Leah Davies has been battling with a damp problem in her home for years but the situation has become so severe that she is now concerned for the health of her three children
The mum of a two-year-old girl who was rushed to hospital with pneumonia says she felt the situation was spiralling beyond her control when she discovered mould in her children’s beds.
A bit of soap and water was sufficient to tackle the issue initially, but Leah Davies soon began to realise the problem was not being resolved and her concerns for the wellbeing of all three of her children only grew stronger. Leah, 27, resides with her children in their two-bedroom flat in the Penlan area of Swansea.
When she first moved in seven years ago, she began noticing damp issues in the property but said it was manageable. However, over the past year she claimed the situation had rapidly worsened, despite her constant efforts to address the problem.
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Swansea Council said it had recently conducted an inspection and was working with the tenant to undertake repairs at the property to help tackle the mould issues. Leah said that on three separate occasions the council had promised it would visit to attempt to resolve the problems, but never turned up reports Wales Online.
Leah and her children, aged two, three and seven, are hoping to be rehoused due to the challenges with damp but also overcrowding in the property. Currently, her three children are sharing one bedroom together.
Leah said: “I’ve always had problems but it hasn’t been this bad especially in the kid’s bedroom. I went in there one day, I could smell this horrible smell and when I pulled all the wallpaper off I realised the full wall is damp. I just changed two of their beds, which are three months old, and all the slats on the beds are full of mould. It’s going onto their blankets and their mattresses.”
She described how her previous efforts to control the issue were no longer working: “Obviously I’ve always had damp in there but this has come out of somewhere. Before, it’s been bearable, I would go in there once a week and wash it with soap and water and it would be fine.
“Now there’s no way of tackling it, it’s on every single wall, the ceiling, and all around the window sill. It’s freezing cold in there, they’re sleeping in three degrees sometimes at night.”
She suspected all residents in her block were experiencing damp and mould issues, though she doubted others were enduring temperatures as low as hers.
The worried mum now feels helpless about what to do next, deeply concerned about the potential long-term effects on her children’s wellbeing. She said: “The council tell me I should get heaters and heated blankets but the kids have got hot water bottles and I’ve got my heating on.”
Leah explained the flat became freezing again within 15-20 minutes of switching the heating off, and keeping it running constantly was dramatically pushing up her energy costs. On one occasion, she reported temperatures dropping to 3°C in her children’s bedroom.
In September, Leah’s youngest daughter developed a soaring temperature of 41°C and her heart rate reached 170bpm. She rushed her to hospital where a series of chest x-rays and ultrasound scans showed she had shadows on her chest and was battling pneumonia.
She was kept in hospital for a week and Leah fears it will take something even more devastating for the issue to be properly addressed. “As soon as all the kids go into that bedroom to bed they’re coughing constantly, it’s getting to their chest. It’s terrible.
“It’s depressing,” she added, explaining it made her reluctant to contact the council and have to deal with it.
“Mould and damp is serious and it’s affecting my children’s health. I asked whether it’s going to take my child to die for them to actually move me because that’s what it feels like it’s going to come to.”
Her daughter has now made a full recovery from pneumonia but Leah said she continuously suffered from a poor chest and a cold which she attributed to the living conditions in the room.
A spokesperson for Swansea Council said: “We have recently carried out an inspection and are working with the tenant to carry out repairs at the property to help deal with the mould issues. We will visit the property again this week. The council has also created a dedicated team to tackle damp and mould problems in council properties and they are working well with tenants to deal with problems as quickly as possible.
“We also provide detailed advice for tenants, which we also have on our online council homes advice pages, which provides tenants with lots of practical advice on dealing with condensation and mould in the home. We are in the process of undertaking significant renovation of council homes in the Penlan area and we’ll continue to invest in our homes within the community.”
