Mum's ceiling collapsed inches away from her after weeks of complaints to her housing association
A mum's bathroom ceiling collapsed just inches away from her after weeks of complaining to her housing association.Sodden plasterboard, fibreglass insulation and wood crashed down from the ceiling of her ground floor flat, just hours after her young daughter had been having a bath below. Daisy Lovering, of Neath Port Talbot, had started noticing damp on the walls of her bathroom and water seeping in from the premises upstairs.
Ms Lovering had made several phone calls to her housing association Tai Tarian – one of the largest social housing providers in Wales – at the beginning of February.
However, the housing association failed to get the situation resolved.In the early hours of Saturday morning (February 25), Ms Lovering said she was being kept awake by the worsening dripping noise from across the hall.
She got out of bed to once again check the bathroom, only for an avalanche of heavy, sodden debris to come crashing down from above, narrowly missing her.
Ms Lovering, a 22-year-old apprentice personal trainer, has lived at the property at The Gardens in Ystalyfera with her young daughter Darcey for two years.
She claims she had told the housing association Tai Tarian to let her know when they were visiting the property so she could make sure she was available, but she said they called by while she was at work.Ms Lovering said: "After that the dripping started - slow at first, but enough to be a worry. But whenever I tried to get someone back to look at it I was told appointments were few and far between and that I'd have to wait."During that time the drip just got worse and worse, the only saving grace being that it was landing in the bath itself. So at least I wasn't having to keep putting buckets out to stop the place being flooded.She continued: "The smell in the bathroom was terrible though and I was worried it might start affecting Darcey's health. Then, quite late on the weekend, I got up have a look at it and - 'Bang!' - the lot came down right in front of me."
Ms Lovering said the debris landed right by her feet.
She said: "I dread to think what might have happened had it been a few hours earlier when Darcey was having a bath. The mess was unreal - it filled the tub and the toilet, practically snapped the shower curtain rail and was all over the floor and up the walls."
Ms Lovering said that she went on to ring Tai Tarian's 24-hour helpline, but got no answer.
She said that even though a clean-up team has since visited the property to deal with the damage and board up the hole in the ceiling, a new problem altogether has since arisen."The flat upstairs is privately owned, so the guy that rents it says I have to wait for his landlord to sort things out," she explained.
"In the meantime he's only turning on his water when he absolutely has to, like when he wants to have a shower or flush the loo.
"But when he does the leak starts all over again. I'm not sure how much longer I can go on like this and am angry that it could have all been prevented if dealt with earlier."
Head of Property and Land Services for Tai Tarian, Gemma Fouracre, said: "Miss Lovering first reported an issue in early February. At that stage we had not been made aware of a leak."We planned a visit with her but had to reschedule. Officers did attend on a second occasion but couldn’t get access - we had been unable to make contact by telephone.
She continued: "Miss Lovering got back in touch with us to say that she thought there may be a leak from an upstairs property, which is privately-owned. A visit was scheduled for this week but, unfortunately, the damage to the ceiling occurred over the weekend."We responded to a call about this on Sunday and made the bathroom safe. We are sorry that this has happened and our planning team are trying to contact Miss Lovering to get the bathroom repair work booked in as soon as possible."
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