Episode 5 The Housing Enforcers

Can you imagine living in these conditions?

-So you started with mice?

-Yeah.

-And now there are rats?

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Security's very poor at the back of this property.

But with the pressure on housing greater than ever,

finding a safe place to live is getting harder and harder.

It is just terrible.

It gets me the most, this place.

Oh, my God. Can you see what's going on here?

I'm Matt Allwright,

and I'm back on the front line with the housing enforcers.

So what you've got is a very, very quick way to dispatch yourself.

This series tackles downright dangerous houses head on.

Really worryingly, there's no mains gas supply here at all.

From life-endangering fire traps...

They wouldn't even know that the place was on fire

before they were dead.

You can see, these plugs here, they've blown.

Worst-case scenario, the house could have burnt down.

..to health hazards...

It's at a stage where it really needs to be dealt with now.

..to accidents waiting to happen...

You're actually not talking about a fire,

you're talking about an explosion.

..making sure we all have a safe and secure place to call home.

There are things here that could seriously shorten your life.

Today, I meet a mother desperate to protect her children

from exposure to mould.

My son asking me, "Mama, why can't I sleep in your bed?"

I tell him, "It's not healthy for you."

Hello!

In the West Midlands, some terrifying electrics are exposed.

I'm not going to touch anything

cos I don't want to get electrocuted,

but we've got European plugs being forced into UK sockets.

And a routine boiler inspection reveals more than we bargained for.

Who's living here with you?

There are hundreds of people coming and going.

You never know who's going to be here.

-Yeah.

-I really do want to get out of here.

It's thought that over three million renters across Britain

have experienced problems with damp.

And where there's damp, potentially,

harmful toxic mould can soon follow.

And, believe me, that can be seriously bad for your health.

There is an issue - damp and mould.

We clean it regularly,

ventilation's very good, still we have damp and mould.

You don't really want children in damp houses

because of the spores and everything, so, yeah, we...

..we always make sure that we don't have damp

in the corners and everything.

Because I've got a child with asthma,

and she's allergic to a lot of things,

so I'm particularly careful about damp and mould.

In Kent, I'm with housing officers Bethan and Steve,

who've been contacted by a tenant

about a serious damp issue in their home.

Today is seeing how bad the damp is,

the effects of it, any particular hazards associated with that.

And then we try and find out what's been causing it,

what the landlord has done about it so far.

We're meeting Eva and her husband, Adrian,

who live here with their two young children.

On first impressions, the house doesn't look too bad,

but Eva's keen to show us the sort of impact the damp is having.

So where are the main issues, then?

You want to... Maybe I start, show for you in the front.

-OK.

-What's happened to the wallpaper here?

-Did it come off?

-Coming off, yeah.

-Come off.

-Yeah, I have something like a big balloon over there,

so my kids, when I'm back from the holiday,

touch that one and everything coming...

-The paper bubbled out?

-Yes.

Did you see over here? At the moment it's dry, everything is dry,

but when it is wet you see that, something like a little bit

different colour because that is wet.

That corner looks like...

All wall size.

-This whole, this whole wall...

-Yes, yes.

-..you feel gets wet?

And is this when it rains or is it all the time?

All the time. All the time.

When it's raining, it's much, much, much worse.

-It's like that.

-You've got bits of paint peeling off, yeah.

-It's wet.

-I see.

See, this is a house that looks in perfect decorative order, really,

until you start looking a little bit closer.

And certainly the walls do feel damp and do feel moist.

Is it dangerous? Cos if it's not dangerous, it doesn't concern us.

If it's cosmetically not up to scratch,

that's really not our concern.

That's between the tenant and the landlord.

We're looking for health and safety risks.

VOICEOVER: And it's not long before

we're spotting signs of damp in the kitchen.

Eva, can you tell me about this bit?

-Yeah.

-What happens here?

-If it rains, it's wet.

-Right.

-Over here is wet, very wet. Wet.

Even without a leak, the kitchen is one of

the most common rooms for damp and mould to strike.

Eva's even taken pictures of the water getting in.

-So this is that corner there.

-Yes.

When it rains, you say that water comes down in the corner?

-Yeah, leaking like this.

-OK.

But if you touch, when you press a little bit...

OK, so all of that's coming away there.

This can't be a good environment for anyone.

Children are amongst the most vulnerable

to the effects of damp and mould.

Upstairs, things are even worse.

In the last two months, maybe three,

I'm not sleep in my bedroom because it's completely wet.

