Mum heard house could ‘burn down’ after waiting more than a week for emergency call-out

By Harrison Galliven, Local Democracy Reporter

A Croydon mum has said she feared her house could have ‘burnt down’ after she was left waiting for an emergency call-out for nearly five days.

Trevvena Prince, 44, of New Addington, feels this recent experience is symptomatic of the wider treatment her housing association, Home Group, gives to its tenants.

She said: “I told them they need to review their health and safety measures because as far as I’m concerned they are zero.”

On November 2, Ms Prince and her friend came home from work to find that her electricity had been cut off throughout her house.

After going through and switching off each appliance one by one, they realised the washing machine was tripping out while halfway through a cycle. 

They managed to pull the washing machine away from the wall to find that the prongs of the plug had been burnt out. The socket also showed clear signs that it had sparked out and was accompanied by a burning smell.

Ms Prince said: “We took pictures of the plug but Home Group said it wasn’t a priority and to call back when it was normal hours. I rang back on Monday morning to report it and they said they would pass it over to a contractor.

“On Wednesday I still hadn’t heard anything, so I rang them again and in the end, they put me on a six-hour emergency call out. I had to go to work so my friend stayed to check.

But the six hours passed and they didn’t turn up.

Ms Prince said: “I rang them six hours after that time and they didn’t respond. Eventually, they put me on another emergency six-hour call-out.”

Home Group sent an electrician during the second emergency call-out period. 

She said: “His first words to me were “Wow, when did this happen?

“I told him Saturday and he said, ‘I can’t believe they’ve left this with you until now. This is a high hazard, with one spark it could have set alight’.”

The electrician eventually found burnt-out wiring behind the plug to be the cause of the spark. Angered by this new knowledge, Ms Prince called Home Group and told them of her concerns. 

She said: “Originally, I was told I wasn’t going to get an appointment till November 8. I rang back and kicked off, I said you left my family at high risk, the property could have been in danger.

“If I wasn’t persistent in trying to get them out we could have still been waiting till November.

“These houses are plasterboard, so if this had caught alight the next one would too and the whole road would go up.”

Ms Prince said this recent experience echoed previous engagements with Home Group including one occasion where she was made to wait over two years for a new back door after her old one was hanging from its hinges. 

When approached for comment, Beau Rickerby, Head of Maintenance at Home Group said: “We sympathise with the issues our customer has been facing, and the time taken to resolve them. We take all reports of repairs seriously and we can see the jobs were raised and have now been carried out.

“We are always looking closely at our repairs process to minimise delays and ensure we can provide the support our customers expect of us.

“Our contractor would not have been able to directly fix the washing machine as it was a privately owned appliance. However, the door mechanism on these devices are designed to unlock again once they are plugged back into a powered socket, which should now be working again.”

Pictured top: Trevenna Prince in her house in New Addington  (Picture: Facundo Arrizabalaga)