergencies carry a landslide threat. Sochi is in a region with high landslide risks. The constant discharge of tons of fecal water under the foundation and into the ground leads to the leaching of soft rocks and the formation of karst voids. This creates a direct threat to the deformation of the foundation and the collapse of the load-bearing structures of the nine-story (No. 15) and five-story (No. 11) residential buildings," explained the lawyer.

He considers a "epidemiological catastrophe possible with such negligent attitude towards the maintenance of apartment buildings and the networks that ensure their functioning." According to the lawyer, who has previously faced similar problems, "systematic flooding of basements with fecal wastewater grossly violates SanPiN 2.1.3684-21." "This creates an ideal focus for the spread of intestinal infections, dysentery, hepatitis A, as well as the reproduction of mosquitoes, fleas, and rats - carriers of dangerous diseases," added the lawyer.

Flooding of shelters with sewage deprives citizens of their constitutional right to life protection in emergency situations.

Sokolov also stated about the violation of civil defense legislation. "In accordance with Federal Law No. 28-FZ "On Civil Defense" and the requirements of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia, premises designated as shelters must be maintained in a state of constant readiness. Flooding of shelters with sewage deprives citizens of their constitutional right to life protection in emergency situations," he noted.

The lawyer also pointed out that "financial losses and the distribution of leaks from the destroyed infrastructure are not recorded by individual metering devices; resource losses in such volumes either fall on the tariff burden of all consumers in the city or are written off by the municipal unitary enterprise "Vodokanal" as technological losses, forming budget losses."

He proposes a legal action algorithm for residents in the form of filing a collective lawsuit in court in such situations with fecal waters in the basements against the administration of Sochi and the municipal unitary enterprise "Vodokanal" demanding to recognize the inaction of the administration of Sochi and the municipal unitary enterprise "Vodokanal" as illegal; to oblige the defendants to replace and carry out major repairs of the destroyed section of sewage pipes; to oblige to carry out sanitary and epidemiological treatment, disinfection, and drying of the basements; to oblige to conduct a specialized examination of the soil and foundation of the houses for the presence of voids.

Due to the redirection of citizens' appeals from district prosecutors to the violators themselves, it is necessary to file complaints with higher prosecutors and the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation demanding to conduct an investigation into the signs of crimes provided for by Article 293 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (negligence) against officials of the administration and utility services who allowed years of infrastructure destruction and Article 236 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (violation of sanitary and epidemiological rules).

He also recommends informing the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations for the Krasnodar Territory about the situation in the basements of Sochi and sending official statements to the Ministry of Emergency Situations about bringing the civil defense shelter in the basements of apartment buildings in Sochi into a usable condition. He advises carefully studying the receipts from management companies, where there is relevant information about the payment for the maintenance and servicing of basement premises, and demanding from the management company either a recalculation and refund for unprovided services or a complete repair of the basement for the amount received over the years.

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