"Pregnant mum and baby sleeping in mould infested room at Willenhall flat"

[dutchman]

The family have spoken of two years of 'unliveable' conditions



"That's rising black mould there - that's death." Jordan points to a small enclave behind his bed in his Coventry flat. Spots of black mould can be seen growing up the walls.

The mould is inescapable. It's on the room's ceiling, the sideboards, the curtains and around the windows.

Jordan, his pregnant partner and their baby sleep here every night. "We can't get rid of it," he says. "Someone could end up dying basically. It's unliveable."

READ MORE: 'My mouldy flat is making me so ill that I'm frightened it will kill me'

The family have lived in the flat for more than two years. When our reporter Ellie Brown visits the air in here is humid and heavy.

But despite their efforts to get landlords - Citizen Housing - to deal with the mould, they say it keeps coming back. Jordan's partner Latisha has now been prescribed an inhaler and may need tests on her lungs.

Asked if she struggles to breathe here, she says: "All of us struggle."

She tries to keep their five-month-old baby Anniah in the middle of the room to protect her from the fungus. The baby is smiley and seems to be well, but her parents are worried.

Door fittings are rotting, mould covers pipes in the bathroom and grows on the walls there too.

The family say the fungus is spreading to the furniture and they can't put a carpet down because it would get there too. Their flat has other problems they say; a broken heater left them with no water for months and they moved out of the bedroom because of its "horrendous" dust problem in the summer.

But the mould is the worst part. They fear it is causing permanent damage to their physical health and it also hurt their mental health too.

"One of us could have definitely lung conditions. I'm normally a fit guy, my missus is fit, there was no problem with any of us until we moved in here," said Jordan. "Living in a rotten place like that gives you depression, especially when it keeps coming back."

Jordan says he has battled for more than two years to get landlords Citizen to deal with the mould. He claims that workers sent out didn't do a good job of dealing with it, for example not finishing a job to cover a wall with anti-mould paint.

He says he never heard back when he tried to contact people higher up the chain at the housing association about the state of his home. This year, he got a solicitor involved and asked Coventry MP Zarah Sultana for help.

The family are now going to be moved to a new home in Coventry in January, but Jordan is scathing about the level of help he got with the mould problems. He calls Citizen "absolutely useless", adding: "It's only now they've attempted to do anything because I've contacted so many people about this."

When the Local Democracy Reporting Service spoke to him, Jordan and his family were still in limbo about when and where they would be going. The day after we made an enquiry, Citizen gave them a date for their house viewing.

They also sent workers out to deal with the heater, treat the damp and mould in the flat and install vents. Jordan now plans to cancel the claim he made with the solicitor. The main reason for doing so was to get out of the mould, he says.

He stresses that the family has not received any compensation. Jordan and Latisha are telling their story because they believe it could help other people in the same situation.

[dutchman]

Citizen said there were no records of being contacted by the MP, although the LDRS has seen an email with a response from Citizen to Ms Sultana about Jordan's situation.

That won't surprise anyone who has ever had dealings with Citizen or its predecessors.