Watford Community Housing Trust 'very sorry' for dangerous ceiling collapse in Benneck House

9:30am Tuesday 8th January 2013 in News Photograph of the Author By Mike Wright, Chief Reporter

Housing association 'very sorry' for ceiling collapse Housing association 'very sorry' for ceiling collapse

A housing association has apologised for not acting fast enough over a dangerous ceiling, which collapsed into the bedroom of two young girls yesterday.

Watford Community Housing Trust said an inspector had examined the bulging ceiling board in the flat in Benneck House, off Tolpits Lane in November, and said it needed to be replaced.

However the order for repairs to the ceiling was only placed this month - four days before the collapse.

Parents Claire Halward and Billy Wolstenholme were having breakfast in their kitchen when the ceiling board crashed down on the room where their daughters Chloe, 1, and Chrystal, 6, sleep and play. The children were with their parents in the kitchen at the time.

The couple have since vented their anger at the delay in fixing the dangerous ceiling, branding it as disgusting.

Gareth Lewis, Director of Property and New Business for Watford Community Housing Trust said: "We express our sympathy to the tenants and we appreciate this must be a worrying time for them. We are doing our best to deal with the situation as speedily as possible.

"The tenant reported a potential problem with the ceiling in November 2012, and an inspector visited the following week. His report requested that the ceiling be renewed, although we did not identify that it was at imminent danger of collapse. The order was placed on 3rd January 2013 and we are very sorry that it took us longer than normal to deal with this."

The family have since also been told the collapse may have exposed some asbestos in the bedroom.

Mr Lewis added: "We have had the ceiling material analysed today and can confirm that none of the ceiling boards contain asbestos, however, Artex has been applied to the ceiling. Artex is a very commonly found textured coating which contains Chrysotile (White Asbestos).

"Generally the percentage of asbestos within the coating is very small and is held within a strong bonding material. The risk of exposure from accidental damage is minimal and would require the material to be sanded to cause any major release. It is very unlikely that any substantial asbestos fibre release occurred when the ceiling collapsed.

"We are currently undertaking further testing to assess the airborne fibre content, however it is expected to be below acceptable limits. In the meantime we have provided alternative accommodation to the family."

Comments(14)

crazyfrog says...
9:46am Tue 8 Jan 13

Thank god nobody was injured, i hope this serves as a wake-up call to all responsible Landlords to have maintenance repairs carried out in a timely manner.

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gusgreen says...
10:08am Tue 8 Jan 13

From your previous report you say Mr. Wolstenholme is a builder and the bulge was first notice about a year ago.
Begs the question why didn't he at least "make it safe" whilst waiting for other builders to come and repair it!

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Mohandas says...
10:44am Tue 8 Jan 13

We all appreciate the finer things in life but home is the one place where we seek peace of mind and it has no price tag when it comes to safety. Let’s hope WCHT has pulled out the stops to remedy this awful situation.

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crazyfrog says...
11:00am Tue 8 Jan 13

gusgreen wrote:
From your previous report you say Mr. Wolstenholme is a builder and the bulge was first notice about a year ago.
Begs the question why didn't he at least "make it safe" whilst waiting for other builders to come and repair it!
how would he make it safe without replacing or removing the ceiling boards? and you can bet if he did remove them they would charge him for the repair, i know because this is what happened to me years ago

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freebird23 says...
12:58pm Tue 8 Jan 13

very strange to see whole boards fall like that as the plasterboard is usally held in place with drywall screws driven into the joists. In the picture it looks as if the boards have been glued in some sort of way along their joints, looks a dodgy job all the same and copmpromising the safety of the inhabitants. Lucky nobody was in the room at the time.