Everything. Over there, over there.

Moving at here.

Wet up here. Completely wet.

Eva, if you're not here, if you're not sleeping,

where do you sleep now?

My husband sleeps on the floor in the kids' room.

-I sleep with my daughter in my bed...in her bed.

-OK.

It's troubling that Eva and her husband

don't even feel like they can sleep in their own bedroom.

That is mould. Every day, over there, is mould.

The question is, why is there so much damp in this property?

What do you make of this so far, Steve, from what you've seen?

Um, well, clearly there's evidence of damp penetration into the house

in various parts of the building.

We're looking for the obvious signs -

failure of the roof, rainwater goods damage.

Is there penetrating damp, rising damp, things like that?

While Steve carries on with the inspection,

I want to hear what living in this place has been like

for Eva and her family.

How is it for you, trying to raise your family in this home right now?

It's so horrible for my family, especially for my children,

because my son, he's nearly seven and he is

asking me, "Mama, why can't I sleep in your bed?"

I tell him, "Because is damp, it's not healthy for you."

My daughter, she has the asthma

and she has a very strong allergy for the mould and damp.

And it sounds like this place is just the latest

in a long line of properties the family has lived in.

Six months ago, I changed property again.

How many times have you moved?

-Four times.

-So this is your fourth time to move in five years?

-Yes.

I can only imagine what a strain this must be.

Not only are Eva's kids suffering,

the constant moving and now living in a home that's riddled with damp

has taken its toll on Eva, too.

My health, it's...

I have depression, and...

Couple weeks ago, I called for the 111,

ambulance coming, because I have a strong depression

and I can't breathe, because I have too, too big stress

and I'm too big nervous about everything.

It's clear this is not just about the physical effects

of living in a damp house. It's the emotional impact, too -

something that's, sadly, all too common.

What I would say is I don't think you're unlucky.

I think there are a lot of people in the same situation as you,

and people who are struggling at the moment

to make a proper, permanent home in rented accommodation.

Whatever the reasons for the damp here,

something needs to be done about it, and soon.

So we've covered most of the issues...

..so now what we need to do is go and talk to the landlord

to see what he has to say about it.

I can't help feeling sorry for this family

and the emotional pressure they seem to be under.

You know, you could walk into this house

and you'd think, "These are minor problems,"

because cosmetically this house looks fine.

Actually, when you dig down and you hear from Eva

what the family has been through

and the changes of rental properties that they've had to go through,

the waste of money that goes with that,

the disruption to their kids and to their family life...

It's like the damp in here is just, like, the very tip of the story.

It sounds like Steve has made some progress.

We have managed to talk to the agent about it.

So the damp that was running down the wall into the kitchen,

-apparently there's a piece of flashing missing.

-OK.

So, clearly, when it's raining, it's coming straight through.

The agent has agreed that they're going to get a contractor out today

to arrange to come round and piece in that bit of flashing.

Then we've got the issue of this wall,

and it seems almost everywhere on this wall, on the inside...

..there is an issue with damp,

which has forced them to move out of those rooms...

..at least partially, for a time, so that feels like a bigger problem.

About three months ago, according to the agent, they've rendered it,

so we need to go and talk to the landlord, the agent,

and see how that job was done, and what type of render they used,

and was it done correctly?

We do have a landlord who, at least on the surface,

appears to be willing to do the work.

I mean, it does appear to be in good order inside and out,

apart from these issues, so that's a big plus.

But the big minus is you've got a family inside

who have been through the wars.

Our job, unfortunately,

isn't about rectifying what's gone wrong in the past,

so we can't ignore that,

but from our point of view as housing enforcers,

not too much we can do at the moment,

as long as the landlord is trying reasonable works to rectify it.

-You've got to give them the chance.

-Yeah.

Well, the landlord told us he acted

as soon as he knew about the damp problem,

and was in the process of fixing it when we visited.

He says the property needs to be properly ventilated,

and has given Eva and her family a dehumidifier

to help deal with the damp.

It's thought that there are almost a quarter of a million

overcrowded households in the UK private rental sector.

Cramped, unfit conditions and bedroom sharing

can see basic living standards plummet

and serious health risks rise.

Yeah, definitely - overcrowding is not good for people's health.

Too many people in one sort of area I don't think is a good thing.

Emotionally, I think you do need a bit of space and physically, yeah,

so I can imagine if you're all rammed into single, small rooms

then there's obviously just a health issue, generally.

