A pensioner is leaving her home of more than 30 years because housing bosses should have acted sooner to tackle a wall ridden by raw sewage and mould, a family member claims.
June Knight moved into Osmond Close, on the Grange Farm Estate in South Harrow, in 1978, but is now moving away from the borough after the damp in the wall of her Harrow Council flat grew worse and worse.
The 83-year-old’s daughter-in-law Kaye Knight said two years ago a council surveyor visited the property and told them the carpet was causing the condensation.
After years of back and forth correspondence between the daughter-in-law and the council, a different surveyor came in January and diagnosing the problem as a leak from the soil pipe of the upstairs neighbours.
The authority insist both problems were separate issues and not connected.
Daughter-in-law Mrs Knight, a 50-year-old full-time foster carer, said: “After finally admitting that there was this problem, all they could offer her was a stay in a bed and breakfast.
“By then, we just thought it is best to move on from Harrow but it is not right that a woman at her age should have to move home because of the incompetence of others.
“It is impossible for her to live in there anymore.
“There has been thick mold growing in the bathroom, and the smell is awful.
"The emotional impact that having to move on like this is having on here is just not acceptable.
“This whole thing, it just leaves her in tears.”
Harrow Council insist that a bed and breakfast was not formally offered, and that the authority explained to Mrs Knight that it was safe for her to continue living in the flat while the leak was repaired.
In order to find the source of the leak, council workers had to strip away some of the wall lining but the fed-up Knights admit they later refused them access to repair the problem.
Mrs Knight will relocate into sheltered housing in Buckinghamshire, where some of her family are based.
A council spokeswoman said: “This leak was isolated to a corner of the wall in the toilet of Mrs Knight’s flat.
“The source of the leak was in another property, so it took us longer than anticipated to identify where it was coming from.
“Mrs Knight chose to move to Aylesbury and has indicated that she does not wish to return.
“We have been unable to gain access to the flat to carry out any further work for the last two months because Mrs Knight’s family refused to allow us access.”
Harrow Council is currently in consultation with households on the Grange Farm Estate over an impending redevelopment programme.
