A child lost his life, a nation roared in anger, and a change to the law has been promised. Yet there are still tenants fearing for their health on Rochdale's Freehold estate - more than two years on from Awaab Ishak's death.
Housing secretary Michael Gove told the family of Awaab Ishak last Thursday (February 9) how Awaab's Law should soon become a reality. Faisal Abdullah, Awaab's father, described how his family were 'finally starting to feel like we are being treated fairly'.
His two-year-old son died in December 2020 following prolonged exposure to mould, which social landlord Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH) knew about for several months without resolving. A Manchester Evening News investigation last summer revealed Awaab's family were not alone in dealing with the issue on Freehold.
READ MORE: Awaab's Law: What the new announcement means and what's next for social housing
Families spoke of their battles dealing with the issue in their homes, being told to paint over mould, and their difficulties in finding somewhere else to live. Some had children who had been rushed to hospital, struggling to breathe, while some had letters from their GP urging them to go elsewhere.
It prompted RBH to inspect every home on Freehold, and the housing association says it is spending £1.2m to improve ventilation on the estate, which was a key issue leading to mould in Awaab's home. But some tenants insist they still have black mould in their bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchens on the same estate.
'She vomits all the time'
“Sometimes I have to sleep in the living room because of the smell of the mould in my bedroom," said Leosenio Santos, who lives on the Freehold estate with his pregnant wife Aniceth, both 32. Leosenio says he has reported the issue of mould eight times since moving into their one-bedroom flat in September 2021.
The couple first noticed mould growth on their walls and in a cupboard last May after water started leaking from an upstairs neighbour’s boiler. Leosenio, a barber and cleaner from Angola, is worried about how mould could impact his wife - who is due to give birth to their baby daughter in May.
He said: “She vomits all the time, throws up, because she inhales the mould or when we want to take something from the cupboard.” It's now three months since the eyes of the country were fixed on Rochdale for little Awaab's inquest.
Coroner Joanne Kearsley concluded that RBH should have carried out repairs on the property between July and December 2020, when it knew about the mould. She found that ventilation at the property had not been 'effective', which was a 'direct contributing factor in the development of the mould'.
Prolonged exposure to that mould caused a severe respiratory condition, leading to respiratory arrest, Ms Kearsley said. On the final day of Awaab's inquest, she told the court: "I'm sure I am not alone in asking how does this happen?
"How in the UK in 2020 does a two-year-old child die from exposure to mould in his home?" The NHS says babies and children can be more sensitive to damp and mould.
Leosenio and Aniceth are worried for their unborn baby. “We are talking about lives," said Leosenio. "That thing kills.”
The couple say mould in their cupboard has damaged and stained their clothes, while Aniceth sometimes experiences breathing problems. She added: “It is no good for me, no good for my baby, no good for my health and no good for us.”
Since the M.E.N. visited the Santos family home, RBH says improvement works in the flat to deal with mould have been completed, apart from some joinery work which has been scheduled. Following the M.E.N.'s investigation published last August, RBH promised to inspect all 376 homes on Freehold.
It found 80% of properties on the estate were affected by damp and mould. That discovery, more than 18 months on from Awaab's death, contributed to RBH being downgraded by the Regulator of Social Housing.
'I think they've got too much to do'
Several tenants on the Freehold Estate told the M.E.N that RBH has now dealt with the mould in their flats. The housing association began improvement works across the estate in response to our investigation last year.
RBH has since launched a damp and mould 'taskforce' to ramp up efforts to inspect properties in the whole borough. As of February 2, damp and mould had been reported at 1,545 RBH properties, with inspections carried out in 1,132 of them.
A further 5,714 homes had been checked by the landlord, while the condition of RBH's entire stock will be surveyed by the end of the year. The work can't come soon enough for Julie Poole.
The 59-year-old, who lives on Freehold with her cat Bertie, has accused RBH of ignoring the damp and mould in her one-bedroom flat for three months. The retired care worker suffers from COPD and uses inhalers.
