Fountain's flats hell

HOUSING Executive residents in the Fountain area of Londonderry say they are living in freezing, unhealthy and dilapidated conditions and have reached the end of their tether with the organisation.

Rotting window frames, grass filled spoutings, mouldy ceilings, fungus growing in bathrooms, unkempt stairwells, poor storage areas for bins and cracked safety glass on the blocks of flats are some of the complaints witnessed by the Sentinel. However, these almost pale in comparison to the perishing temperatures being endured by some residents of Housing Executive flats in the estate.

Residents claim that in some instances temperatures have dipped to minus eight degrees during this winter's extreme conditions and many have been forced to abandon their homes and move in with relatives in the hope that the cold weather will abate.

The Sentinel visited flats in the Fountain in which the residents felt they had no option left but to speak to the media in an attempt to redress their accommodation problems.

In one flat, resident Gemma Thompson, told the Sentinel she is constantly freezing and also relies on a self-bought halogen heater and an electric blanket just to keep warm.

"It's a joke, I'm disgusted. There is no help at all. I've been in here a year and it's been like that since the day I arrived," she said.

Gemma said that she had swapped her flat in the Fountain for the one she currently lives in and that when she arrived there was no door on the kitchen and no doors on her kitchen cupboards. When she contacted the Housing Executive she says she was told that since the material had not been removed by them, it was her responsibility to replace it.

"I can't afford to do this," she said.

Another resident, Jason Holland, said that most of his fortnightly benefits goes on trying to heat his flat. On examination of the flat, only one of the seven heaters in the home seemed to be working and mould was gathering on the kitchen ceiling. The flat was palpably freezing cold.

Mr Holland also showed us an Energy Performance Assessment completed on his home on January 13, 2010.

On the scale of energy efficiency used, based on approximate energy use and CO2 emissions the average benchmark for Northern Ireland is assessed at 50 points on a scale of 1-100. Mr Holland's ground floor flat is currently rated at 35 - 15 points below the advised benchmark.

In a summary of the dwelling's energy performance related features, an assessment was based upon the key individual elements that have an impact on Mr Holland's home energy and environmental performance. Each section is graded from ‘Very poor/Poor/Average/Good/Very Good.’The following is a break down of the elements assessed within Mr Holland’s home: Walls - rated poor in terms of both efficiency and performance; Windows - rated average in terms of both efficiency and performance; Main heating (Electric storage heaters) - rated poor in terms of energy efficiency and rated very poor in terms of environmental impact; Main heating controls - were rated poor in terms of both efficiency and performance; Hot water (electric immersion, off peak) was rated average in terms of energy efficiency and poor in terms of environmental impact; Lighting - (No low energy lighting), was rated very poor in terms of both efficiency and performance.

The final resident we spoke to, Ashley Jackson, also complained of extremely cold conditions in his dwelling and of waking up to find water constantly leaking through his bedroom windows, as well as other windows in the flat.

“That’s why I’m walking my dog this morning, because it’s warmer out here than it is inside,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the Housing Executive told the Sentinel that the organisation understands the concerns of these tenants particularly with the extreme cold weather experienced this winter.

She said that major improvements were carried out in the Fountain in 2000, when oil heating was installed in a number of properties, but in 25 flats, because of their design, there was no way of physically providing oil heating. Instead the economy 7 heating was upgraded, along with other maintenance work.

She concluded: “At that time the windows were in a good state of repair as a number of windows had been replaced two years previously. We will however check the condition of these windows again.

“As regards swapping houses we advise tenants to be careful when entering into an exchange agreement as our policy states that the property is accepted in the state that it is in. However, we do carry out repairs if there are any health and safety repairs needed.”

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