I’ve written before about the useless housing association – Pathmeads – that is my landlord here in Walworth. It has taken until today for them to ‘repair’ the problem of damp in the corner of the bedroom due to a leaking washing machine in the kitchen. So what have they done? Scrubbed down the wall a bit, and then tried to paint over the mould! No effort to remove even the old paint, let alone the plaster that has been sopping with water for ages. Do they just not give a damn about the buildings that they administer? Plus I am still trying to get an £80 reimbursement for the electricity that the de-humidified used previously. It’s such a headache. Just imagine if I was a poor impoverished father of young kids, rather than a very vocal and forceful individual.
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Hmmm. I’ve reflected on it a bit, and I think a lack of local knowledge is part of the problem. The estate officer here knows very well what needs to be done, but all the repair requests are handled from an office in Wembley. Repairs to a 1903 built flat are very different than one built in 1960. Plus I’m sure there is a problem with staff recruitment and retention – who would want to work for Pathmeads?
I’m afraid I don’t really have a good solution!
It does – I was just teasing you.
On a more serious note, I completely agree with your assessment of the difficulties and frustrations that many residents of social housing face. The social landlords (both local authority and housing associations) that I know of are, for the most part, focused more on the “landlord” element of their role (rent collection in particular) than on the “social” element.
So what do we do about it? Why do you think they are so badly organised and so unresponsive? Is it simply due to the quality (or lack thereof) of their employees? Are they overworked and under resourced? Perhaps they need to be taken to court a few times before they’ll begin to realise that greater efficiency is required? Or, perhaps we need to introduce greater competition into the rental housing market in our big cities?
Justin
Erm, I think you are over-interpreting here!
I wrote that last line as a means of comparison – the families with scarce financial resources that are my neighbours must have even worse difficulties than I do to get the Housing Association to do anything.
Hope that clears it up!
But I thought you didn’t plan to have children? 🙂