I don't think the number of people really counts.

If there are too many people, or less people, it doesn't matter,

but everybody should keep your hygiene level high.

I'm fortunate, I've got a nice home,

but I could appreciate for other people it would be important

that you have space and health and wellbeing where you live.

In the West Midlands,

housing officer Richard Hawkins is making a return visit to a house

that first appeared on the council's radar when a neighbour reported

an excessive number of people moving in.

We're going down into Oldbury now to have a look at a house

that a landlord rented out to one person,

and then he decided to rent it out to a lot of people.

The landlord wasn't aware. And, unfortunately,

it's put him in a predicament where the house is now not safe

because there's so many people crammed in there.

Richard's worried that the overcrowding

is posing a serious fire risk to the Eastern European tenants.

We've asked the landlord to put some temporary smoke detectors

in the property to try and lower the risk.

Richard's priority is to do a thorough check of the property

to ensure the work has actually been done.

So we're looking at the safety of the building

with regard to fire regulations. We're also looking at the safety

of the tenants that are in the property.

At the house, the police have already arrived.

There are only two men at home,

who explain they've come to work in the UK.

Is there anything they'd like to ask around why we've come today

or anything at all we might be able to help them with?

SHE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

While the tenants talk to the police through a translator,

Richard checks what's been done to make the house safe.

One of the things that I'm here for

which concerned me when I last came here

is that this room wasn't a living room.

It was actually being used as a bedroom.

So we've got a sofa back here now,

which is obviously an improvement on my last visit.

Richard wants the house returned to a single family use,

so that's an encouraging sign.

I mean, we do actually have, and what looks like could possibly be,

a fire door here to cut the kitchen off,

but there's no closers, anything like that.

That's fine if it's a single family home,

but as soon as you start to have a situation

where you've got an absolute mass of people all living together,

the risk goes through the roof of there being a fire,

and that's when you do need to start having proper fire doors put in.

You need to start having proper fire detectors.

Designed to give residents time to escape

by slowing down the spread of a blaze,

fire doors could be the difference between life and death,

but what about the alarms?

We've had some temporary smokes put in since I last visited,

which is a good start.

Ooh, and we've had a room cleared out!

When I last came into this room, last week,

there was a fridge freezer here,

there was another fridge freezer here,

and they've obviously cleared that out.

There were beds. There were multiple beds.

Yeah, it makes you wonder where all that stuff has gone.

Oh, hang on!

Oh, and look, I think you can see where the fridge has got to!

So they haven't actually been removed from the building,

they've just been migrated into the back garden.

I would have thought if you're going to tidy it up for show,

you'd do a better job than putting everything in the back garden.

The neighbour has spotted some vermin.

On closer inspection...

Well, it looks like a rat's paradise.

Well, yeah,

not only have we got mattresses and things for rats to hide in,

but we've also got a rather lovely food source in the sense that

we've got a shopping basket full of potatoes out here, as well.

Putting potatoes in the open air in your back garden,

you're going to be getting mice, you're going to be getting rats.

And then you've got a mattress for them to burrow into

and go to sleep afterwards.

So they've pretty much set up a rodent hotel

in their back garden, by doing that.

It's looking like things may not have progressed

as well as Richard hoped.

Later on, he discovers there are some other

serious safety issues in the property.

I'm not going to touch anything cos I don't want to be electrocuted,

but we've got European plugs being forced into UK sockets.

Carbon monoxide poisoning claims around 20 lives every year,

often due to faulty gas boilers in the home,

and rented properties are particularly at risk.

But there are some simple steps you can take

to avoid being part of that statistic.

I know that carbon monoxide is dangerous,

but I'm not too sure how...

..it works, where it comes from and stuff like that,

I'm not too sure about that.

It kills you!

You know, you go to bed and you don't wake up. End of discussion!

I do have a detector for carbon monoxide

in the bedrooms where my children are, yeah.

It's a silent killer.

And it can get you while you're sleeping...

..so we always check on that when we go on holiday.

I'm in Oldbury, working with housing officer Christina Bartholomew.

We're responding to a complaint from a tenant

in a privately-rented property.

Right, tell me where we're going. What's happening?

Today, we're going to a property which has a problem with the boiler.

Somebody's been out to have a look at the boiler,

but they weren't Gas Safe registered.

Why is she suspicious of the work he's done?

I think it's mainly the fact

that he's been doing other work within the property,

and he just did this as a sort of side-line

-to the other work he was doing.

-Right.

