Distressed housing association tenants living with blights including mould and damp made more than 15,000 complaints about disrepair in less than three years.
The shocking scale of the problem was revealed as people say they are enduring rat infestations and suffered health issues from raw sewage.
And some parents in housing association homes fear for their kids’ health after the tragic case of Awaab Ishak.
A coroner last year concluded the two-year-old died from a respiratory condition caused by mould in his family’s housing association flat in Rochdale, Greater Manchester.
Then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged in 2020 to “give social housing tenants a voice”. It came after his predecessor, Theresa May, said in 2018 that “many people in society – including too many politicians – continue to look down on social housing and, by extension, the people who call it their home”.
But figures this paper obtained using Freedom of Information laws suggest little has changed, showing protests to a watchdog about damp and mould in housing association properties rose four-fold in under three years.
The Housing Ombudsman got 15,179 complaints about housing association repairs between January 2020 and November 2022. Of those, 4,749 were about damp and mould, rising 399% from 475 in 2020 to 2,371 by last November.
All complaints about housing association repairs rose by 119%, from 2,987 in 2020 to 6,539 in the first 11 months of 2022.
Most of them – 1,641 – were made about London & Quadrant Housing Trust, where Tory businessman Sean Anstee, former leader of Trafford council, is a board member.
Lord Barwell, a Tory minister and chief of staff under Theresa May, is a non-executive director of Clarion Housing Group Limited, which got the second-highest amount at 1,043. He was paid £22,488 in 2022 and £18,000 in 2021.
L&Q Group houses more than 250,000 people in 107,00 homes and social rented housing makes up the largest proportion of its properties.
Boss Fiona Fletcher-Smith has a salary of £328,500.
Ms Fletcher-Smith reportedly visited residents who had reported damp and mould problems in their homes recently, and urged them to “report it to us immediately, so that we can help”.
But some L&Q tenants complain they have been waiting up to nine years for problems to be fixed.
The ombudsman found full or partial maladministration in 88 complaints against L&Q it determined during the period out of 232 that entered its remit, and 106 out of 261 for Clarion.
In total, 713 repair complaints were made about The Peabody Trust – which hit headlines after a dead tenant lay undiscovered in her flat in Peckham, South East London, for more than two years.
Some 115 complaints entered the watchdog’s formal remit over the period. Maladministration, or partial maladministration, was found in 30 cases that were determined.
Shadow Levelling Up and Housing Secretary Lisa Nandy said: “It is scandalous that anybody in modern Britain is forced to live in a mouldy or damp home. The scale of the pro bl em that these figures have revealed is shocking. There is a political consensus on the need for action.”
Housing Ombudsman Richard Blakeway said: “Complaint volumes continue to increase following the unprecedented surge last year and continued concerns over the quality of social housing will continue to drive complaints. In the scale of their operations, it is important for landlords not to lose sight of the individual impact of cases.”
And the Social Housing Action Campaign said: “The point is not that things go wrong but that complaints systems are so woefully unequal to the task of addressing the problems.”
Ms Nandy has called for the Social Housing Bill to be strengthened to improve social housing and finally give tenants a voice.
The Government has said it will deliver Awaab’s Law, forcing social landlords to fix damp and mould within strict time limits.
L&Q said it was spending nearly £3billion over 15 years to improve its homes and added that Ms Fletcher Smith’s salary was “best value”. Ms Fletcher-Smith said the trust sought to learn from its mistakes and provide the best service it could.
'Nine years of sewage hell'
Wilson Yellowe has endured “nine years of complete hell” after sewage leaked onto his ground-floor balcony.
The L&Q tenant, 59, said he got a bacterial infection after a pipe from a flat above burst in 2014 and faeces and urine flowed out.
L&Q has carried out repairs and paid compensation totalling £33,250 since 2017 for two claims – but on one occasion did not admit fault.
The firm is arranging more work but former lorry driver Wilson, of West London, said: “I’m furious. The pipe is still hanging off the wall. It’s an absolute disgrace.”
'Stench as rats rot in my walls'
A mother of four has been stuck in a rat-infested house for more than three years.
Joanne Medcraft branded L&Q a “slum landlord” for failing to sort the vermin problem.
The disabled 43-year-old heard rats in the walls as soon as she moved into the home in Romford, East London, in 2019.
She said in 2021, she put down traps and caught 11 rats in two weeks – with some measuring up to 16 inches.
Joanne added: “L&Q sent pest control several times. At the end of the year there was this horrific smell. It was dead rats decaying inside the walls.”
Joanne, who also has trouble with pigeons roosting and dying under her broken solar panels, added: “It’s disgusting and L&Q just couldn’t give a monkey’s.”
She applied to change homes but claims she was kicked off the list after turning down a place that lacked suitable disabled parking.
In an email last September, L&Q told her: “Repairs should have been managed more effectively and completed more swiftly.
'I worry my four-year-old will get ill'
Eakram Serroukh fears black mould in her flat could harm her four-year-old daughter, who was born with a congenital heart defect and has a weakened immune system.
The part-time nanny said: “When I heard about the boy [Awaab Ishak] dying, I was scared. I worry she’s going to get sick.”
Eakram, who is from London and has three other daughters, noticed a wet patch on the ceiling in October 2021. It got so bad mushrooms grew out of the walls.
She said L&Q sent workers out but they have never found the source of the leak. And they left a gaping hole in the wall, which she was forced to cover with paper and duct tape.
Eakram, 39, says she was due to move to a new home before the pandemic as her girl’s health issues made them a “medical priority” but L&Q closed its transfer list, saying tenants should approach their local council.
She emailed L&Q boss Fiona Fletcher Smith in desperation in June last year and an assistant replied, asking her to not contact Ms Fletcher-Smith on her personal address but saying her message had been passed to the complaints team.
Eakram, who hopes to force L&Q to fix the leak and get compensation, said: “As grateful as I am to have a roof over my head, I don’t feel as if I’m living, rather just surviving.”
Of the three L&Q tenants sharing their stories with the Sunday Mirror, she said: “These upsetting cases highlight times where we’ve been too slow to resolve issues satisfactorily. We are sorry we did not provide a good service on these occasions and are working with the residents to put things right.”
Clarion said: “The complaints upheld by the Housing Ombudsman during the almost three-year period represent less than one in 1,000 Clarion properties. We sincerely apologise for any case in which residents have been let down by us.”
A spokesman for Peabody said: “Everyone has the right to live in a safe, comfortable home. We support Government action to make it easier for social housing residents to access the Housing Ombudsman.”
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said: “It’s good to see more tenants using the Housing Ombudsman. Our Social Housing Bill will drive up standards and bolster the regulator’s powers so landlords who fail to provide decent homes have nowhere to hide.”
