Today I joined some other bloggers to lend fellow blogger Clara from I Want My Mummy a painting hand following last week’s Help post. I had seen Clara’s photo of the council house that her family had been given but I thought I’d take my own. Bear in mind that Clara has received the maximum £25 per room decorating allowance vouchers – that’s to cover decorating stuff so stuff to clean the rooms, decorate, varnish the floorboards and so on. Have a look at these and see what you think … and to keep things perfectly fair these are all unedited photos…
Above: (thanks to Lizzie for the photo!) Card on the kitchen windowsill with the graffiti that reads:
“Welcome to your new home prepared and presented in partnership by Norse Commercial Services and Norwich City Council”
Above: The Kitchen – New units fitted by the City Council. Artexed walls and ceilings that have heavy grease on large patches and rather charmingly bird excrement from the previous tennants birds (canaries judging by the yellow feathers and bird seed also stuck to the walls. Kitchen window still with graffiti and now 2 impact cracks where something has been thrown at it from the alley behind the house (the fence is still awaiting erection from the council so the property’s back garden is accessible by anyone)
Above: The bird excrement, without being too graphic it appears to have been there a while.
Above: The Back Garden – has been partly shingled over by the council (see photo below). This photo shows the alleyway to the left that runs behind the garden and the large section of fence (80% of the length of the back garden) that is missing. This is due to be fixed by the council.
Above: The Back Garden – the shingle that the council put down to cover the uneven ground.
Above: The Back Garden – This cable comes up through the ground in the middle of the back garden. No idea where it runs from or if it’s live. I assumed not but I wasn’t going to touch it just in case…
Above: Living Room – Clara and her husband have been hard at work stripping, filling and undercoating the walls. The floor appears to be some sort of stone tiles, of which many are cracked. They hope to buy some flooring with the money that people have been sending through this past week. In the corner on the right where Lizzie is stood smells strongly of urine, as does the cupboard under the stairs, inside the front door and a couple of corners upstairs.
Above: After a couple of hours our painting posse help to give the living room a coat of paint – we used 2.5 litres of paint giving this room 1 coat.
Above: Entrance / Hallway
Above: Stairway – Artext walls and ceiling, uses more than the average amount of paint.
Above: Stairway
Above: Clare paints the hallway.
Above: Bedroom #1 – Having been stripped and filled by Clara and her husband.
Above: Bedroom #1 – Large hole in need of much filler, plaster is loose in this corner. Damp on the ceiling.
Above: Bedroom #2 – Having been stripped and filled by Clara and her husband.
Above: Bathroom – Floor tiles stuck down very well indeed but some missing and some cracked and there’s a very strong smell of urine in this room. The Painting Posse gave the bathroom a coat of paint today also.
Above: Landing – I took this photo so that you can see the general state, cleanliness wise, of the walls on the landing.
25 litres of paint was used to day – and there is still 1 room to give the 1st coat to – all rooms need a 2nd coat of paint.
Clara and her family have not moved in to the property yet but are paying rent to the council because as far as the council are concerned it’s fit to be lived in.
I’m aware that Clara has had many emails of support this past week, but also a few less supportive, more critical emails. I’ve spoken to Clara about her circumstances today and she’s happy for me to share it here. I don’t believe that Clara needs to justify herself and her family to people however hearing their situation certainly made me stop, think and question ‘the system’.
Previously they lived in private rented accommodation until one day, with just a months notice their landlord informed them that he was going to sell the house and so their tenancy was to be terminated. Unable to afford a large deposit on another privately rented property they moved back to Clara’s parents. Having contacted the council they were offered this house. Being offered a council house doesn’t work like privately renting, there’s no picking and choosing, housing is hard to come by and it’s very much a ‘it’s this or nothing’ thing.
