There’s a bad smell coming from somewhere, but an Irishtown-Summerside man is having no luck getting rid of it.
Tyler Young bought a piece of land on Colson’s Road in 2012 and soon after started smelling sewage around it.
He suspects the smell is coming from his next-door neighbour’s property, and has seen runoff coming from there onto his property. 
Young approached the neighbour about the smell, but was unable to come to a resolution about the issue.
The neighbour is not hooked into the town’s sewage system, even though the infrastructure is present to do so, and Young believes doing so would fix the problem.
In May 2013 he filed a formal written complaint with the town asking that it look into the matter and do whatever was necessary to have the problem corrected.
Young said the town verbally responded that there was nothing it could do.
The town says there is no legislation in place that requires the neighbour to hook into its services. The Department of Municipal Affairs and Environment has confirmed that.
Young went ahead and put a garage on the property last year and in June began construction on his house and started to spend more time at the property.
“I never realized how bad it was,” he said of the smell.
So he talked to the neighbour again, but still could not get any resolution to the problem.
In July he attended a town council meeting, where the neighbour was also present, and after the discussion that took place felt something might be done. But to date nothing has happened.
Young contacted Service NL about the issue in August and one of its environmental health inspectors visited the properties in September. A dye test was performed on the neighbour’s septic system, but there was no evidence of a malfunction.
Now Young is just a few weeks from moving into his house and the smell is still there.
“I’m at my wit’s end,” he said.
“I can’t even open my door it comes in through my house. It’s enough to knock you down.”
Young has invested a lot of money in his property and is wondering if legal action might the only option he has left.
“I’ve got to try to do something, suppose I’ve got to take it to court. I don’t know what else to do.
“I never wanted it to go that far.”
The Western Star attempted to contact Young’s neighbour, but was unsuccessful.
