Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee 18 March 2025
Good morning, everyone. I am very glad to be here.
Just as Aoife Deery has said, it is hard to know what volume of complaints we get on these matters, because it is hard to establish a baseline. That is one of the things that we are concerned about; the figures in the data, as reported in Scotland, seem to be very low in contrast with our experience and what is happening in England and the rest of Europe.
People might say, “Oh, the figure is about 10 per cent”—indeed, I think Wheatley Homes had a statistic that was even lower—but, in our experience, that just does not chime with reality. We wonder whether there needs to be more extensive data collection to understand what is going on, and more extensive data reporting, especially from social landlords, because the numbers that are being reported do not correspond with our members’ experience in practice.
I realise that I am almost creating subsets of data here, but when it comes to social and council housing, people are reporting this problem all the time, but are just getting ignored. Housing officers tell them, “You don’t know how to boil potatoes”—that is a direct quote—or “You don’t know how to hang your laundry up” and so on. This is not about individual issues; however, despite the fact that current national guidance makes it clear that this is not an issue of individual behaviour, that is what housing officers are still saying at local level. It just compounds the issue, because it makes tenants feel crazy. They raise the issue over and over again, and they are being gaslit.
Private sector tenants are afraid of raising the issue, because they fear that they will face eviction if they do. That has been the experience of our members; they raise mould and damp issues and, three months later, they receive an eviction notice.
Lastly, as Aoife Deery says, conditions in temporary housing are often very poor, with a mixture of mould and damp, sometimes mushrooms and sometimes pests—rats and so on. People in such situations feel that it is very difficult to raise issues, because there are no other options for them. Where are they going to go?
It is important that the committee understand the different problems that people face. They are not just physical and mental; there are social problems with mould and damp, too. You will not invite people to your home if you have them, and you cannot invite elderly relatives to provide them with care and so on. It disrupts your life.
For us, a key aspect of resolving the matter is the setting of clear deadlines. It means that you know, once you raise the issue, what your landlord should be doing, and if they do not do it, what your recourses to justice are—whether you can go to tribunal to get a repair order, and/or get compensation.
The last bit of information that I wanted to share is that we have more and more lawyers getting in touch with us, because they want to speak to our members to pursue personal injury claims. People are increasingly understanding that living in a home with mould and damp amounts to personal injury, and lawyers are pursuing such matters.
09:45