'Poo' dumped on Auckland house

Karen Bass of Flatbush, Auckland discovered this brown sludge splattered around her property. Photo / supplied

An Auckland woman is furious after her flash house was turned into an outhouse by what she believes is flying human waste.

Karen Bass told the Herald on Sunday yesterday that her two-storey Flat Bush home and her silver car were covered in splotches of excrement dumped from a passing plane overnight.

Her home is directly in the flight path for planes flying into Auckland International Airport.

"The first thing when I walked out of my door this morning and I saw it, I thought an airplane s*** on us. You open the door and it smells like s***," she said.

"I'm absolutely disgusted at the moment. The amount of crap everywhere is horrendous."

Bass said she "absolutely" believed that the brown clumps, which also dotted the footpath, was human excrement.

She has collected a sample which she will get independently tested.

"There's no way it's a bird or animal poo, it's horrible. I"m sure it's human, what else could it be with huge clumps like that?" she said.

"It honestly smells like s*** out there. I came back in and my stomach was turning, thinking what it could be."

A spokeswoman from Airways New Zealand told the Herald on Sunday that "it's not something we would know about" and suggested Bass called the airline to complain.

But as it happened overnight, Bass did not know which airline had flown over her home as she slept and her call to complain to Airways NZ was "fobbed off", she said.

A resident who lives in rural Auckland says waste dumping is not uncommon.

The man, who did not want to be named, said planes had dumped waste on his Karaka home at least three times, most recently, a month ago.

He had complained to the Civil Aviation Authority, but had "given up" after years of fighting.

"I fought it hard, we got tests done that proved it was human matter and even at that point the CAA still kicked their heels in, they wouldn't have a bar of it," he said.

"I've given up now, they're too big and powerful to fight."

The man said the CAA put the waste down to migrating ducks, but the first time it happened he had seen the plane fly overhead and it had fallen directly on him, his wife and children.

He added that he had also spent about $20,000 to get a borehole put in to his property after waste continually fell into their water tank.

A spokesman for the CAA last night said they had received no complaints to date. They would only investigate after a file had been lodged with them.

Aviation expert Peter Clarke said that it was "very, very rare" for aircraft to dump effluent.

"All big commercial aircraft contain all waste products, especially from toilets. The only waste product that can possibly leave the aircraft is when they vent away some of the fluids from the galleys, just water," said Clarke.

He added that the foul debris dotting Bass' home could be one of several things, including bird droppings, but admitted that "nothing is impossible".

"The tanks on the aircraft can leak, they've been known to leak but it's a very uncommon occurrence," he said.

"Manufacturers go to great extremes to develop safe systems and operations of aircraft to contain the waste. Planes do not fly around dumping waste."