Our 20+ year nightmare living in the house of horrors
Our 20+ year nightmare living in the house of horrors
The following summarises the author’s view of the Local Authority’s handling of the case and the plight of our family. We are fighting to get justice in protecting our rights to live in our own home.
It highlights the dealings of our case with officers from the Local Authority over the past 20+ years.
They carried this out knowing full well the predicament we were in, the same predicament they had created from the onset to the present day.
It has created an atmosphere of monstrous injustice, that injustice has grown into a monumental outrage by the length of time that it has taken for the situation to be anything like moving towards a satisfactory conclusion.
The Local Authority’s reaction was to cover things up, apportion blame to others, use delaying tactics called "processing" i.e. being perceived as to doing something to waste a bit more time. The policy was one of one step at a time; make it up as you go strategy. They even attempted character assassination.
The Local Authority has attempted to stretch everything out to suit themselves, but more importantly to cover up their tracks about the vast amount of tax payers money they have wasted in not resolving the case.
The case over the past 20+ years has inflicted terrible damage on the family both physically and mentally, so much so that even if the whole case was resolved tomorrow the long term effects would be with them for a very long time in the future.
The family has been denied a past, present and more importantly a future for them and their two sons by the actions of the Local Authority over whom the family have absolutely no control.
As you can see from the medical evidence, the family has been affected by a wide range of medical conditions that have greatly limited the family’s ability to generate any income.
The family had to resort to the legal system, but even this together with the law and lawyers was fraught with failure to get justice due to mistakes being made.
We live in the outskirts of a small village in north-east Wales called Pontblyddyn.
Our house, No 2 Alyn View, was until 1996 a mid terraced property in a row of three cottages. Built in 1871, it has been modernised to a very high standard. It is set, with excellent views over the surrounding countryside, on the side of a hill known locally as the "Constitution"
Our problems started in March 1989 when the cottage next door (No1 Alyn View) became vacant due to the death of the elderly lady who lived there.
As the cottage was empty and had been neglected it soon attracted the anti-social elements of society: vandals, yobs and druggies who used it as a den. This culminated in our house being burgled in 1991. Despite involvement of the police the behaviour of these elements carried on until 1996 when the property was demolished.
The semi-derelict property, No 1 Alyn View, was put on the market for sale. A wide spectrum of the buying public, including speculative builders, looked at it but shook their heads in disbelief at the amount of work required to make it habitable. That is until a builder bought the property for £13,000 cash, his intention being to renovate the cottage by means of a "grant", and then rent it out.
This was made difficult due to the fact that alongside the east of No1 Alyn View is a 30 foot deep unguarded embankment leading down to the pub car park below. This embankment and the gable end of No1 was rapidly deteriorating due to the erosion of the embankment, leaving the site of No1 and the path that runs along the top of it precarious and in danger of imminent collapse.
We involved the Local council in 1992 due to a plague of rats. Basically, they did nothing until 1994 when the property (No1) became dangerous due to falling slates and shards of glass from the broken windows.
Also in 1994 the Environmental Health Department became involved and officers condemned No1 as being uninhabitable.
A Housing Committee was set up in November 1995 with a view to deciding what to do with No1 – "renovate at the cost of £39,000 or demolish". They chose demolition as it was the cheaper option.
The minutes from that meeting show, that knowing full well "demolition of No1 would seriously affect the stability of No2 and the exposed party wall would need upgrading and weatherproofing", they still chose the option of demolition.
To this end a defective demolition notice was prepared by environmental officers of the Council and served on the owner of No 1 in February 1996. The notice was defective because it did not take into account the complexity of the site or effect on our house.
In March 1997 our architect commented "due to the complexity of the site a full detailed investigation should have been commissioned into the potential effects of the demolition, prior to any such works being carried out".
This backs up the comment made by the Councils Senior Structural Engineer in May 1989 who stated "whilst the uncertainly of the earth banks stability remains, the cottage cannot be viewed as viable dwelling".
On May Day morning in 1996 contractors by the owner of No1 arrived and proceeded to demolish the house.
This was without prior warning, not to ourselves but the Council, Health and Safety, the Police etc, and without adhering to the Schedule of Works required.
During the next five months, despite few visits by officers of the Environmental Health Department, they failed to supervise the required demolition works to any decent standard and as result they failed to protect our house.
Eventually in September 1996 they passed the uncompleted works as satisfactory and complete, although it was obvious even to the untrained eye that this was not so.
We repeatedly asked the Council to put our house right, which they refused to do. We were advised that we would get nowhere with them unless we took them to court.
What followed was a lengthy six year battle, where we were let down by not just one legal team but three, ending up in October 2002 with an out of court settlement forced upon us by our own legal team.
This settlement did not in any way reflect the costs of restoring our home to its original condition; it was a case of take it or you get nothing. The settlement was in the region of 20% of the costs estimated to put our house in order.
All this has turned our once lovely home into a house rendered damp to the degree of almost permanent black mould on the interior walls, and unstable and in danger of collapse due to the embankment eroding underneath it. It is uninsurable and has become a worthless slum of no commercial value, overcrowded, mouldy and damp throughout, structurally unstable and unmortgageable.
It must be bourne in mind that our property is mortgaged and our building society is still insisting that we pay our mortgage, even though the value of our house does not even cover the security on it, valued by our own surveyor at £20,000 if at all, as it stands.
Any equity should have been our investment in the future of our family.
Our insurers have pulled out of any subsidence clause, saying that the damage now and in the future was caused by third parties.
We owned a house that was our own private asset. It was a viable proposition that we had invested in for the future, and that we would be allowed to do what we wanted to do with, including selling it if need be.
All this changed in 1989 when a series of events put our lives on hold and served as the death knell of our home and it future as a safe place to live in, as well as any investment or inheritance for our children. This inheritance is going to become a nightmare for them should anything happen to my wife and myself, which also applies to my wife if anything happens to me.
There is no doubt in our minds that our family has been subjected to a monstrous injustice at the hands of the Local Authority and the legal system. It has grown into a monumental outrage by the length of time (20+ years) that it has taken for the situation to move towards a satisfactory conclusion, and regardless of any satisfactory conclusion we are fully aware of the irreversible impact on the physical and mental health of every member of our family.
Our health problems and those of our children can certainly be attributed to the damp, overcrowded and stressful conditions in which we have been forced to live for the past 20+ years. These cannot be disassociated from the permanent illness that have beset us.
Due to my present health conditions when you read this could you have a heart as I need a voice before I die because no good man fails to protected his family from harm, but I feel that I have done so by allowing my wife and two sons to exposed to the apalling living conditions created by the actions of others. We have been forced to endure an existance, not a life.
I have a very loyal and supportive wife who is my soul mate but my fear is that as I am older than her, unless I resolve this matter shortly I will leave her in an unholy mess. Her health is also not very good but I want to do what will be the best for my two sons in the future.
We are utterly alone apart from the small number of people who have tried to help us.
We have been denied a past, present and future by the actions of others, to whom the family has absolutely no control.
