Leaks, flies, mould - and a warning of possible asbestos-related illness. The Ilford Recorder visited a council flat so damp that mushrooms grow out of the walls.
“I cried when I received this letter this morning,” says Gemma (not her real name).
She lives in a mouldy council flat on Woodford’s Orchard Estate, which medical experts believe is making her and her three children ill.
Redbridge Council admits that they live in "insanitary conditions/disrepair”.
It also accepts that they may be at risk of future asbestos-related illness. Every room in their dilapidated flat contains asbestos.
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After years of complaints, Redbridge has offered to rehouse them – but in another flat in the same block.
“The problems are in the whole building,” Gemma sighs, scrolling through a WhatsApp group on her phone.
Its 30-plus members are her neighbours, sharing videos and despairing comments about their own properties.
“In my opinion and experience, they have just let this estate go,” she says.
The letter she received this morning, from Redbridge, says that if she won't move to the new flat, repairs will be carried out around the family.
“It’s basically the same property in the same building that’s already ruined my life,” says Gemma.
“They just don’t care. They’re not taking our safety seriously.”
Health Hazard
Gemma started to smell damp around three years after she moved in, in 2012.
The bath kept getting blocked. Then water began seeping from the walls.
“I’ve had about six leaks in two years,” she says. “They’re quite ferocious and all in different areas.”
When you open the bathroom door or kitchen cupboards, tiny flies swarm out.
“They’re attracted to the damp,” says Gemma. “My children have found silverfish in their beds.”
Mushrooms have even started growing.
“I have to pick them out of the walls,” she says.
Medical records show both Gemma and her youngest son have been diagnosed in recent years with asthma.
“I’d never had any symptoms before,” she says.
A doctor and a health visitor wrote letters in 2020 raising concerns about the flat.
The health visitor recorded a “prominent smell” of damp, an “entire wall” covered in mould and multiple leaks.
“Contrived”
Redbridge policy says families living in these conditions for more than six months should be prioritised for rehousing.
But Gemma, on the waiting list for a three-bedroom flat since 2014, was refused priority in 2020 and instead accused of “contriving” to prolong her own suffering.
"Unfortunately, many of the issues with [this] property came to our attention at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic,” Redbridge Council told the Recorder.
Restrictions meant the authority “couldn't gain access to assess the property and commission the necessary works”.
"Subsequently, on several occasions, when Covid-19 restrictions were not in place, our contractors were denied access to [the] property and were unable to carry out remedial works,” it added.
“They say they made appointments and I wasn’t there or didn’t let them in,” Gemma says. “That is categorically untrue."
Gemma accepts she may have been hard to reach, but she had a full-time job: “I found myself really struggling, trying not to take time off and to balance work with giving the council access.”
Besides, she adds: "They can’t do the repairs while we're living here anyway. A contractor already told me that. He said it would be unsafe.”
She cries regularly, she says, and won’t have visitors out of embarrassment.
“One day the childminder said, ‘Your children’s clothes smell of damp, would you like me to clean them’?” she recounts.
“It’s so embarrassing. You go to work and you can smell the damp on yourself.”
What the council says
Redbridge claims Gemma has already accepted the replacement flat. Gemma says she hasn’t even seen it yet.
But if the alternative is enduring renovations to her existing home, she accepts she’ll have little choice but to accept.
“Our hope is that [the] new accommodation provides a healthy and secure home for her and her family,” Redbridge said.
"The safety and welfare of our council tenants is of vital importance, and we strive to maintain all accommodation to a high standard. We have been working to resolve the issues.”
Gemma disagrees. She says she has agonised over going public.
“But I have a voice and the willpower to keep fighting,” she says.
“A lot of people don’t. A lot of people in this building don’t even have English as a first language.
“I’ve got to let people know that this is going on. Redbridge is putting children at risk.”
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