Plate-sized mushrooms have been sprouting from the living room wall in Natasha La’Bow’s council flat in Lewisham, south London. She and her son have lived with mould for years but the problem is getting worse. One day last week, she stood in the damp-reeking room and wept. “I have considered putting my kid into care but I just can’t,” she said as tears rolled down her cheeks.
Her six-year-old son has recently been diagnosed with breathing difficulties and prescribed inhalers. He runs around in a superhero costume but she will not let him in the living room without a surgical mask.
The family GP suspected his symptoms were “to do with living with the mould”, La’Bow said, adding: “He is not quite at the stage where he can’t breathe.”
It is a terrifying prospect for any parent living with a child in a mouldy home. Awareness of the serious risks soared after a coroner found mould had caused the death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak in a Rochdale social housing flat. In November, his father urged families in mouldy homes to simply “get out”. But it is not that easy amid a chronic shortage of social housing.
Doctors warn that people who regularly breathe in air that smells of fungus are likely to be inhaling mycotoxins that can lead to ill health.
The problem La’Bow, 45, is experiencing appears to be getting worse nationally. In the 10 months since March, the housing ombudsman for England, Richard Blakeway, made 721 findings related to damp, mould and leaks, more than for the previous 12 months and several times more than in 2020-01.
Last month, Blakeway launched special investigations into Camden council, Hackney council and Hyde Group, one of the country’s biggest social landlords, after casework showed all three were struggling with damp and mould, repairs and complaint handling. In recent months, councils in Stoke, Newham, Barking and Dagenham have been found guilty of severe maladministration over handling mould.
In her home, La’Bow insists on wearing a mask “because I have been hospitalised twice with pneumonia – in March and May last year”. One bout led to sepsis, a potentially fatal illness. She said she had fungal skin conditions and problems with her sinuses that may also be related to the mould.
The floppy brown fungus is possibly Peziza domiciliana, or domicile cup fungus, which is known to live on very damp wood and plaster but also in caves. Workers have hacked out La Bow’s specimens and the plaster they grow from but despite repeated complaints to the council landlord mould continues to spread.
“When the contractor came to do it he said it was absolutely disgusting,” she said. “They have mould-washed it lots of times. They have come to plaster it but they can’t because it’s too soggy.”
The first-floor home in a converted Victorian terrace house is one of more than 1,800 managed for the council by a private consortium that includes Rydon, the main contractor on the disastrous Grenfell Tower refurbishment.
The consortium was contracted under a 20-year private finance initiative deal in 2007. The management company, Regenter B3, made a £1.8m post-tax profit in 2022, according to the latest accounts. Last year, the housing ombudsman “found severe maladministration by the landlord in handling a resident’s damp and mould complaint”, council papers show.
Lewisham council said Regenter B3’s repairs contractor had previously carried out works to address damp and mould at La’Bow’s flat, including repairing a gutter leak and more work would take place this week.
A spokesperson said it would follow up “to ensure the works are completed to the tenant’s satisfaction”.
La’Bow’s teenage daughter recently moved out to stay with her grandmother. One room in the flat is uninhabitable and she sleeps in the same bed as her son.
More than anything, the family needs a non-toxic home. After this reporter left the property last week, there was heavy rain and La’Bow texted: “More rain pounding down. More damp, more mould, more stink, more illness.”
The social housing regulator believes about 88,000 households are living with serious damp and mould problems. The situation is worse in the private rented sector but the conditions in social housing have received greater attention from the government as a result of the death of Awaab from respiratory failure caused by mould in December 2020.
In September, the department of levelling up, housing and communities issued guidance to landlords that stated they “should always respond promptly and address this issue as a matter of urgency when there is significant damp and mould and/or when there is a significant concern for tenant health”.
But while the government has promised to introduce Awaab’s law, giving strict deadlines for social landlords to tackle mould, it has yet to bring it into effect, saying it will do so only when parliamentary time allows.
Meanwhile, last month the Nottingham coroner warned of “a risk that future deaths could occur” when it ordered Mansfield district council to take action to tackle mould across its 6,500 council homes. The move came after a tenant, Jane Bennett, 52, died last year from respiratory failure that doctors said may have been caused by exposure to mould.
• This article was amended on 10 January 2024. A coroner found mould had caused the death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak in a Rochdale social housing flat, not in a Rochdale council flat as an earlier version said. The flat in question was managed by Rochdale Boroughwide Housing.