Clara’s husband doesn’t work, he can’t work at the moment because Clara’s Post Natal Depression means that he needs to look after Beans and help Clara. Sadly P.N.D is a mental illness and someone in Clara’s husbands position doesn’t qualify for any carers allowance. They claim Child Benefit and Tax Credits. Her husband won’t claim Jobseekers Allowance because he isn’t seeking a job, he can’t at the moment and he doesn’t want to ‘play the system’ for the extra money fraudulently. The money they have left over after rent and bills is barely enough to live on let alone spend on decorating and furnishing a house.
This isn’t about self-pity or about ‘getting stuff’ it’s about getting people to empathize more with people in Clara’s situation and to start questioning how the standards of properties let by councils across the country can wildy vary. It’s about questioning why many spouses and family members who can’t work due to a loved one’s mental health issues aren’t entitled to the help and support that those caring for a person with a physical disability. It’s about challenging how society perceives council housing and those living in it. And empathy… lots of empathy. And yes, if somehow it helps Clara and her family then that’s just peachy.
Today was hard to get my head around in terms of how much work needs doing, but it wasn’t all doom and gloom – when bloggers come together there’ll always be happy times too…
Thank you to Mummy Barrow for giving some gin-in-a-tin (a personal favourite) and to Lizzies husband for surprising us all with enormous ice-creams!
Big Thank You’s from today:
To Seasider in the City, Me and my shadow, her husband and daughter and Life; And Two under Two, Too for coming along and painting their socks off.
To Mummy Barrow for sending tins of gin, two cakes, an Argos voucher and a bag of goodies for Beans - plus loaning me her satnav whilst my mobile is broken.
To Cheetahs in Shoes for sending a fruit cake, cards, a box of toys for Beans, a scooter and easel and to her daughter Alice for making me pink flower shaped fudge to keep me going on the drive there (apparently is has enough sugar in to make me skip up Ben Nevis)
To The Mummy Whisperer for sending big tins of wood paint.
To BizzyBee for sending us a box of their cloths, scourers and rubber gloves. (Review to follow in the near future)
There are other people to thank from today, the organization that supplied paint, @CoffeeCurls who dropped some items in but I’m not sure what as my head was in paint at the time – I’ll say a proper thank you in the near future!
I’ll be heading back to help again next week and I’ll keep updating with progress over the next few weeks.
Thank you to everyone who has offered items, posted items, sent money, vouchers and support, it is all much appreciated and everyone will be thanked properly over the coming weeks -thank you all for being awesome x
Related reading, posts on this story from other bloggers:
Life; Two Under Two, Too – A friend in need
Me and my shad0w – Welcome home – a social housing disgrace
Seasider in the City – Norwich – a fine city?
Crafts on Sea - Not hassling, not being mean, just being sensible
Mummy Barrow – An Englishman’s home is his castle. Right? Wrong
Stitch This – DIY because you have to
Cheetahs in my Shoes – See it, Snap it, Love it – Help
The Petit Mom – The 411 on council Housing
Annie – is there a paypal set up so i could send some money towards something? i have toys and books packed up for Beans but they would cost a lot to send up so maybe cash is better? please tweet me or DM me with details thank you
this is a great post and it has opened my eyes up to what is considered council housing. £25 per room is nothing either.
you are such a wonderful lady to help as are the other kind bloggers who have helped x x
That’s very generous of you Jenny, thank you sweet cheeks – will ping you a dm x
I left a comment somewhere but I think Facebook ate it. I’ve got some pairs of curtains of various sizes, if they will help. Let me know window sizes etc. I’ll send some toys at some point too and I’ve seen the list and I have a garage about to get cleared and will see what I can match up. Missed most of this being away on holiday.
That house looks like it was a disgrace. I’m so sorry Clara, for everything. Well done all of you for what you’ve achieved.
Thank you Merry, to be honest it’s been a manic week so I apologise if I’ve missed your Facebook comment, I’ll check with Clara as to whether she still needs curtains and email you in the morning x
I want to help too. We are skint and moved into a dire stinky house last year so I totally understand. It is an awful situation to be in and I will help anyway I can xx
Sorry to hear that you had to go through a similar thing, it’s grim enough if you haven’t got kids but when there’s little people to factor in to the equation it’s so much worse. The temptation to start a site for people to anonymously post the state of houses they rent on the day they move in is strong.
