South London tenants paying £1,000 a month hit out at council for ‘broken lifts and broken CCTV cameras’

Social housing tenants have hit out at a south London council, claiming they are dealing with faulty CCTV, faulty lifts and high rents in their block. The residents of Gundulf street no. 3 in Kennington say they have felt unsafe in their own homes due to Lambeth Council’s alleged failure to deal with ongoing maintenance issues at their building.

Despite facing year-on-year rent increases, tenants say conditions in the block have deteriorated. They claim that regular elevator malfunctions leave residents on the upper floors of the 15-story building stranded in their apartments. Meanwhile, anti-social behavior is allegedly flourishing due to the number of non-working CCTV cameras.

Mother Sharlett Haye, who moved into the block in June 2020, said the level of service residents receive does not reflect their rents. She said: “When you come from the ground floor you feel like you are walking into a property that is not worth the price we are paying for it. It is dirty. It smells. Security is lacking. People come and rip the magnetic things that make the (front) door lock. They refuse to give us a concierge.”

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She added: “We have CCTV in the property but some of the cameras are bad. It’s unbelievable because the packages are stolen. And we as residents had to deal with people coming into the property. We started to feel safe in the property and I still feel insecure in the property.”

The 46-year-old continued: “The CCTV in the lifts isn’t working so if there’s any sort of harassment in the lifts we can’t report it and there’s a person making their dog poop on the lift floor. I found a homeless person sleeping in the garbage area.

“You are asking me to pay £800 for the property. This year it costs almost £1,000 a month with service charges. Money went up and everything went down.”

Another resident of four years, who preferred to remain anonymous, said moving into her block of flats was “the worst mistake”.

The mother-of-four said: “There are rats and mice down there (in the junk shop) nine times out of 10. People don’t put things in the bins and people smoke on the stairs. The door frame comes off the walls and the walls come off. I had a leak (and) it ruined my kids birthday cards and the floor.

“It’s nearly £215 a week in rent and I get no support. Not something you expect from a new build. It’s only been four years and no one wants to live there. People are trying to change their homes, but the problems with the building are well known. No one wants to come look at properties and trade with you.”

Another resident, who asked not to be named, said: “They don’t maintain the halls and lifts. Sometimes the lights go out and the doors are always broken. I don’t feel safe in the building when I come back late.”

A Lambeth Council spokesman said: “We are committed to providing our residents with a good service that is both proactive and resolves issues as they arise. I wrote to the residents to stop throwing cigarettes and other things from the balcony and to put up a canopy to protect the nursery on the ground floor.

“We have carried out repairs to the lifts and stopped the breakdowns, the CCTV is working and one entrance door has been altered to stop non-residents from accessing it and we are in the process of doing the same to another. Where residents experience leaks, we will fix them as quickly as possible. Rents for these properties are in line with equivalent social housing.”

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