‘You have to shut up and make do’: Mum faces leaks and mice during two-year wait for repairs

By Harrison Galliven, Local Democracy Reporter

A mum-of-two says she’s endured a two-year nightmare of disrepair at council house, where mice scurry around and complaints fall on deaf ears. 

Rianne Rowe moved from a mouse infested high rise to her current home in Nelson Close, West Croydon with her two children, aged 11 and 5, in September 2022. 

She said: “When I moved here I thought this was going to be a better start for us, but it hasn’t been. It’s been a lot of stress.”

Croydon council manages the property, one of the terraced homes on the Handcroft Road estate.

Issues include hollow walls, leaks, and pervasive issues with rodents. Ms Rowe claims matters are made worse by the “seemingly endless delay” in getting repairs done.

She said: “I came upstairs and saw a big puddle on the bathroom floor. I thought it was my daughter peeing on the floor because she was young.

“It turned out the puddle was from the radiator. It was so old it had started leaking. I put in the order to repair it in October 2022. As the repair man tried to put the new radiator on the wall, it caved in; The wall was waterlogged.”

She claims Croydon’s housing repair contractor failed to issue another repair job and there were delays in booking a plasterer. 

Ms Rowe would “complain and complain until she was blue in the face” but the wall was only repaired in October this year, two years after the initial incident.

She said: “It wasn’t really professional. I needed it fixed because my daughters can’t really regulate their body temperatures. One suffers from nosebleeds constantly when she’s too hot or too cold, and the other one has seizures. I went back and forth telling them this.”

While the wall has now been addressed, the replacement radiator remains on the floor, meaning the bathroom remains cold and draughty for her children. 

She believes the delay in getting repairs done often comes down to contractors missing appointments or not being fully briefed on what repairs need to be done. She claims that on several occasions, contractors showed up for a repair job they never needed to do.

She said: “Someone came over to say they were here to repair the kitchen radiator, but I said I had never had a problem with it. They said they were told it needed fixing, so I said ‘okay, but you’re wasting your time’.”

An issue with an extractor fan in the toilet next door is also causing issues for her and her children. The toilet sits in a narrow room with a high ceiling. Atop the ceiling is a skylight and air vent, which are supposed to allow air and light into the cramped space.

But, the exterior of the vent has broken, meaning it lets more than just air in. 

Ms Rowe said: “When it starts raining, I can be standing there brushing my teeth, and I’ll get wet from water dripping down.”

She believes the nature of her property, which sits at the end of a row of houses, has meant the vent is hard to fix. She added: “There was talk of them getting a cherry picker out for it, but I don’t think that will ever happen.”

In the meantime, the rainwater has left track marks across the walls, which Ms Rowe described as looking like ‘someone chucked teabags at the walls’. She has gotten used to placing buckets around the top floor to catch the leaks.

Ms Rowe has also seen mice scurrying around her kitchen and claims her neighbour found a dead rat in the cavity of her walls. 

She said: “The smell was so bad we had to get out of the house. It took a while to disappear.”

While Wates, Croydon’s new housing contractor, has issued her with rodent traps, Ms Rowe remains concerned about an infestation taking hold around her house. She has also made her own rat traps, filled holes, and bought frequency emitter repellents.

Rianne has considered borrowing money to get the repairs done at her current home but said this would put her under further strain. 

She said: “If you can’t help yourself financially, you just have to shut up, put up with it, and make do.”

A Croydon council spokeswoman said: “We are sorry to hear about Ms Rowe’s experience and we are working with her to address the issues in her home. Our pest control team has carried out and agreed a treatment plan, which is ongoing. They are also working with her to provide advice and support while the baiting continues.

“There has been a delay in completing the proofing works to address the leaks and we have apologised to Ms Rowe. We have agreed that our repairs manager will remain in contact with her until all the repairs are completed, as quickly as possible. We are committed to resolving these issues.”

Pictured top: Rianne Rowe had already experienced a rodent problem at her previous council property in Croydon (Picture: Facundo Arrizabalaga)