The expectation of a safe and healthy home is a fundamental right, yet for many social housing tenants, this basic standard remains unmet. Beneath providing affordable accommodation lie harrowing realities of damp and mould, insidious issues that can transform living spaces into health hazards.
These are some social housing horror stories, which property managers should heed as warnings. Tenants, facing inaction and neglect, have been forced to take drastic measures, from enlisting legal aid to battling for the bare minimum of a habitable environment. The cases highlighted paint a stark picture of systemic failures and the profound impact they have on the lives and well-being of residents.
Decent homes are a minimum expected standard, so slipping beneath this can cause significant problems. One housing association has found itself in hot water, with a group of tenants in east London resorting to enlisting lawyers and health workers to fight against damp and mould in their homes.
The estate had longstanding problems, which supposedly caused health issues such as respiratory illnesses in tenants. Though the housing association claims it has “invested over £1m on improvements” in 2024, tenants say previous repairs have only been “quick” fixes.
Greenwich Council failed to undertake an inspection for a year on a property, despite the impact damp and mould was having on the children’s bedrooms. Work on this did not start for two years, even after parts of the home had become completely uninhabitable.
Inaction is oftentimes more dangerous than anything else. Another housing association failed to conduct a survey into damp and mould for three and a half years. They merely relied on mould washes—a cleaning solution designed to remove and kill mould and mildew from surfaces.
The association gave no explanation for the delay, despite being told that, as a result, one resident’s daughter had to increase her asthma treatment.
The largest housing association in the UK, was fined after a watchdog found its failure to carry out repairs to a child’s bedroom window. The Guardian reported this was left undone for four years, which made the home mouldy and caused serious illness to the family who lived there.
The association showed “no urgency” to fix the issue and instead left the window boarded up.
These accounts serve as a sobering reminder that the provision of social housing must extend beyond simply offering shelter. The prevalence of damp and mould, and the often sluggish or inadequate responses from responsible bodies, reveal a critical need for greater accountability and a genuine commitment to the wellbeing of tenants.
From families forced to live in uninhabitable conditions to children whose health is directly compromised by neglect, the human cost of these failures is undeniable. As these horror stories demonstrate, the fight for decent, healthy homes in the social housing sector is far from over, and the voices of those affected must continue to be heard by property managers and landlords alike.
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