Single mum’s anger ‘after getting trapped with three kids in mouldy, slug-infested’ home for seven years
Slugs, damp and cold plague the family's daily existence, claims the unhappy tenant
A MUM of three has revealed her anger after nearly seven years living in an allegedly damp house crawling with slugs.
Jessica Sparrow-Lewis, 29, says she and her children have become seriously ill from the rising damp and mould in their privately rented flat in Gloucester.
The single mum - who has to shower daily with slugs on the wall - admits she does not know how much longer she can cope.
She said: "My mental health is suffering to the point that I now have to have counselling because the disgusting and awful state of my house which is causing me to feel like I am trapped and I don't see a way out."
Jessica claims she has found slugs everywhere, from inside cereal boxes to over the shoes by the front door.
"They are everywhere downstairs and I have to wipe off slug slime every day throughout the whole of downstairs," she said.
"It is disgusting and so unhygienic."
She even fears that her children Freya, nine, six-year-old Alfie and 14-month-old Arlo could be taken away after the two youngest were hit with chest infections.
"It is making me feel suicidal because I feel like I am not able to give my children the safe, warm and clean home that they deserve," said Jessica.
"I need to do something before I get to a point where my children may be removed from me because of all the pressure this house is putting on me."
The mum is on housing benefits and therefore struggles to find another private property to live in.
She fears if she moves the family into a bed and breakfast she will be branded "intentionally homeless" and not be eligible for council help.
Gloucester City Council stepped in to help in 2015 by installing a new kitchen and billing her private landlord.
But Jessica now says her oven has not worked since October 2016 - which means she has to cook for her children Freya, 9, Arlo and Alfie on a camping stove.
An electrical inspection in May 2017 also found the wiring was in a "dangerous condition" and posed a "risk to life," and said "the property should not be inhabited in this state."
Jessica claims her boiler caught fire in October 2012 in the kitchen while her two eldest children were in the bath - and it wasn't fixed for eight weeks.
By 2014 she says her £580 per month house was covered in damp and large double cupboard doors fell on her head on one occasion.
One of the rooms is practically uninhabitable due to the cold which means all three of her children are sharing one room, she said.
Jessica says she has contacted her landlord to do the £25,000 work necessary to bring it up to standard, and for more help from the council to make it happen.
The landlady not yet responded to a request for a comment.
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A spokesman for Gloucester City Council said: "We've been working with the tenant and the landlord to make sure the repairs are made urgently.
"There have been some issues with the landlord's contractor getting access to the property to do the work, but we're hopeful this will be resolved soon.
"An officer from the council's housing team will also be making a visit to the property on Friday to carry out an inspection the premises."
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