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Mildew-ridden walls, rotting window frames and black mould blooming over their bed – this was how Alice Ojeda and her boyfriend Daniel Redmond were expected to live for over nine months.
The couple, now aged 31 and 32, were renting a one-bed flat in the Penylan area of Cardiff back in 2018.
Having been promised a fully furnished home by lettings agency Velvet Chase, which was acting on behalf of a private landlord based in the Middle East, Alice and Daniel were left dismayed when they moved in.
“There was graffiti and muck all over the walls when we got there,” Alice told i. “The entire place was filled with furniture but there wasn’t a table anywhere.
“We could see there was a severe mould problem in the living room and on the bedroom ceiling right over our bed, and the bed was broken and collapsed underneath us at 3am in the morning.”
She immediately reported these issues, along with a long list of other problems, but she says the lettings agency repeatedly failed to respond to her emails.
When they finally sent someone to deal with the mould months after first reporting it, their solution was simply to paint over it.
There was also a litany of other failures. According to Alice, the bed remained broken throughout the couple’s nine-month tenancy.
While the lettings agent did install an extractor fan to help reduce the damp, it broke after one use and wasn’t repaired.
The mould blooming over the couple’s bed got worse. There was no hot water through the shower.
Terrifyingly, Alice says the electric oven caught fire every time they attempted to use it. “It came close to a 999 situation on more than one occasion,” she says.
The windows were single-glazed leaving the flat freezing cold and when they turned on the electric heating, “our eyes would start stinging”.
“We were messed around repeatedly but even though the danger of burning the flat down was a constant worry, our most pressing concern was the mould,” Alice says.
Along with the threat to the couple’s health, the damp and mould began to affect Alice’s income.
She runs a small business called Authentic House, which makes and curates eco-friendly beauty and home products.
“The cotton bags I use to package purchases were ruined – covered in green mould. It was disgusting.
“We ended up reporting the landlord to the council but things were just so bad, we abandoned the idea of them coming to inspect the property and just moved out.”
In total, the couple paid £5,300 in rent plus £159 agency fees, paying in a £530 deposit which they did get back.
i contacted Velvet Chase but did not receive a response.
How do rogue landlords get away with it?
For those finding themselves in similar circumstances to Alice and Daniel there is often little they can do other than move out. That’s in spite of a number of laws designed to protect tenants renting from a private landlord.
When it comes to issues that pose a danger to tenants’ health, landlords have a legal responsibility under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 to ensure properties they rent out are fit for human habitation.
A separate law states landlords must ensure that furnished properties are fit for habitation on the day of letting and throughout the entire tenancy.
Where a property is in a state of disrepair, there is damp and mould, water or sanitation problems or health and safety hazards, housing charity Shelter says tenants should complain to their landlord.
If the landlord or lettings agent fail to deal with the issue, local authorities can step in and ultimately ban the worst offending landlords from continuing to rent out properties.
In 2018 the government introduced a database of “rogue” landlords issued with a banning order by the local council.
But since then just 56 landlords have been blacklisted, according to a Freedom of Information request submitted to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities in September last year.
Paul Shamplina, managing director of Landlord Action and a former presenter of Channel 5’s hit series Nightmare Tenants, Slum Landlords, says lack of resources is the problem.
“The council has a duty to deal with complaints on hazardous notices but, like with most public services, the chronic shortage of approximately 3,300 environmental officers means there is simply not enough resource to deal with the 4.4 million homes in the private rented sector, let alone the social housing sector,” he said.
The government has been promising action to crack down on rogue landlords for more than five years, with the Renters Reform Bill currently going through Parliament.
Along with banning landlords from evicting tenants without a reason, the bill plans to force private landlords to adhere to the decent homes standard currently enforceable only in the social sector.
The legislation also proposes to create a national landlord register so prospective tenants can check their previous histories.
However, just earlier this month House of Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt said the Government has dropped the legislation as a priority, in favour of getting the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill through Parliament first.
The Renters’ Reform Coalition, which counts Citizens Advice and homelessness charities Shelter and Crisis as members, expressed dismay at the decision.
Tom Darling, campaign manager, said: “It’s barely believable that against escalating evictions and homelessness crisis we have a Government slow-walking one of the only policy levers they say will address the issue.
“We are now very concerned this vital legislation won’t get passed before the election – if it doesn’t, it would be an outrageous betrayal of England’s 11 million private renters.”
Mr Shamplina added: “We can bring in as much legislation as we want, but it’s meaningless without robust enforcement.”
Social housing
Unfit homes are not just a problem for private renters, social tenants have just as tough a time.
In 2020 two-year old Awaab Ishak died from a respiratory condition caused by “extensive” mould in the family’s Rochdale council flat. It sparked public outrage and triggered a government review.
More than three years later, Awaab’s Law has finally been published and is in consultation until 5 March.
The proposed legislation, tabled to come in later this year, aims to clamp down on rogue social landlords who fail to provide safe homes.
It includes imposing strict time limits on social housing providers and landlords to investigate hazards within 14 days, start fixing within a further seven days and make emergency repairs within 24 hours.
Landlords who fail can be taken to court and may be ordered to pay tenants compensation.
Announcing the final consultation stage last month, Housing Secretary Michael Gove said: “[This] is about stronger and more robust action against social landlords who have refused to take their basic responsibilities seriously for far too long. We will force them to fix their homes within strict new time limits and take immediate action to tackle dangerous damp and mould to help prevent future tragedies.”