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E.Coli says...
2:26pm Tue 8 Jan 13

freebird23 wrote:
very strange to see whole boards fall like that as the plasterboard is usally held in place with drywall screws driven into the joists. In the picture it looks as if the boards have been glued in some sort of way along their joints, looks a dodgy job all the same and copmpromising the safety of the inhabitants. Lucky nobody was in the room at the time.
It does look like hard as nails stuff maybe from the pound shop

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pepsiman says...
2:27pm Tue 8 Jan 13

Doesnt look too bad, you can still sleep there, its just like a mini bunk bed now. Huh - they are lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!

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MarsLander says...
4:39pm Tue 8 Jan 13

crazyfrog wrote:
gusgreen wrote:
From your previous report you say Mr. Wolstenholme is a builder and the bulge was first notice about a year ago.
Begs the question why didn't he at least "make it safe" whilst waiting for other builders to come and repair it!
how would he make it safe without replacing or removing the ceiling boards? and you can bet if he did remove them they would charge him for the repair, i know because this is what happened to me years ago
What price your childrens safety?

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Wacko Jacko says...
5:43pm Tue 8 Jan 13

Clearly demonstrates the high standards of maintenance carried out by WCHT which justify their new service charges, or maybe not

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crazyfrog says...
7:27pm Tue 8 Jan 13

MarsLander wrote:
crazyfrog wrote:
gusgreen wrote:
From your previous report you say Mr. Wolstenholme is a builder and the bulge was first notice about a year ago.
Begs the question why didn't he at least "make it safe" whilst waiting for other builders to come and repair it!
how would he make it safe without replacing or removing the ceiling boards? and you can bet if he did remove them they would charge him for the repair, i know because this is what happened to me years ago
What price your childrens safety?
i quite agree ! but this is clearly WCHT'S responsibility to ensure that once reported the defect is repaired or made safe as soon as possible, its not the Tennant's responsibility to be making repairs of this nature.

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MarsLander says...
7:41pm Tue 8 Jan 13

crazyfrog wrote:
MarsLander wrote:
crazyfrog wrote:
gusgreen wrote:
From your previous report you say Mr. Wolstenholme is a builder and the bulge was first notice about a year ago.
Begs the question why didn't he at least "make it safe" whilst waiting for other builders to come and repair it!
how would he make it safe without replacing or removing the ceiling boards? and you can bet if he did remove them they would charge him for the repair, i know because this is what happened to me years ago
What price your childrens safety?
i quite agree ! but this is clearly WCHT'S responsibility to ensure that once reported the defect is repaired or made safe as soon as possible, its not the Tennant's responsibility to be making repairs of this nature.
I quite agree, but if it was me I would have forced the WCHT to take action or I would have taken steps to do something about it myself, either secure it or pull it down.

The last thing I would have done is leave my children sleeping under it, I would have put them somewhere safe and at least not under the bulge, the danger area.

I know someone else who had this sort of problem and it ended with them making the point by "helping" the ceiling on its way. If they did that, well at least it got results!

The main thing is, nobody got hurt and the Housing Trust recognise their mistake. It will now be fixed and to be honest it's not a big job.

All's well that ends well.

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crazyfrog says...
8:06pm Tue 8 Jan 13

you are right in what you say, i wouldnt want my child sleeping underneath that celing either, Trouble is with messing with these boards is as mentioned the artex on these 1960's flats contain asbestos and i wouldnt want my child sleeping in a room that could potentially contain airborne asbestos particles,or settled asbestos dust particles created from messing with them, best thing would to not use the room fullstop.

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Watfordengineer says...
9:52am Wed 9 Jan 13

If untouched artex wont cause any harm.
I would guess the ceiling was glued because the installer didn't want to drill the artex because they were very cautious about the low level asbestos. at a guess this is a housing association policy. so it was an unavoidable solution, that went wrong, to a problem with our housing stock.
at the end of the day, highlight building defects as soon as you see them.

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Boosey says...
12:10pm Wed 9 Jan 13

Now to claim our compensation and pose for a photo with our children amongst the debris and ASBESTOS! Chavs r us!

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