-So she thinks he's a little bit "ooh", a little bit "er".

-Yes.

It's just to find out what the situation is

until we can figure out whether another gas engineer

-needs to go out to redo the inspection.

-Sure.

It could be a major safety issue.

Faulty or badly-maintained gas boilers

can give off potentially lethal levels of carbon monoxide.

You can't see it, taste it or smell it,

but it kills around 20 people every year...

..so Christina takes any report of dodgy boiler repairs very seriously.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-How you doing, you all right? I'm Matt.

-Hi.

-Christina.

-Good to see you.

-I've been speaking to you on the phone.

-Is it all right to come in?

-Yeah, come in.

-Thank you very much.

Did you say that a gas contractor had been out?

The last time it's been done was 2008.

This is worrying.

Boilers should be serviced every 12 months

by a registered Gas Safe engineer, but judging by the sticker,

this one hasn't been touched for over a decade.

Did somebody come out and have a look and they did some other...?

I've never seen anything Gas Safe on any of his vehicles.

-I've never seen anything hanging from his neck.

-No.

-He's just a cowboy, if you ask me.

-He's just a bloke?

-Yeah.

With no evidence of a proper boiler check,

we need to find out who's been put at risk here.

Is it just you that's...? Who's living here with you?

The landlord's allowing people to move in, and then...

-So it's not just...

-..hundreds of people coming and going.

You never know who's going to be here.

So it's actually a House in Multiple Occupation,

rather than just being a single household,

which we originally thought.

-No.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

It's a worrying turn of events.

HMOs need to meet strict safety regulations,

because of the greater number of residents.

If they fail to do so, they can be shut down.

When we were talking in the car,

-it sounded like we were coming to a single residence.

-Yes.

Now it seems like a House in Multiple Occupation,

with people coming and going,

people not knowing who's in the home at the same time.

-It feels like we need to do more than just look at the boiler.

-Yeah.

We need to have a look round

and just see how many people are living here

and if they've got adequate provisions, fire safety.

The general state of repair of the whole place

says to me that this is something that we need to spend time

-really working out what happens to people here if things go wrong.

-Yes.

And that's the scary thing about an HMO.

You can find yourself living with people you don't even know

and, potentially, trusting them with your life.

What are your options if you weren't here, Jay?

-Cos it sounds like a bad place to be for you.

-I want to get out.

-Yeah.

-I really do want to get out of here. It's not safe for the missus.

But the landlord, all he's interested in is money.

It's all he's ever interested in.

Right.

Whatever Jay's issues with the landlord, you don't have to look far

to see that this could be an unsafe place to live in.

Straight away, this is a building that doesn't feel right.

There's no door to the kitchen, for instance.

This is the most likely room for a fire to start.

If it starts here, there's no reason why

it can't spread to the rest of the house

because there isn't a fire door to give you proper separation

and a chance of containing that fire while everybody leaves.

It's a terrifying thought.

All it takes is for someone else to forget to turn off the cooker

while you're tucked up in bed.

We need to carry out a thorough inspection of this property.

Shall we start in your bedroom...

-Yeah, yeah.

-..Jay, if that's all right?

Now, that's all the damp on the bay window.

So we've got damp on the bay window, and what do you do?

-Do you wipe that off occasionally?

-Yeah, I've wiped it off recently.

I mean, you can see it's all cracking there.

-This is your heater that you've brought in.

-Yeah.

That's the only form of heating we've got.

-Right.

-Without that, we'd be freezing to death.

These walls do get, like, damp, though,

because I've had to put cardboard behind the bed

-to stop the bed from getting wet.

-Yeah, right.

Conditions are looking pretty grim for Jay,

and upstairs, Christina inspects another tenant's bedroom.

He doesn't want to be on camera, but what she finds out isn't good.

There's no window restrictor on the window,

so there's a possibility, with a low sill, that he could fall out.

The radiator doesn't work, does it?

Also, there was the faulty light switch,

so you have to put your finger right inside it to switch it on.

Right, OK.

Like Jay, this tenant is also worried

about living in a property full of strangers.

The amount of tenants that have come and gone is quite...

-You never know who...

-Quite a high turnover.

-Quite a high turnover.

-You don't really know who's in the house at any given time.

-Exactly.

But the tenant has other concerns too.

How long before any action's taken?

Discussed with him?

It will be immediate action.

The only thing that's bothering me, if any action's taken,

am I going to end up with nowhere to live?

Yeah, obviously, that's going to be a concern.

