November 2007, welcome to Warden Street.


I did know of the areas reputation before i moved here, i was just very shocked to realise i didn't know just how bad things were in certain parts of it, and Warden street, being a dead end road ( i would say Cull De sac, but dead end is much more fitting) I'd never been on the street before. This is surprising as I'd been a driving instructor for 10 years and thought I'd seen every road in the area. In fact i remember thinking the first time i saw it, that it would make an ideal place to practice a 'turn in the road' or three point turn as it's better known.


Half the houses were boarded up, but as the council had said the street was being revamped and filled with decent families, I'd believed them and wasn't too worried. Half a dozen houses were in various stages of refurbishment, which i assumed explained some of the rubbish lying around in the road. Had a private landlord made all these promises i would have been very worried. But, i was being moved there by the council, under their quality landlord scheme, which i thought at the time actually meant i would have a quality landlord. As they had put it to me, these were landlords who maintained their houses to a good standard. It wasn't long before i realised this was far from the truth.

We'd moved into the house on Novermber 20th 2007, that same night i had water pouring in through the girls bedroom ceiling. I had to move them into my room with me for the night as i feared the ceiling would come down. The next day the landlord fixed the roof, but never did get around to fixing the sagging ceiling. Also the guttering was old and rotten, which allowed water to stream down the walls outside, so it wasn't long before the damp which had been painted over, returned. The central heating broke down completely on the 23rd of December, and a plumber eventually arrived on the 2nd of January. So I'd spent the whole of Christmas and the new year boiling kettles and pans for water and using two borrowed hallogen heaters. He managed to partially fix the boiler, which was a combi boiler. The only problem was i had to have the heating on to get hot water. This became a big problem as we neared June. Meantime i had been getting onto the council and the landlord and a string of people had loked at the boiler but hadn't managed to fix it.

Other problems, some evident in the first few weeks, some only after living there a few months included a leaking toilet and bath overflow (discovered when water came through the kitchen ceiling), an electrically wired smoke alarm systen that didn't actually work, leaking windows, slugs, mice, ants, woodlice (not just a few, there were whole colonies living in and trooping through the house). Wallpaper sarted to come away from the walls and paintwork and plaster began to crumble and fall away due to the damp. Fuses that tripped if i had too many lights switched on, the list really was endless and i'm sure i'll remember more. The houses had basiclly been 'bodged' not refurbished and it wasn't any comfort to know that there were other tennants with similar and even worse problems. Despite endless phonecalls to the council and the landlord most of the problems were never fixed. I even had environmental health inspect the house in march 2008 which is when i found out thet a decision was soon to be made as to whether or not to demolish the whole street and the neighbouting one. The report concluded that the house needed, new windows, rewiring, guttering, major repairs to the roof, partial replastering and a new damp course. They also said that they would only insist on these repairs being carried out if the houses were to remain and not be demolished. Well by October i'd had enough and moved to a house further down the same road, with a different landlord. As soon as i knew the house was empty i was straight onto the landlord, who agreed to let me move in immediately. Yet again, i'd jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.