A BUILDER who spent nine years creating his ideal home has been forced to use deckchairs for a week after flash flooding.

Richard Bewers, 37, watched rain water and sewage pour into his home during last week’s deluge, which caused more than £5,000 worth of damage to his house in Oak Road, Tiptree.

A week later, he is still suffering.

It was the early hours of the morning when Mr Bewers first noticed something was wrong.

He said: “I woke up at 3am and saw the water coming off the roads and I was getting quite worried.

“By 6am, it was all backing up into the garden, there was sewage everywhere and it absolutely stank and then it came into the house.

“We can still live here, but we are literally sitting on deckchairs.

“I have done a lot of work, but everything has been damaged - all the sofas, floors, fridge freezer, washing machine.

“What makes it worse is there was lots of sentimental things which got damaged as well.”

Mr Bewers said part of the reason why water had seeped in during last week’s downpour was because there is not a raised kerb outside his home and nearby ditches, which used to collect excessive rain water, had been filled in.

“We have been asking highways for two years because after some road repairs, the kerb was flush with the road.

“They just refuse to do it.

“Water has come into the garden before, but never to the extent it did last week. This is the first time it had got in the house.

“It has been seven years of work down the pan, £5,500 worth of damage and now I’m back to square one.

“I just want it to be known what we have been up against. I have spent so much time working on the property and putting money into it, it is disheartening when something like this happens and it is out of our control.”

Mr Bewers said his next door neighbours home had also been damaged and the occupants have had to be moved into temporary accommodation because they were in a council house and had not been allowed to return.

During the downpour, dozens of roads across Colchester were underwater leaving motorists stranded and several homes were flooded on the Hythe for the second time in less than a month.

An Essex County Council spokesman said: “We are sorry to hear about this incident.

“Last week’s torrential rain led to flooding incidents across the region, but we have no evidence to suggest a raised kerb would have prevented this.”