We would contact the Housing Options team

so you wouldn't be in that situation.

-To get you out, they need to give you two months' notice.

-Mm.

He needs to go through the formal process of evicting you,

if that's what he wants to do, and there's a process for that.

-Um, OK.

-OK?

-That's as many rooms as we're going to get in today.

That's all we're going to get into today, I think.

This really is an HMO horror story, with...

Add all that up and you've got the perfect recipe for disaster.

But it's that boiler that's of immediate concern, so we give Jay

a potentially life-saving carbon monoxide detector.

The carbon monoxide detector has now been installed.

The worry being that if we've got somebody that...

If that started leaking, we'd all die silently.

It's exactly how Jay just described it. That's... That's spot on.

With so many hazards in the property,

Christina only has one option.

Hi, Gary, it's Christina here.

I came out to this one thinking it was a single occupancy household,

but it's an HMO,

and it's got everything wrong with it under the sun,

and I need to serve a notice, I think, on this one.

Thank you very much. OK, bye. Bye.

Christina is looking to serve a notice under the Housing Act,

giving the landlord a list of work to be completed in the property

to make it safe, including that boiler.

If it's ignored, enforcement action could be taken.

It's easy to make judgments about people

and about the way that they live,

but actually what was going on in that house

was nothing to do with the people living there.

The reason that they weren't safe

is purely because of the state of that house

and that's got to come back to the landlord, I'm afraid.

Such a lot of work to do in that place, but it starts here.

Jay's landlord told us the boiler had been serviced annually

by a qualified engineer, and he hadn't been told about any problems.

He says a small leak was recently found,

which has now been fixed.

He says that new smoke detectors and a fire door have now been fitted

and he's fixing all electrics and window restrictors.

He wants to maintain a good relationship

with his tenants in the future.

As we've just seen,

it's vital to know that the boiler in your home is serviced and safe.

Someone who knows this very well is Amanda Handy.

In March 2013, she decided to spend Mother's Day with her kids

at her late mum's home in Northamptonshire.

We were cooking a Sunday roast dinner in the kitchen.

The children were playing in the conservatory,

which was open to where we were, so we were all together that morning.

As the morning progressed and dinner was cooking,

I remember not feeling 100%, developing a headache.

My young daughter complained that she was feeling poorly.

She'd got a bad head and she'd got a stuffy nose, sort of thing.

My son then started to say, yes, his head hurt, as well.

Unsurprisingly, Amanda believed that she and the kids

might be coming down with something.

The symptoms were so much like a common cold or flu.

You know, you felt a bit lethargic,

you felt as if you'd got a head cold,

you'd got a headache, you felt a little bit dizzy,

so nothing that I'd have put down to anything other than

we were all coming down with a virus of some sort.

But it wasn't long before things took a turn for the worse.

And I can remember my daughter, who was six at the time,

loved her Sunday roasts, but she sat at the table next to me

and could hardly... Well, couldn't hold her head up off the table.

It soon became clear something was seriously wrong.

It just wasn't a standard headache.

You just wanted to put your head in your hands

because you just couldn't cope with the pain that you were having.

As soon as Amanda arrived home, her stepfather called.

He thought there'd been a problem with the boiler

and he'd called the gas board out, who advised him to turn the gas off.

Something in the back of my mind must have rung,

whether I'd watched a programme or heard something.

I googled our symptoms and put in what we were doing,

and carbon monoxide poisoning came up.

Carbon monoxide is produced when fuel doesn't burn properly,

usually from badly fitted or poorly maintained appliances

like boilers or gas hobs.

With around 20 people dying from carbon monoxide poisoning

each year, Amanda knew she had to get to the hospital fast.

The thought that, you know, something could happen to me

is bad enough, yet something that could happen to my children

is extremely scary.

You know, no parent wants to lose a child.

As soon as we got there,

we were seen by a nurse and a doctor that took arterial blood from us,

so blood from an artery rather than a vein,

and within 10, 15 minutes of us having that blood,

it was confirmed that we did in fact have carbon monoxide poisoning.

They did say to us, had we stayed, had we fallen asleep,

that we may not have woken up that day.

I thank my lucky stars every day,

because I know, had we stayed there for another few hours,

the doctors have said to us,

you know, I wouldn't be sitting here today and telling you my story.

Thankfully, after a few days, Amanda and her kids were back to normal.

As well as having regular boiler checks,

she's now taking extra steps to make sure it can never happen again.