She says she showed her mould-caked bedroom cupboard to RBH inspectors in the autumn and was told 'it will be sorted' - but it is still laced with black mould. She said: “It can't be that much of a priority to them if they’re not doing something.
"I told them I’ve got COPD and that I’m on inhalers. So, they know all that and they still haven't done anything. I think they’ve got too much to do.”
Julie, who has arthritis and previously had cancer, has cleaned the mould several times and also painted over it. The tenant, who lives in the same block of flats where Awaab died, also still has patches of damp and mould in her living room and bathroom after a neighbour’s bath leaked.
Asked if she was worried about her health, Julie said: “I am because I’m 60 next month and I worked hard for 20 years and then I get COPD and I’m like, why? There’s nights where I’m coughing and my inhalers have run out because I’m on them so much.
"RBH are like, ‘we’re coming round to fix it’. Well when?"
She added: “I'm leaning towards just upping and going. It would be hard [to move] because I’ve got all my furniture.” RBH says it is working to schedule the work requested by Julie as quickly as possible at a time which is convenient to her.
When the coroner concluded Awaab's inquest, she remarked how damp and mould is not solely an issue in Rochdale. In a recent review, the Housing Ombudsman urged social landlords to crack down on the issue and stop using tenants' 'lifestyle' as an excuse for damp and mould.
Julie has three children, 11 grandchildren and one great grandchild. Her daughter, who Julie visits, also has damp at her home in Lancashire.
She said: “I'm going from one damp house to another, although hers is worse than this. Her wallpaper is coming off the wall. I'm coming over and coughing and spluttering. I don't know how it affects me because I don't go anywhere clean.”
Other tenants on the estate say reports of mould have been ignored, and some believe the estate is beyond repair. Jez McCarthy, 51, said: "We knew the estate was in a bad way anyway [before Awaab's death]. It is. I mean half of these flats look like they’re on the way out. They need to knock them down.”
Jez, who lives with partner Rebecca Hannersley, says reports of issues to the landlord can go 'in one ear with them and out the other'. He added: "You put a report in, and they say, ‘we’ll get somebody on to it’. Three months later, we’re still waiting.”
One family on the Freehold Estate, who asked to remain anonymous, said they had reported the mould in their bathroom and three bedrooms several times in the six years they have lived there. They have thrown away their carpets because of the mould problem and do not want to get new ones until the issue is resolved.
The father said: “We have reported it a few times. Every time it came back, we reported it. In those six years we reported it five times basically.”
His son added: “It affects your health. You’re breathing in mould and all the bacteria pretty much. We don’t know what to do. We keep on reporting it, but they just come, clean it, paint over it and that’s it.
“They say, ‘oh just keep your windows open’, but we can’t keep the windows open in the winter because it’s cold isn’t it. So, because of all that condensation, it keeps on becoming mouldy. That’s pretty much it. They just said to ventilate it. It just keeps on coming back.”
Another tenant showed some of the mould in her kitchen, which she has recently reported for the first time. The single mother-of-three, who wished to remain anonymous, said she hoped to move house.
She said: “Just because it is a [social] flat, we shouldn’t live like animals. Please help. We are paying rent. It is just a vicious cycle. Not everyone has the means to get out. We are in a recession.”
'I wanted to smash my wall to f***'
Some tenants suggested that issues of damp and mould had been going on for years - with Jez and Rebecca having had mould issues on and off over the past seven years. Nick Wilson, 38, said his flat on the Freehold Estate was 'great' for years until in 2010 he started to notice black mould in the property.
In 2013, the former support worker moved out because of the damp and mould, and because he was too close to the scene of an attack in 2005. The attacker hit Nick over the head on a street next to the estate, and he has since suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
In March 2015 he moved to an RBH property in Kirkholt, which was 'laced with black mould'. In January the following year, Nick noticed that he had started to get short of breath and feel dizzy at his home.
In 2019, he fell over in Rochdale town centre and hurt his knee after becoming dizzy. He says the accident was 'due to him breathing in black mould for four years'. After going to hospital for tests on his GP’s advice, Nick said doctors told him that the mould at his home likely contributed to his accident and suggested he move house.
