"Now their patience has run out and some have decided to withhold their rent. Mick, who is disabled, is one of them. "I've got the stage where I think its the only course of action I can do," he explains. "The [housing association] are in breach of contract. I will go to court. I think I would win the case. Any judge would throw it out.""
"I first visited Mick three years ago, when he contacted BBC London in desperation at the condition of his flat, run then by Catalyst Housing. He had been moved from one flat into another to allow work to repair large cracks that appeared in his wall and had become bigger and deeper. Similar cracks, following the same trajectory, had appeared on the neighbouring homes on the same side and also in the flats above."
"As soon as the housing association re-plastered and repainted the cracks, they reappeared, leaving Mick and his neighbours to suspect subsidence. He's back in his original flat, where the cracks are appearing again, as they have been, he says, for more than 20 years. Mick shows me some letters sent to another resident on 24 November 2003 by a previous landlord about possible subsidence at the block."
Residents of a west London block have endured recurring wall cracks for more than 20 years. Mick Brady, a long-term housing association tenant, says repeated plastering fails and some tenants have begun withholding rent. Repairs once involved moving tenants to allow work on large cracks; similar cracks have appeared in neighbouring and upper flats following the same trajectory. A 2003 letter raised possible subsidence. The block is partly social housing and leasehold and is now owned by Peabody, which suspects tree roots; a tree was removed but the cracks returned. Peabody says a tree preservation order would need lifting to resolve the problem.
Read at www.bbc.com
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