A mum and her daughter are stuck in a hellish house so rampant with damp that their clothes and shoes are going mouldy.
Beverley Simms and her daughter Shenika Francis both live in the apartment in Camden, London, which they say has turned from a home into a prison.
Their clothes and shoes are covered in damp and mould, ruining a number of items and rendering them unwearable in a house the council knew had damp problems before they moved them in.
As well as that, both of their bedrooms have gotten so bad that the mother and daughter have moved out to sleep into the living room.
But the sofas they turned to to sleep on out of desperation have mould on now as well, the mum claimed.
Their story is just apart of a nationwide scandal that has seen countless Brits stuck with mould and damp ridden homes.
On November 24, Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove said tens of thousands of homes 'are not in the state they should be'.
But Camden Council, who now have a new house lined up for Beverley and Shenika, slammed central government for slashing local governments funding that might have helped deal with such problems.
Things were all okay when the mum and daughter moved in October 2021, but they didn’t know then that Camden Council was aware the property had already had past problems with damp.
A few weeks after moving in, they received an email from the council saying that the property had had issues in the past - after they had already signed for it.
By the new year the first bits of mould began emerging, beginning a horrific period in their lives that left their mental health in tatters and physical health suffering.
Whilst the council owns the flat where Beverley is a tenant, the building freehold has a separate owner, complicating attempts to tackle the problem.
Beverley, 60, told the Mirror: “It was okay when we moved in. It was painted up and didn't have any mould or anything.
“My daughter did receive an email saying that the property, after we signed for it, had fungus and mould, but they didn’t say anything before and sent it to my daughter and not me.
“By the end of the year, into the new year we started seeing little things like my daughter said ‘mum I can see mould in my room’ but I thought it wasn’t mould. I thought it can’t be. Gradually it started getting worse.”
Beverley claimed that all of the new furniture they had brought for the house was slowly ruined over time by the mould and damp as well.
Pairs of shoes were covered with mould as jackets, t-shirts and more were all ruined as well.
Beverley continued: “It got on my daughter’s clothes and underwear and trainers.
"I thought it was just in her room and didn’t know it was behind my bed, coming up in the wardrobe, the chest of drawers, the dressing table … everywhere. It got in the toothbrush holder too.”
She added: “I’m furious and heartbroken … it hurts me more that it affects my health. We get headaches a lot and I’ve had to have a chest x-ray but thankfully it was alright.
“The mould is in the washing machine so it makes our clothes smell. We’re not sleeping properly and I feel sick everyday. The fungus has damaged our clothes but we salvaged some things, we hardly have any clothes left.”
They had to empty their wardrobes and in a desperate attempt to salvage the clothing left they bagged them up in bin bags in the hopes of preserving them.
As well as losing clothes and the use of their bedrooms, Shenika, 24, lost everything she kept from primary school to the damp and mould - souring treasured memories.
Despite repeatedly begging their council for help, they say nothing has been done, even after they eventually sent around two surveyors - one of whom they said just laughed at their situation.
The situation has gotten so bad that it has had massive impacts on Beverley’s physical and mental health - including making her pre-existing vertigo worse.
She was left so sick that her doctor wrote a letter for her, pleading for her to be moved ‘as soon as possible’.
The letter said that the severe mould was “causing stress and distress as well as exacerbating her symptoms of vertigo and heart palpitations”.
A Camden Council spokesperson said: “We are here to help Ms Simms and her daughter. We are committed to help them to move to another home permanently as soon as possible and the process is underway.
“We want all our tenants to live in warm, safe and well-maintained homes and we are being as proactive as possible on this issue.
“Over a year ago, we set up a dedicated damp and mould team, who take emergency action and stop problems at source. We are now redoubling our efforts by increasing the number of people addressing this problem, reaching out to all our tenants, and we will be working side by side with tenants and their representatives to ensure every tenant has a comfortable home.
“This case is complicated by the fact that Camden Council is not the freeholder of the building, but we are treating this matter as a priority and are in regular contact with the family.
“Damp and mould is an issue affecting social housing across the country after many years of government cuts, which in Camden amount to a loss of £60m - £60m we could have invested in tenants’ homes.
"It is vital that central Government provides local authorities with adequate funding to address the issue."
