Residents living in a block of apartments in Salford where rent is as high as £970 say they are living in ‘squalor’. Tenants in the Richmond Hill apartments say the building has become rat infested, unsafe and unkempt.
Now, ‘frustrated and fed up’, residents have hit out at landlord Irwell Valley Homes for failing to address their concerns about the state of the building over the past few years.
The housing firm say they are working on an ‘improvement plan’ in a bid to make Richmond Hill a ‘decent place’ to live. The Manchester Evening News has visited the apartment block which is located on St Stephen Street near the busy Chapel Street and links Salford to Manchester city centre.
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During the visits residents raised a large number of problems they have encountered including a ‘disgusting’ bin room which they say has created a vermin problem and a lack of security which has seen theft, trespassing and tenants having their car windows smashed. They also raised concerns regarding the general upkeep and cleanliness of the building which has seen some people come home to mouldy corridors, leaky roofs, graffiti, ‘filthy’ windows, carcasses of dead animals left for weeks and damaged flag paving.
Robyn Khan is a solicitor and has lived in Richmond Hill for two years. The 30-year-old who lives on a top floor flat in the building says she feels doesn’t feel safe due to the lack of security.
She told the MEN how the front door of the building is often broken and how the car park is easily accessible. According to Robyn there have been multiple instances where young people and strangers have made their way in, in some cases people have accessed her balcony and stolen her belongings, she says.
Speaking to the MEN, Robyn said: “It’s like living in squalor, the bin room is always disgusting and never gets collected. Look at the state of the doors, the filthy windows, the walls and tiles that I’ve slipped over before.
“They tell us that they have cleaners that should be coming in, doing this and doing that, but nothing ever happens. The young teenagers climb up the side of the building, I don’t know how, but they manage to make it up the top of the building and end up on my balcony.
“They’ve stolen things from there and sometimes on the way home I get alerts from my home security camera that they are there. I pay about £970 and the rents gone up twice in the past two years. In Deansgate Tower they pay up to a grand and they get a gym, concierge and stuff like that.
“I love the flat I live in, but I’m not safe. Anybody can make it up to where I live and because it’s just windows there everyone can see in.”
Fed up and determined to make a change, Robyn has been working on a 60 page document of complaints and has garnered a petition with 44 signatures from her neighbours. She plans to send the document and petition in with the hopes of getting Irwell Valley Homes to address their wants and needs.
One of the tenants supporting Robyn with her document is neighbour, Alex Joint, 31. She has lived on Richmond Hill for two years with her partner and is paying around £745 a month which includes rent and use of the car park where her car has been smashed into.
She told the MEN: “I feel frustrated and fed up. I feel like they get away with it because these are the cheapest flats this close to town and it always makes me laugh when I see them advertise them as ‘luxury apartments’.
“We always have issues with theft. You can see at the front door people have opened parcels nicked the stuff inside and left the boxes.
“We need cameras, but they just won’t bring them in. The door gets fixed and then it gets broken again, fixed and then broken again, it takes months to get anything done.
“The biggest issue is the lack of communication from the housing agency. All of us have tried contacting them with issues.
"It goes for months without hearing anything and all of a sudden we all get letter saying service charge fees are going up and rents are going up.”
Another resident, who asked to remain anonymous, told the MEN they live on the top floor of the building with a flatmate and share a £950 bill each month. But, on the evening they moved, they found rats on their doorstep.
The tenant said: “The night we got in we realised there was at least four or five rats on the terrace and on our front door.
“We paid for council pest control to come out and that cost about £50. The lights on our stairwell aren’t always working. I’ve slipped down the stairs a number of times so has my flat mate and we’ve had to ban family members who have mobility issues from coming because it doesn’t feel safe.
“The bin rooms haven’t been emptied in so long, the bins out on the street don’t get collected. The door, in the car park is open and I think Robyn has seen a homeless man living in there.
“I’ve seen a cleaner once on the bottom floor and he was spraying the window and that’s the only time I’ve ever seen them. There’s a corridor on the bottom floor and if you go through there it’s evident it’s entrance has been left open a number of times and people have come in and urinated on the carpet because it’s got this vile stench.
“It’s to the point where, when someone new moves in we tell them ‘don’t judge us from the building our apartments are lovely inside, please don’t judge us.”
Irwell Valley Homes say they are working with tenants and local partners including the police to address and rectify the issues raised. They have apologised for the standard of cleaning and upkeep of building pointing to issues with contractors as the reason and say residents should see a ‘noticeable’ improvement in the coming months.
They say they have also carried out a list of actions including clearing the bin room which is scheduled for a deep clean, fixing several issues with the communal door, cutting the grass in the entrance, removing graffiti, fitting new lights in the car park and stairwells, hiring pest control and more.
Sasha Deepwell, Chief Executive of Irwell Valley Homes, said: “We’ve made significant progress against an improvement plan that we have worked on with residents to address their concerns at Richmond Hill. We’re committed to helping people live well in their homes and communities and continue to work with the residents there and our partners – including the police and local authority – to ensure it’s a decent place to live.”
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