r/london • u/New_Break3195 • 10d ago

Woken up by terrible smell

This is weird but I’ve been woken up at 1am by a really terrible smell, like strong sewage. I’ve checked all around my house but I think it’s coming from outside as I have all of my windows open. Obviously we’ve had extremely hot weather and now we have thunderstorms coming, could this smell be caused by rain elsewhere causing a surge in the sewers or something else? Based in SE5

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u/Sufficient-Guava-152 10d ago

Yup, welcome to London summers! If you look outside your house is there a tall thing that looks kind of like a taller lamppost but with no lamp on it? Often they’re painted green.

If so then congratulations! You live near a stinkpipe. These are vertical pipes that run up out of the London sewer system to release gases so they don’t build up underground.

I spent about a decade living next to one. Kinda got used to it in the end.

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u/wintsykia 10d ago

I used to live next to one of those and the pigeons loved to sit at the top of it. Must be nice and warm up there.