We have our carbon monoxide alarm.

It's situated in our kitchen, because our boiler is in the kitchen

and our gas hob is in the kitchen,

so you need to have your alarms where your gas appliances are.

They need testing, a bit like a fire alarm or a smoke alarm does,

so you need to test them at least once a week.

If I press that button,

you will hear the sound that it makes when you test it.

ALARM BLEEPS SHRILLY

And that's the sound that it will emit

if you have a carbon monoxide leak in your house.

The only way that you know if there is carbon monoxide in your house

is by having a carbon monoxide alarm.

And it is something that we should all have,

because it is something you can't see and you can't smell,

and you won't know it's in the air.

Back in the West Midlands,

housing officer Richard is with the police,

investigating a house that was so overcrowded

it was becoming a health hazard inside and out.

On his last visit,

Richard ordered the landlord to turn it back into a single-family home.

He's checking to see if they've complied.

One of the neighbours explained to the police officer

that tenants were picked up this morning in a white van,

and taken off to work.

He counts around about nine people as well living in the property.

If they're still here, where are they sleeping?

Richard's right to be worried.

This is a two-bedroom terraced house,

obviously not suitable or safe for up to nine people.

Which room's he sleeping in?

WOMAN TRANSLATES

-Here. Look here.

-He sleeps here?

SHE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

So, the landlord's cleared the bed away...

..for us to see, but obviously he's still...

He doesn't have a bed still,

so he's still... He's basically sleeping on the sofa.

It's a depressing thought,

but the lack of comfortable sleeping quarters

is actually the least of Richard's concerns.

I think that's a bit of a bin bag wrapped round it...

..and some electrical tape.

That there is the back part...

..of the actual plug socket.

These botched electrics could easily kill someone.

This situation...

I'm not going to touch anything cos I don't want to get electrocuted,

but we've got...

Where European plugs are being forced into UK sockets.

It's just showing and highlighting

the kind of dangers that we're facing here.

That's breathtakingly dangerous.

The tenant can't use the plugs like that.

The general state of disrepair in the property is appalling.

Really, the landlord should be coming into the property

at least once a month, I would say. It's not being properly checked.

And it's not only the state of the electrics that's shocking.

With around nine people crammed into a two-bedroomed house,

the kitchen and bathroom facilities aren't built to cope.

Not only that, it isn't clear where the fire escape routes are.

We've just come into... This is the front bedroom on the first floor.

Now, with this window, it's only got a top opener, which is really small,

but we don't have anything larger.

You can't really climb out through there.

If there's a fire in this room, you can't escape through the window,

so you've got to go down through the property, and you're trapped.

With blocked escape routes and inadequate fire safety measures,

this house could be a death trap.

This door, it's much thinner than it should be, and there's also...

On a fire door, you should see a strip within the door,

and that's what we're looking for here.

You'd be lucky if this lasted 30 seconds. I mean, look at it.

ALARM BEEPS

The tenants' health and safety could clearly be at risk here.

The living conditions aren't ideal.

They're not of the standard that we would expect people to be living in,

regardless of what their expectations are

and how happy they are.

What we will do from here is use other partner agencies,

as well as ourselves, to further investigate.

For now, though,

with this place falling short of acceptable safety standards,

Richard's decided on his course of action.

We're going to move forward now by serving a notice to the landlord

to tell him what repairs do need to be done,

to make him clear that the property needs to be used

as a single family home

or he needs to put extra precautions and security in.

Following Richard's second inspection,

all the tenants moved out of the property.

The house and garden were cleared,

with the aim of turning it back into a single family residence.

Every year, around 70 people in the UK are killed by faulty electrics.

There's often confusion about who has responsibility

for electrical safety in a rented property.

Well, by law, your landlord does,

and it's housing officers that are there to enforce that law.

My father used to insist on not only switching off at the power point,

but also disconnecting all the cables, so, yeah, yeah,

I'm very aware of electrical safety.

-We're quite careful, really, aren't we?

-Yeah.

You know, trying not to use things if we're not there.

That's one of the... I think that helps.

Yeah, I turn everything off at night by the switch, anyway.

I don't leave anything on stand-by cos I don't trust them, personally.

Like, I have three kids.

I have to make sure that everything is safe for them.

I don't believe you can cut corners

on things like safety, not for anyone.

In Sandwell, I'm with housing officer Neena Varma,

heading to a family house that has some seriously faulty electrics.

This resident is worried she and her children could be electrocuted.

