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Daisy Lovering had been complaining to her local housing association about the problem for weeks
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A mum who complained about a leak in her bathroom for weeks had a lucky escape when the entire ceiling collapsed, narrowly missing her. Daisy Lovering first started noticing damp in her ground floor flat in Neath Port Talbot earlier this month, followed by water seeping in from the premises upstairs.
But several phone calls to her local housing association Tai Tarian - which is one of the biggest in Wales, owning more than 9,000 properties in the borough - had failed to get the situation resolved. Finally, having been kept awake by the worsening dripping noise from across the hall, she got out of bed to investigate in the early hours of Saturday morning (February 25) only for an avalanche of heavy, sodden plaster board, fibreglass insulation and wood to come crashing down inches from where she was standing.
"I started complaining about the damp problem on the walls of my bathroom at the start of this month," said Daisy, a 22-year-old apprentice personal trainer who's lived at the property at The Gardens in Ystalyfera with her young daughter Darcey for two years. "However, after telling Tai Tarian to let me know when they were coming round so I could make sure I was available, they called by while I was at work.
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"After that the dripping started - slow at first, but enough to be a worry. But whenever I tried to get someone back to look at it I was told appointments were few and far between and that I'd have to wait.
"During that time the drip just got worse and worse, the only saving grace being that it was landing in the bath itself. So at least I wasn't having to keep putting buckets out to stop the place being flooded.
"The smell in the bathroom was terrible though and I was worried it might start affecting Darcey's health. Then, quite late on the weekend, I got up have a look at it and - 'Bang!' - the lot came down right in front of me.
"It landed right by my feet and I dread to think what might have happened had it been a few hours earlier when Darcey was having a bath. The mess was unreal - it filled the tub and the toilet, practically snapped the shower curtain rail and was all over the floor and up the walls."
She added that she rang the housing association's 24-hour helpline but got no answer. And, while a clean-up team had since come out to deal with the damage and board up the hole in the ceiling, a new problem has since arisen.
"The flat upstairs is privately owned, so the guy that rents it says I have to wait for his landlord to sort things out. In the meantime he 's only turning on his water when he absolutely has to, like when he wants to have a shower or flush the loo.
"But when he does the leak starts all over again. I'm not sure how much longer I can go on like this and am angry that it could have all been prevented if dealt with earlier."
Gemma Fouracre, Head of Property and Land Services for Tai Tarian, said, "Miss Lovering first reported an issue in early February. At that stage we had not been made aware of a leak.
"We planned a visit with her but had to reschedule. Officers did attend on a second occasion but couldn't get access - we had been unable to make contact by telephone.
"Miss Lovering got back in touch with us to say that she thought there may be a leak from an upstairs property, which is privately-owned. A visit was scheduled for this week but, unfortunately, the damage to the ceiling occurred over the weekend.
"We responded to a call about this on Sunday and made the bathroom safe. We are sorry that this has happened and our planning team are trying to contact Miss Lovering to get the bathroom repair work booked in as soon as possible."
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