Is the dire stinky house a bit better now?
Well done Annie, you are a star!
Huge hugs to Clara and her family, hope the wood paint helped. Xxx
Yes they did, sorry I knew I had forgotten to thank someone , have added you above – apologies!
We also have some curtains we could send if the sizes were right. Well done Annie for exposing this and organising help. I can’t believe how bad the house still is (after many man hours) when the council are charging rent and saying it’s habitable. Difficult to believe they didn’t remove the graffiti, fix the fence and remove that cable from the garden, plus get rid of bird poo on the walls. I can’t see how anyone can say that such a house is habitable or safe for a family to live in.
Well done Annie, Clare, Lizzie and everyone else. I wish I could have been there. I do have some stuff for Beans to send though Annie, if you could send me Clara’s address?
xx
I sure can – dm-ing you now missus, thankies
I would like to donate a small amount too – great if there was a paypal account or something – some people have been critical !!!??? That beggars belief!
There is a paypal account missus, I’ll dm it to you and then if you want to donate something you can (but please don’t feel obliged x)
I’m still in a state of shock after yesterday.
What’s worse is this is probably the tip of the iceberg. There needs to be a minimum standard nationwide. I wonder how many other families are suffering like this.
There must be loads, people with family, friends, a blog, ways of reaching many people to say ‘ARGH look at this’
What an utter disgrace Norwich council is ………. the very first thing they should have done was to have made the property safe and secure by erecting the rear fence ! Anyone could get in ! As for charging rent whilst this house is inhabitable ? That’s unbelievable !. It sounds like this might be the tip of the iceberg where social housing is concerned , but, it just goes to show that ( in David Cameron’s words) ……”We’re All In It Together” …NOT !
Well done to all concerned , especially Annie for continuing to highlight this deplorable situation , and for all those who have given help and support . THIS is what a ”BIG SOCIETY” is all about ! Would any of the government be happy to be housed in , what was, squalid housing ? You bet your life none would ! So, why should vulnerable people ?
One of the things that really angers me is that the people being the council housing are vunerable people with little or no expendable income -so why give them property that needs so much of their time, work and money on getting liveable? Surely the best thing for society and the government financially is to support the vunerable, not shove them in to a house ‘fast’ to increase their turnover of property being empty and leave them depressed, without hope and financially shafted.
How does that help anyone ?
I despair.
And I’m hearing of more people who have been through the same thing. Just grabbed councilhousing.org hopefully to show more peoples experiences x
Amazing team work, Im sorry I couldn’t help but always in my thoughts xxxx
Thank you lovely x
I have photos of my home when I first moved in and it was very similar. I was a single parent at the time with a bad back and unable to do any work on my ‘home’ for a long time, and we had to live in the house as there was no alternative for us. It’s a disgrace.
I hope her house becomes a home soon x
I’m dm-ing you now x
Hey, I mean, yeh its not great, but I’ve seen worse. It’s still a free house, right? That’s kinda a win…
Err no it’s not a free house, rent has to be paid like any other rented accomodation,they don’t recieve housing benefit…
I found myself in your situation, when I moved into my council house (after owning my own home and a painful divorce) I couldn’t believe how horrible it was. Worse was to come when the ceiling came down and the council repairs ripped all the wall paper and they refused to replace it.
It’s so sad that they can’t even just make it clean and safe.
If you need more help I will be happy to help the weekend after next.
Xxx
Chris, seriously? This isnt free housing. It’s rent payable accommodation. If this was a landlord owned, privately rented house, watchdog etc would be all over it. The landlord would probably be taken to court for charging rent for unsafe inhabitable housing.
No-one is begrudging having to paint a house. Everyone expects to have to do that. However everyone expects to live in a house, be it council rented, privately rented or very fortunately owned, that is clean, secure, without bird shit on the walls and without holes in the floor.