She's happy for the house to be filmed,

but she doesn't want to be identified.

Good morning, you all right? It's Neena Varma from...

That's great, thank you.

-Thank you.

-Thank you so much.

So the tenant's talking about getting shocks

-from some of the electrics.

-That's right, yes.

I mean, straight away, that's quite worrying.

It is worrying, very worrying.

And that's because electric shocks can cause nasty burns

and, in extreme cases, even stop your heart beating.

Let's not forget, there are small children living here too.

So can we have a look at the consumer unit?

The consumer unit there.

It's RCD protected, which you can see.

And it confirms it,

because the lady says that sometimes the electrics trip.

Well, it's a bit of a mystery, but one we need to get to the bottom of.

We have to investigate that.

It could potentially be because the sockets are defective,

and they may need changing or attention.

Residential properties like these usually have

just one main electrical consumer unit

which feeds power around the house, but the tenant has noticed

there's another unit behind the downstairs loo.

OK. That's...

That's weird. Could I have a look at that, please?

That is really weird. I've not known that.

I need to look at that.

-OK, so we've got...

-So you've got a separate consumer unit.

-..a separate consumer unit here.

-For what? For upstairs?

-So this one is for downstairs, we think.

-Yeah.

-And the other one possibly for upstairs.

-Upstairs.

As if they were once two flats, or something like that?

Potentially, could have been, but...

-Then you'd expect the other unit to be upstairs.

-Upstairs, yeah.

In all my years with the housing enforcers,

I've never seen two fuse boxes in one house.

You've got a consumer unit in the front of the house

which is perfectly big enough...

-Absolutely.

-..for a house of this size. I don't know whether it's...

I don't know whether it's dangerous or it's...

It feels, like, over-engineered.

You've got too many consumer units for a house of this size.

Why would you have two?

That's something that is beyond my understanding, why...

-And me.

-..there is two.

We soon spot another hazard -

this time, in the kitchen.

-We have a gas cooker which is clearly being used.

-Yeah.

-And it's right next to the wall.

-Yeah, you're quite right, Matt,

that you are supposed to have at least a 300 millimetre worktop

-to both sides.

-Yeah.

Having a hob and cooker backing straight onto the wall

is a recipe for disaster, but that's not all.

-The thing that really catches my eye...

-The electrics.

..is we've got an electric socket which is being...

You know, has got one of those big plug dividers in it, right above...

-..a gas...

-Gas cooker.

-..ring,

and the lead is going straight down, next, past the gas ring,

which is just asking for...

It's the double whammy, isn't it?

-That's right.

-The gas sets light to the electrics...

-Correct.

You really shouldn't be cooking your plugs alongside your tea.

In fact, the kitchen is quite the hazard hotspot.

-Have you noticed this?

-Yeah, I mean, again.

This, again, is dangerous.

Apart from the microwave,

there's only one other socket in the kitchen that's actually working.

OK, so when you put it in there, you get flashes of light?

I need to use it.

We'll get this matter addressed,

but, for the interim, you need to stop doing this.

It seems this house is full of electrical hazards,

and things don't get any better in the lounge.

-Is that a crack in the socket?

-It's a problem.

How does it...?

Is it the sparks, you were saying? Don't use it.

Yeah? We're going to get it checked out.

And there's a real shock awaiting us the kids' bedroom.

Oh, my God. OK.

Can you see what's going on here?

-OK, so we've got, basically, a builder's cable drum...

-Yeah.

..coming straight out of the socket here.

-Is that cos you don't want to use the socket, in and out?

-Yeah.

-I see.

You'll get sparks from putting it in and out, so rather than that,

leave it in, use the socket, use the cable drum.

That's what you're doing?

Cable drums must be uncoiled to avoid overheating and risk of fire.

This property's crammed with dodgy electrics.

And if that wasn't bad enough, it looks like water's getting in.

Not a good combination.

The back wall is actually visibly wet.

It's just saturated against the wall and it's just seeping in, isn't it?

I think we've seen enough.

We've got the children in the house right now.

We have damp and wet walls here and obviously, you know,

electrics throughout that they're old enough to use,

so that's worrying. The effect of an electric shock on a child

is much greater than it is on an adult.

There's a family with kids being put at risk in this property.

It's a combination of the defects in the home

and the way she's being forced to use the home

-that are actually the scary bits.

-Absolutely.

-The kitchen, particularly.

-Yes.

You know, we've got that cooker there

with the burner right next to that big cluster of electric cables.

