Ceiling collapses on mum and daughter’s heads after complaints

Sarah and her eight-year old daughter Leila were making tea on a Friday night when part of their ceiling collapsed over their heads.

Raining down bits of brick, wood, and foul-smelling black water over their fridge, they narrowly missed injury as they were pelted by bits of debris.

Leila, shocked, burst into tears.

But Sarah wasn’t surprised at all.

She’d spent months ringing up her housing association, Onward Homes, to report the bulging corner of her kitchen ceiling.

But like many of the other issues Sarah has spent almost four years flagging to her social housing landlords, repairs weren’t carried out on time, she claims.

“The house feels rotten. And I feel rotten in it,” she told the Local Democracy Reporting Service. 

Sarah lives with her daughter and son, Liam in the home in Chadderton.

Their names have all been changed because Sarah says she feels ‘too embarrassed by the state of their home’ to be identified.

“We don’t have people round because it’s just embarrassing,” she added.

“The kitchen is meant to be the heart of the house, and people always ask to use your bathroom.

"But I can’t show people that.”

Within the first year of moving into the home through a council house swap four years ago, the family started encountering problems, according to her.

The kitchen cupboard doors suddenly started falling off their hinges and destroying all the crockery.

Then came the rats.

“I used to not sleep because I was paranoid about them coming into the bedroom. I could hear them scratching at the bedroom door,” Sarah said, shuddering.

To sort out the rats and a leak they’d caused by chewing through rubber pipes under the tub, contractors dismantled the family’s bath panel and set rat traps, Sarah explained.

But the repair workers who came to fix the bathroom afterwards did a ‘cowboy job’, according to the Oldham mum.

The panel now leans loosely against the side of the bathtub, which is visibly balanced on two uneven wooden cut-offs.

It’s top-ended by a piece of roughly treated wood, which is already showing signs of going mouldy.

“The water is just flowing over, flowing over, flowing over,” Sarah explained, giving the panel a tentative wobble.

“If I knew how to fix it myself, I would.

"Instead I’ve had to watch the ceiling bellowing out over our heads as it fills with water. I knew it was only a matter of time.”

The state of the home has had a heavy impact on the family, according to Sarah.

She says she feels ‘constantly stressed out’ and the state of the house has affected her mental health.

But despite reaching out to Onward ‘numerous times’ over the phone, she claims repairs either don’t get done – or are done badly.

“Most of the time it feels like I get ignored,” said Sarah, who approached a solicitor to launch a disrepair claim against Onward.

An almost 40-page surveyor’s report lists a litany of issues with the house.

“It’s not about the money,” Sarah said.

“It’s about the four years of crap I’ve had to deal with.

"It’s about the hours I’ve spent on the phone listening to their stupid hold music.

"It’s about the repairmen who come by and say ‘oh I can’t fix that’ and then sit in their vans for an hour.

"Or turn up unannounced when I’m on my way to work. Or just don’t turn up!

“It’s so frustrating. It feels like they’ve just left us to rot.”

Sarah, who works as a TA at a local school, says she can’t afford to live in a private rented house and feels ‘stuck’.

A spokesperson for Onward Homes said: “Ms Heywood has previously reported issues with leaks from the bathroom into the kitchen and a damaged bath panel.

"Since then, we have been working with Ms Heywood to find a time that is convenient to her to carry out necessary repairs.

“Earlier this week, Ms Heywood reported concerns regarding a leak and we attended on the same day to make the kitchen ceiling safe.

"There are some final repairs that we need to complete and we are meeting with Ms Heywood tomorrow to confirm the works that will be delivered and a time to complete these.

“We want to reassure Ms Heywood that we will investigate the other issues mentioned and will work with her to put things right as quickly as possible.

“We will continue to keep in contact with Ms Heywood to check that she is fully satisfied with the repairs we carry out.

"We will also be in touch to check if she needs any extra support from us at this time.”

After the LDRS contacted Onward for comment, contractors visited the family’s home, asked them to ‘pick out a new kitchen’ and promised to renovate their bathroom next week on Monday.

“They’ve done this before and then nothing came of it,” Sarah said.

“So let’s just hope.”

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