So having a newly decorated house is a lot to ask of social housing, that’s fair enough (and yet not unheard of – postcode lottery). But surely unbroken windows, a secured back garden, the most basic of floor coverings and unidentified crap washed off the walls is not too much to ask when paying rent?
And for anyone else who wants to offer a narrow minded unhelpful and somewhat uneducated opinion on ‘free’ housing, I suggest you picture yourself in this situation, and consider whether you think such comments are valid.
I’m just glad we are fortunate enough to be in a position to help.
PS I’m also glad that I managed to escape any photos
Absolutely disgusted that they think that this is any way suitable for a young family to live in. As I spent last week doing council training on the Freedom of Information Act I’ve just contacted Norwich Council to request the details of how they judge a property as suitable for people to live in, how much budget they have for making properties habitable and how much of this they spent in the last financial year. Have also said that I’ll be contacting local politicians (have worked in gov for years and this normally gets things working faster!) I think they have 20 days to respond so I’ll let you know how it goes. If anyone else fancies contacting MPs or the council tweet me and we’ll try and make it a it a job for this week!
Ooo you are good! Just read your post too – such great ideas and practical info – thank you for taking the time to write it down and to help x
OH My God I am stunned. Norwich council should be ashamed. Well done to you all for being such amazing and helpful ladies as always. I have put a feeler out to a PR agency that contacted me a while ago to review some cleaning products for them to see if they may be as kind to provide anything. I will let you know if I hear back. xxx
Thank you very much indeed missus x
I’m shocked and totally saddened by this. Plus I know that these pictures only tell the story in 2d, there is no smells, no sounds, no touch, nothing to make your stomach turn like there is in real life. I just can only imagine what Clara must be feeling… vulnerable, scared, disgusted. I’m so glad you have all reached out to Clara with such compassion and that she is receiving help from such a supportive community. Indeed imagine all those people in similar or is it even possible, worse situations…. alone, with no-one to help them. It is just appalling.
You ladies have done an amazing job so far. I would also like to help. How are you doing with the list? Is there anything Clara particularly needs that I can send? I will also share and retweet xx
Thanks for commenting missus. I must admit that I got home and looked at the photos and thought to myself that they do accurately capture the condition, I’ve added in images of the work the council have done, but at the same time I did think to myself ‘but it’s so much worse than that when you are there faced with it’.
List wise it’s going pretty well, if I’m honest I think that any sort of voucher for somewhere like B&Q or Homebase would be the most practical handy thing, there’s just so much to do it beggars belief and it all adds up when you start thinking sandpaper, masking tape, brushes, rollers, trays, dust sheets, paint, undercoat, varnish, gloss, filler and so on.
Thank you so much for offering help, sharing and for your kind empathetic words x
Mammasaurus, could you please DM me a paypal email? I’d love to contribute something for the paint etc. I posted a few Dora the explorer things for Beans to Clare’s address.
I meant PM, not DM, on Facebook
Thank you my dear, have messaged you on Facebook – many thanks
Utterly shocking and totally unacceptable! I cannot believe the state of this house but I am overwhelmed at the generosity of the blogging community. Thanks for keeping us updated.
What’s making me even madder about this is the stories I’m hearing from locals near me about how the housing association/council house system is being played by some of the families around here. It’s not all of them of course, but it’s certainly enough to give lovely families who need a break like you guys and others I’ve been hearing from really lovely houses.
From Mums having a fourth child so that they can be moved from their flat to a house (she definitely is, it’s not one of those ‘myths’ about families having more children), to Mums getting evicted for bad behaviour more than once and still getting a better house than this one, to others who spend their whole time drinking and smoking (I’ve seen them) whilst their very young kids run around the place alone (I’m talking 6yo and under), to Mums who don’t bother to go out with their kids and don’t care that they are wrecking the park (totally ruined) or playing on dangerous building sites. Argggh!
