Greenwich man's council flat riddled with damp and mould

Kay Antar, 40, shares a flat in Commonwealth Way, Abbey Wood, with his two teenage daughters, and believes the conditions are making them ill.

During a visit this week, the News Shopper observed mould around the windows in his bedroom, bathroom and living room.

In the bathroom, it had spread onto the curtain.

“My youngest daughter’s asthma has flared up,” said Kay, who grew up in Woolwich Dockyard. “Sometimes she wakes up at night and its like she can’t breathe.”

The bathroom was so damp and mouldy that at one point Kay found mushrooms were sprouting from the floor (Image: Kay Antar)

Kay himself had asthma as a child, which disappeared when he grew up.

“It was only when I moved here that it came back,” he said. “It’s definitely affecting my health. At night I get palpitations and have to keep drinking water. That’s been going on for about two years.”

In the decade since he moved into the top-floor flat he has had two ceilings collapse due to roof leaks, he said, and has been told by a neighbour that the same happened to the previous tenant.

“It’s always been like this,” he added. “They paint over it and it just comes back. I’ve had to throw clothes away because they had mould on them. Jumpers. One of my jackets. Lots of socks.”

Kay was housed in the one-bedroom flat in 2013, when his marriage broke down and he left his ex-wife and daughters in the home they had shared.

Kay Antar outside the front door of his top-floor flat in Commonwealth Way, Greenwich. He was housed there in 2013 and says he has experienced problems with damp and mould ever since (Image: Charles Thomson)

He had waited six months to be offered a property.

Damp and mould were evident even back then, he said, “But I was desperate. I needed a roof over my head so I could have visits with my kids. So I accepted it.”

But since he moved in, he alleged, there have been constant problems.

“You can’t hang anything on the walls,” he said, showing our reporter holes in multiple rooms. “It falls away like sand. It’s like the whole flat is crumbling apart.”

In 2018, Kay was granted full custody of his then primary school aged children and had to give up his job as a utilities broker in Tower Hamlets, he said.

They are now 13- and 16-years-old and he is retraining as a teacher.  

Mould on Kay Antar's bathroom window and wall in Commonwealth Way, Abbey Wood (Image: Kay Antar)

“When the kids came to live here permanently, I gave them my room and I put a bed in the living room,” he said.

“We have been assessed for severe overcrowding but have still been told it’ll be another two to four years before we can be rehoused.”

The most recent incident, he said, was the kitchen ceiling collapsing, apparently because of a hole in the roof above.

“The council said it wasn’t an emergency,” he claimed. “I was living here with my two kids and we couldn’t even go into the kitchen because it was raining. There was rain literally pouring through the ceiling.”

He eventually got a contractor out by complaining to his local councillor, he said.

Kay Antar's ceiling, cracked and sodden with rainwater thanks to an apparent hole in the roof above (Image: Kay Antar)

When the News Shopper visited on Monday, March 18, the ceiling was boarded up – but Kay said he’d been told it would be months longer for a proper repair.

“They say they can’t start the work until June 3,” he complained.

But after being contacted by the News Shopper, the council said the works were now scheduled for late March and early April.

“The council sympathises with Mr Antar and appreciates the impact this situation has had on him and his family,” it said.

“The council has worked with the tenant and followed up on his requests for repairs.

“Since we were first made aware of issues in February 2022, we have visited the property on several occasions, including to replace missing tiles and carry out a mould wash and damp inspection.

“As the issues have persisted, further repairs to the roof, guttering and kitchen are scheduled for the and of March and early April.”