"Everything that has happened with me matches everything with Awaab," said Nick. "When Awaab’s death got confirmed and the coroner's report came out, I wanted to smash my wall to f*** because of everything I had been saying since 2016."
Nick met with Yvonne Arrowsmith, the interim chief executive of RBH, earlier this month to discuss his circumstances. She was appointed in late 2022 after Gareth Swarbrick was ousted from the role, in the fallout from Awaab's inquest.
For Ben Clay, of the Greater Manchester Tenants Union, the issues still being raised by RBH tenants are part of a wider national social housing crisis. He told the M.E.N: “RBH is just one organisation and lots of other organisations in the sector will have similar levels of problems.
“The truth is that the sector has been undermined by decades of underfunding and hostile policy, and increasingly there are large numbers of housing associations which have abandoned any sense of social purpose and operate like businesses despite having charitable status.” Government figures published in January showed that in 2021, 4% of social rented dwellings - about 164,000 - had problems with damp.
The findings - from the English Housing Survey - also showed that 14% or 3.4m homes 'failed to meet the decent homes standard'. Some 23% of these were in the private rented sector, while 10% of the non-decent homes were in the social rented sector.
Mr Clay added: “Questions have to be asked if this level of disrepair is so widespread. What is the government doing? Where is the money? What are they doing to resolve this issue?"
The housing secretary told social tenants this week that he was 'on their side', as he confirmed plans to change the law following the Awaab's Law campaign. Amendments to the Social Housing Regulation Bill mean new timeframes will be imposed for social landlords to inspect damp and mould, and carry out urgent repairs.
The timescales will be set following a consultation period. Meanwhile, clear information will be given to all tenants on their rights in line with the Awaab's Law campaign, while new guidance on damp and mould will be issued to the housing sector.
Following the latest concerns raised on Freehold, Mr Gove said: “I am appalled to see RBH continuing to fail its tenants after the tragic death of Awaab Ishak. I will continue to block government funding from RBH to build new homes until it can prove it is a responsible landlord.
“The Government has also given £15m to [Greater] Manchester Combined Authority to ensure poor quality social housing in the region is upgraded urgently. We will bring forward tough new laws on damp and mould to honour Awaab’s memory, and our Social Housing Bill will strengthen the powers of the Regulator to make sure tenants’ rights are respected.”
What RBH says
Ms Arrowsmith, interim RBH chief executive, said: "Everyone at RBH is driven by our desire to provide safe and comfortable homes of which we can be proud. This is our priority and we are determined to make the changes needed to enable us to regain the trust and confidence of our tenants and all the organisations we work with.
"We have an improvement plan in place and are delivering as quickly as possible. All our team are committed to rebuilding RBH as an effective, responsive, and tenant-focused organisation.
"We recognise the significant health risks posed by damp and mould, and as a result we are prioritising any work to tackle damp and mould, as well as taking proactive and single-minded steps to identify any damp and mould within RBH homes. Where we find a case of damp or mould, we prioritise based on vulnerability and health risk - we aim to take action within 24 hours for those at the highest risk and deal with all cases as swiftly as possible.
"We’re pleased that many residents have confirmed to you that work has already been carried out - these works are being carried out in order of priority and we will complete all work as quickly as possible. We have already held two sessions open to all tenants to review how we communicate with them about damp and mould, and we are revising our materials in response to this feedback.
"Our work on damp and mould is focused on:
- Surveying: making sure we find all cases of damp and mould in our homes
- Repairing: taking swift action to tackle any cases that are identified
- Prevention – including investing in our homes, returning to check on repairs after six, 12, and 18 months, and improving the way we discuss damp and mould issues with our tenants."
She added: "We have listened to our tenants and are simplifying our complaints process to make it easier for them to raise concerns. We are carrying out a full review of our repairs processes to make sure that they are as responsive as possible to the needs of our tenants."
RBH tenants with concerns about their home can contact the landlord by emailing rbh.repairs@rbh.org.uk, calling Freephone 0800 027 7769, or by making a report through the online MyRBH portal.
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