A tenant, who had been ‘living with rats’ for 18 months in her high rise flat, was ignored by Birmingham City Council, and the local authority has been ordered to compensate the tenant for the distress they endured.
Birmingham Live reported that the infestation of rats in the two-bed flat in Ashford Tower in Salop Street, close to Highgate Park, was first alerted to the Birmingham City Council in November 2021.
However, it then took the council 18 months “to take its responsibility seriously to actively address the concerns,” said a report published by the Housing Ombudsman about the case. Even then it only acted on the day the complaint was escalated, despite having had weeks to comply.
The Ombudsman said: “This was not reasonable and caused distress and inconvenience which could have been reduced had it acted sooner to investigate the infestation. This is evidence of a service failure.”
The council has since apologised for the distress caused.
In its ruling, the Ombudsman found the landlord’s handling of the reported infestation was unreasonable and “below the standards (the Housing Ombudsman) would expect of a landlord”.
The Ombudsman said: “Birmingham City Council failed to address the issue of rodents reported in the walls of the building or inspect the resident’s property.
“It also failed to consider the risk to the resident and other tenants in the building. It was likely the delayed response caused the infestation to worsen. This caused the resident significant distress and inconvenience.”
This amounted to maladministration, the ombudsman ruled.
The council was ordered to apologise and to pay a total of £1,700 compensation including £250 for the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident by its poor record keeping; £500 for the distress and inconvenience and time and trouble caused by its handling of the pest infestation; and £450 for its complaint handling failures.
Birmingham City Council was also ordered to contact the resident within a fortnight of the report to ‘rat proof’ pipework and take any other additional actions to ‘protect access from rodents’.
The local authority was also told to produce an action plan setting out how it intended to complete further investigations and monitor the infestation in the block.