-Cables, yes.

-And you just look at that, straight away, and you went,

-"Please stop using this now."

-This is why I said this to her.

So, next steps, get in touch with the letting agent?

-Absolutely.

-Ask some probing questions.

Probing is the underlining word. Absolutely.

-Come on, then, Neena.

-OK.

Well, the mystery of that extra consumer unit is still to be solved,

but the landlord has been served with a notice

requiring them to complete the necessary work,

which should help to ensure the safety of the family living there.

Right, ready.

In the London Borough of Havering,

it's council estate patrol day for Lorraine and Nick.

-There.

-Yeah, look.

It's their job to make sure communal spaces are treated with respect

by all the neighbours, and one issue that gets up people's noses

more than any other is dog poo.

We often get reports of lots of dogs

fouling the greenery area,

and I've just come and inspected it so we can send block letters out

to remind people to pick up after their dogs.

With more than 73,000 complaints made to UK councils

about dog fouling in one year,

it's a health hazard that officers can't ignore.

It's disgusting. It's health and safety.

You wouldn't want to let your children out to play

on the green areas with all this around.

If there's pregnant people on the estate,

this could affect their unborn child.

And it's just not...

It's not very nice in this day and age.

You should learn to be able to be a responsible pet owner.

Lorraine, I agree.

Coming into contact with it can be an easy way

for children to be infected with parasites.

Whilst the vast majority of owners do pick up after their pets,

those who don't are breaking their tenancy conditions,

and could be fined.

To hammer home the message, Nick's getting a visual record.

There are a lot of children on these estates, so the problem that I see

is that the parents aren't going to let them play out

because they know that this is out there

and that they're going to end up stepping in it

and if they fall over, they could get it on their clothes,

on their skin, or even into their eyes.

One of the undertakings

is to make sure you clean up after your dog, and...

..if you're not a responsible pet owner, you shouldn't have a dog.

-She's got a bag handy.

-Yeah, she's got a bag, so she's quite a...

..a good dog owner.

But their estate patrol soon turns up something else

that hasn't been disposed of properly.

This is something that will probably be looked into.

Again, letters may need to go out to the tenants of the blocks around,

reminding them that they're not allowed to fly-tip.

Not only could this fly-tip attract vermin and pose a fire risk,

it's a magnet for anti-social behaviour, too.

What with it being a sofa,

we have lots of problems with drug addicts in the area...

..drunks in the area,

and they'll see this as a place where they can socialise.

Dumping rubbish illegally can lead to prosecution, but, for now,

the housing officers will get this sofa and the dog mess removed,

and warning letters will give tenants a chance

to clean up their act.

Lorraine's got one more job to take Nick on today -

checking a fire safety hazard at a neighbouring tower block.

All the councils in the UK have asked tenants

to remove iron security gates from their front doors.

They could trap tenants in their flats

and stop fire officers gaining entry in an emergency.

In this block, all the tenants have removed them, except one.

SHE KNOCKS ON DOOR

-I know you've had letters to remove this...

-Yeah.

..because it is health and safety.

The Government has asked that all these be removed on tower blocks.

Well, I have spoke to them about that. I ain't taking that down.

Because my kids keep undoing the door and getting out there.

-Right, well...

-They keep getting into the stairwells.

-Right, I'll...

-And I've had three, four drug dealers

nearly kicked my door down when I first moved in,

asking me that I had drugs in here,

so I don't know who lived here before.

And my keys are here at all times.

If... I mean, if push comes to shove,

-we will have to get an injunction.

-Then they can move me.

-OK.

-Right.

She won't remove the gate.

It's going to be up to us now to enforce it.

The woman's understandably worried about her children's safety,

but, with all the other tenants in the block

following new fire guidelines,

it looks like the council may have to take further action.

Although she tells me her key's right near the door,

now she's locked that door,

that's still going to add minutes

to her getting out the property,

which could be a life or death situation.

She said she's got four young kids.

I'd want to make sure I could get out of that flat pretty damn quick.

It's been a busy day for Lorraine and Nick,

but ultimately their patrol has made these housing estates

a little bit safer for the tenants.

Since filming, the council say they're moving ahead

with an injunction to get the gate removed.

Well, as we've just seen,

being a housing officer means a daily dose of tough choices

and difficult decisions.

But it's all in a day's work for the men and women

fighting to ensure we can enjoy safe and hazard-free places to call home.

Join me again next time.

I'll be back on the front line with the housing enforcers.