A man with a severe medical condition that causes pain and extreme tiredness has claimed his landlord let his bathroom become a "depressing hell".
William Carr, from Hull, currently lives in private accommodation that offers support and care services to help people facing a range of challenges, reported Hull Live.
Mr Carr said that for almost a year the state of his bathroom has been left completely unliveable - so much so that he is forced to use his friend's bathroom every time he needs a shower.
He has fibromyalgia, which is an incurable condition that causes extreme fatigue and increased sensitivity to pain.
Paying the housing association £326 monthly for rent - which is inclusive of all the support services it offers - he said the condition he now lives in has become "depressing as hell".
Soon after moving in, he alleged noticing the tiles on his bathroom walls were not properly stuck on. Soon after, they started completely peeling off and smashing onto the floor.
He said: "The tiles just started falling off and breaking on me. Sometimes I would go down in the middle of the night and have to stand on broken tiles. So I took the rest of the tiles off myself but it was so damaged that I didn't need any tools to take them off, they came off in my hands.
"It is the same with the flooring, there is a massive hole and after I reported it, they said it was just soft vinyl but I took it off to show them there was a hole underneath but nothing was done about it."
The whole situation caused Mr Carr a lot of grief, adding that given his personal circumstances with his disability, the state of his home left him feeling miserable.
He added: "I can't do any washing up in my own bathroom now, the floor is full of holes and the bricks are exposed since the tiles have fallen off, I feel like it would do more damage if I tried using it. The bath is also sinking, the sealant around it is cracking and it is actually collapsing in on itself.
"The wall next to the bath is filled with offcuts of mouldy drywall and plasterboard, so when the council's occupational therapist came in, they said they could not attach the safety handrail I need because it would simply peel off the wall."
Speaking about how he faced difficulty every time he wanted to shower, he said: "It is difficult, I can't just shower when I need to or want to, if I want to get to my friend's they need to be there and be able to help.
"It is depressing as hell being here, there has been progress made recently but the thing that keeps bringing me down is that I'm stuck in this place because I am disabled. I can't really get out very often."
In response, Thirteen Group, which owned and acted as landlords at Turner Court, claimed it had tried to resolve the situation with Mr Carr on several occasions.
Thirteen’s executive director of customer services David Ripley said: "The comfort and wellbeing of our customers is our priority at Thirteen. We welcomed Mr Carr as one of our new customers from his former landlord in July 2021.
"We pride ourselves on excellent customer service, so we’ve worked closely with our customers to ensure they have had support from day one. As part of the support we provide, we carry out thorough inspections to ensure that our customers’ homes are in the condition that they were at the start of their tenancy agreement.
"Following reports from Mr Carr in June 2022, colleagues and contractors have visited and attempted to visit his home a number of times to attend to repairs and the damp that has been reported. Whilst it is clear there has been damage to the bathroom there are discrepancies between Mr Carr and ourselves as to how and when this has occurred, although we are in the process of replacing the damaged bathroom suite and are just awaiting a date to finalise it with Mr Carr.
"With regards to the damp, we are working with our specialist building surveyors to diagnose the extent from the reports we received in early July.
"We want our customers to enjoy their home. So, as part of our offer to provide a free responsive repairs service, we ask our customers in return to always be at home for their appointments, to take responsibility for any repairs which haven’t been caused by fair wear and tear and to take pride in their home by keeping it clean, neat, tidy and well maintained. By doing so we can work in partnership to rectify issues as soon as we can."
