A woman and son, whose flat was damaged in a fatal fire at a Bristol tower block, have locked themselves in a hotel room after being told by councillors they must return to their old flat. This is despite doctors recommending they be housed elsewhere following a PTSD diagnosis for both of them.
Selma Muuse - who had to escape the fire at Twinnell House with her young son back in September - says she cannot leave her hotel room at the Travelodge in the city centre because staff won’t let her back in - and they even refused to let friends bring her food and turned off the electricity and water supply to the room for a time on Saturday. Bristol City Council have offered her new accommodation but the only suitable home uushe has been offered will not be ready-until mid-December.
Ms Muuse has been told her flat in Twinnell House has been repaired and that she should return there while she waits for her new home in Barton Hill. However, she says she and her son are too traumatised to return to the scene of the fire - which claimed the life of her neighbour on the top floor, Abdul Jabar Oryakhel - and is worried that by refusing to return to her old flat the council will say she has made herself "intentionally homeless".
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She said: “I cannot believe that I am still dealing with this, that I am still being put under a lot of stress and worry, and that I am still having to plead my case in this state of mind,” she said. “I have shared my experience on the night of the fire and how this has changed my life and my son’s life completely - I am still under psychological care,” she added.
“My situation has not changed - I have nowhere to go with my child. I find it insensitive to mention Twinnell House as a temporary accommodation. It is highly triggering, which affects my mood and starts flashbacks of the night we almost lost our lives. I keep being put in the same predicament, which is being forced out of the hotel by police or security.
“I’m willing to move into the flat in Barton Hill even if the repairs are still going on,” she added. “All I’m asking for is to be moved into temporary accommodation or to this flat in Barton Hill."
“What happened in the fire has been very traumatic, but what has happened since with Bristol City Council has been just as traumatic,” she added.
Bristol City Council said they will decline to comment on individual housing cases.
Ms Muuse made the decision on Saturday (Nov 19) not to leave the hotel room, which led to Travelodge staff turning off the utilities and preventing friends from delivering food to her and her son. This decision has now been reversed.
On October 13, Selma attended a meeting of worried tower block residents in Easton and Barton Hill organised by tenants and the community union ACORN. She gave her account of how she escaped the flames, and said then she was too traumatised to return. Mayor Marvin Rees and housing chief Cllr Tom Renhard were invited to attend the meeting, but were empty-chaired after declining the invite.
A spokesperson for Travelodge said: “We are sympathetic to Ms Muuse’s situation but we are a hotel business that provides short term accommodation and we cannot offer Ms Muuse the long term support that she needs.
We are sincerely sorry to Ms Muuse and her son for the isolated incident of providing no utility services for an hour on Saturday. This action was undertaken by error and is against our operational policies. We are taking the appropriate action with the hotel team to ensure that this type of incident does not occur again.
Bristol City Council has directly informed us that they will not extend Ms Muuse’s booking, as they have found alternative accommodation to suit Ms Muuse and her son’s needs. Therefore Ms Muuse is now in breach of our terms and conditions as she is a non-paying guest. However as a gesture of goodwill we have extended Ms Muuse’s booking by a few days and are intervening to support Ms Muuse come to an amicable agreement with Bristol City Council for her long term accommodation needs.”
Back on October 28, Bristol Live reported how Selma had been moved around five different hotels in the month since the fatal fire. A week earlier, another fire in a block of flats happened in Barton Hill. Residents were again evacuated and looked after in a church hall nearby, and that morning, Thursday, October 20, Selma said she went to help and took the opportunity to approach the Mayor, Marvin Rees, about her own situation, which had still not been resolved following the fire at Twinnell House almost a month earlier. She said the mayor listened to her and told her the way she had been treated by the council’s housing officers was 'disgusting' and he vowed to sort out her situation.
After the Mayor’s intervention things began moving again, but got even worse again quickly. She was initially offered a flat in Hartcliffe, but was advised by the same housing boss not to take it, and then she was moved to a different hotel. Several times in the last week of October, the council stopped paying the bill and Selma and her son said they had to remain inside the room and refuse to leave, with hotel staff and security trying to evict them.
Eventually, after a further week and more pressure from Bristol Live to sort out Selma’s situation, a fortnight ago she was offered an alternative home in Barton Hill, but was told it wouldn’t be ready until mid-December. At the beginning of November, Bristol Live’s inquiries about her ongoing situation prompted council housing officers to again step back and agree to pay for her accommodation in the hotel for another fortnight, from November 4.
That ended last Friday, November 18, with still no resolution agreed over where - if anywhere - Selma and her son would be housed when she left the hotel, because she said council housing officers were still saying she could temporarily move back to her old flat in Twinnell House until the new home in Barton Hill is ready.
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