‘This will kill me’: Woman with lung disease living in house filled with black mould and crawling with bugs

A woman living with a lung condition has been left in a flat with a broken sewage pipe, damp and mould by the council.

Nicky Salter, 57, who suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), said she has complained about the state of her flat for the last six months.

She lives in a flat run by Lambeth council in the Amesbury Tower – a 20-floor block of flats in Wandsworth Road, Lambeth.

She said: “I’m living in hell. A stack pipe has broken somewhere above me and my flat has had sewage in it for months.

“There is brown slime down the walls and the smell is shocking. I stink from being in here – it’s horrible.”

Ms Slater said the flat is “crawling” with bed bugs and flies, the concrete walls are crumbling over her furniture and a leak is coming through the fire alarm in her ceiling.

Black mould has spread across the flat, even filling her cutlery drawers.

She said: “Everything is destroyed it doesn’t look like my home anymore.”

Throughout the last year, Ms Salter has been “in and out” of hospital with pneumonia and lung disease.

Damp and mould have been linked to respiratory infections, asthma and problems with the immune system by the NHS.

Ms Salter said: “I was in hospital for months with pneumonia this year – when hospital staff saw the conditions I was living in they said it was not safe to send me back.

“They got the council to put me in a Travelodge in Vauxhall –  they couldn’t believe what I was living with.”

But temporary accommodation and hotels do not accommodate people’s pets.

Ms Salter has a dog which she had to leave with a friend when she stayed at the Travelodge. 

She said: “My friend couldn’t look after my dog for that long and the hotel said I couldn’t bring her in, so I had to move back in.

“I’m in a bad way, I’m in so much pain just breathing. This will kill me.”

Lambeth council said dealing with mould and damp is a “priority” as they tackle the housing crisis.

Ms Salter said: “I’m 57 with serious health issues and they want me to go and live in a hostel.

“I’ve never lived in a hostel – they said get out of the flat, call the homeless number and someone will come and pick me up.

“This has been going on for six months and that is their solution.”

At the beginning of this year, the Government introduced Awaab’s Law requiring landlords to investigate and fix damp and mould in their properties within specified timeframes or rehouse their tenants.

New figures obtained by the BBC last month found that complaints of damp and mould to the Housing Ombudsman almost tripled from 688 in 2021 to 1,925 in 2023.

Cases of severe maladministration findings have also increased from 39 in 2021 to 315 in 2023.

Lambeth council has been approached for comment.

Nicky Salter (Picture: Nicky Salter)