It makes no sense and is really infuriating me.
council estate norms: as soon as your child can walk, unless they have an older brother, sister, someone to push them round, you are out of the house from the moment you wake up, possibly having breakfast first. parents do not go to the park with their kids, play with their kids, speak to them nicely … get used to hearing “i can not wait for the little bastards to go back to school” mixed with ramblings of what other neigbours are doing, what such and such is doing in a soap or other tv programme. it is common practice for the ‘breeders’ to live up to their name especialy now that some council have introduced the “if you have a spare room you have to pay a certain % of your rent for it, even if you are on benefits” so expect a baby boom. also while the kids are out playing it is the perfect time to start your drinking and smoking sessions early, summer holidays are great for this one…. as the kids get older they get more and more bored and start to make up fun games such as “which window can we get with the most eggs” “knock a door smash” which is actualy dying out with the lack of milk man and door handles. do not approach their parents though no matter how polite you are as you will be met with threats or get to whitness the child get a thrashing there and then while being swore at of course. scooter boys, watch out for them and i am not talking about the ones you push with your foot. they can often be seen first, sometimes until the very early hours of the morning and you will soon be able to tell them apart by noise alone. be firends with your local PCSO if you have one.
on the plus side … yes there is one. it makes you love your friends and the nice people even more than you did already.
hugs
That certainly is disgusting! That council should be ashamed! You would not expect a palace but at least it could show some sign of work having been attempted before the family moving in. How could they expect young kids to live in that condition. They should either reduce the rent or give some money towards the expense of the work done.
Oh god it’s so depressing
Norwich council should be hanging their heads in shame.
i am actually impressed with the state of it to be fair
welcome to the world of council housing, other things to expect .. they will only repair things to the minimum standard,if at all eg, if a door frame cracks they will fix it back together with nails rather than replacing it. learn where your stop cock is because not all plumbing issues will be seen as an emergancy, we had to do the washing up in the bath for a while because the plumbing had started leaking under our kitchen sink. so get used to your councils phone system so you know which number to press for repairs and complaints or even better find an email. get friendly with your housing officer and learn your tenancy agreement inside out to prepare for any future battles.
good luck and stay strong
*council tenant for 18 years* and who ever said it is free housing needs a slap as it isn’t and yet council tenants get treated like dirt
How lucky they are to have you guys.
I’ve contributed to the fund as the things we had were too heavy to post. Seeing the reality of it makes me want to do more.
My grandfather had mental health issues – I think pretty much every family will find someone who has them, even if it isn’t talked about. There’s definitely a case for a review of carer’s allowance if Clara’s husband isn’t allowed to claim it, that should make us all ashamed.
Sadly it does not surprise me at all. I started to work with a lady in crisis last November and a team of us have overhauled her whole house as it was in an appaling state and the council would not help. Unbelievable, so fabulous to hear of you all helping. Mich x
I can not believe the council believe this house is fit for a family with a young child to live in! Well done to you all for the progress you have made she is so lucky to have such great friends x
It’s shocking to see that a council sees this as fit to live in-especially with a young child living there too!
Wow you are so kind and generous. It must be a great feeling to have friends like you. It was great meeting you at BlogCamp today.
I have just had a similar thing happen to me and my two children. Got the vouchers and stuff to paint with but only can my mum do all the work for me as two young children under 4 to look after. holes in ceilings and walls and garden with loads of stuff in it. Cannot get any help with getting anything for the house as not been on income support for long enough so buying out of what little money i have coming in. Have to move in next week with no carpets in any rooms, no cooker and got no money for christmas so kiddies will be going without this year and the government doesn’t care or local authority to help people like me, just left to rot in a place which will remain unfurnished for months now.
Reeeey, Norwich council. I am actually fighting to get a house like this! Some of us arent eventhis fortunate. The comments about council estates are disgusting though. I live in an apparent rough area but doesn’t mean it effects my life.
Having a house is something I probably wont get a chance at but even if it was like this id make it special like you are. It’ll be worth it in the end!