Warrington mum's battle to fix flooding in son's supported housing

Yet a year after the problem first began, still nothing has been done.

Mac de Tello Mckeown, 20, moved into his top floor apartment on Crosfield Street, owned by Your Housing, last August.

The apartments are assigned to vulnerable people and are labelled as supporting living.

Mac’s mother, Carole de Tello, from Longbarn, explained that her son has autism with underlying mental health problems.

And since moving into his apartment in central Warrington, he has been faced with ongoing flooding issues which, despite Carole’s persistent complaints to Your Housing, have never been properly addressed.

Speaking on when the problem first began, Carole, 58, said: “We first noticed there was actual water in between the double glazing of the windows.

“There was a heavy rainfall in November last year. He is on the top floor and it just flooded through.

“It was raining inside. We have reported it over and over again. The people working for Your Housing know these people are vulnerable.

Damp is spreading through the house due to the flooding issues (Image: Supplied)

“We get a message saying they are on their way to fix it and then another message to say ‘it is fixed’, yet no one has even been.”

Following another bout of heavy rainfall that passed through Warrington in May, the concerned mum described water ‘pouring through the ceiling’ of her son’s living room.

“When that heavy rain came, my son was in a panic. I was on the phone to him calming him down. I told him to unplug anything electrical,” she explained.

“It took about four hours for someone to come out. A very nice electrician came out and triaged the apartment to make sure there was no risk of something going wrong.

“Then at 5am, the electric went off in the building. Back in November last year, when we first reported the problem, they should have fixed the windows, the roof and the leak.

“They are exploiting vulnerable people who live in supported living.”

In a continuing battle with Your Housing to get the issue fixed, Carole has been assigned a complaints officer who has liaised back and forth to arrange someone to go out and look at fixing the problem.

“They have put up scaffolding twice as an attempt to fix the roof but no one came to do it, and after three weeks it was taken back down,” she noted.

As a gesture of goodwill in the process, a representative of Your Housing offered Mac £250 in compensation.

“I know that this is an endemic problem as I have a friend who lives in another supported living building run by Your Housing, and they were left without hot water from December 2023 to March 2024 because the engineer forgot to connect the hot water,” Carole added.

“I am tired of fighting for them to fulfil their part of the contract. They should respect the client’s vulnerability and fulfil their contracts.”

Paula Marshall​​​​, executive director of housing and customer service at Your Housing Group, commented on the issue.

She said: "We are sorry for the delay in completing these repairs, but I can confirm that all outstanding work is due to start on June 6, and anything outstanding will be scheduled within seven days.

“It is our priority that our customers have a safe and comfortable place to live, and we have been in contact with Ms De Tello to update her and provide assurance that we are working to carry out the required repairs."