'No family should be living in these conditions'

A Douglas resident has said no family should have to live in the damp and mouldy conditions she is having to endure.

Nicola Cooper is one of several tenants to report the "disgusting" and "unacceptable" state of their privately rented properties to the local authority.

They are all on the waiting list for social housing in the city.

Nicola said mould would come back through her bedroom walls only a week after it had been cleaned, and "no Manx person or family should be living in these conditions".

She said: "It's very depressing. Sometimes I don't even want to come home because I don't want to look at it - it's horrible."

Nicola explained she had done everything possible to get the issues resolved, but to no avail.

Her teenaged son had been to see a doctor "with such a bad chest", she said, at a time when he needed to focus on his mock exams.

With a crack and water leaking through her living room ceiling, and black mould in the bedroom, Nicola said: "I've contacted everybody I can possibly think of and I'm just at my wit's end now."

David - not his real name - said he did not think his home was safe for him and his daughter.

He said she slept on the sofa in the lounge because it was the only room without excessive damp and mould.

While he was on the social housing waiting list, David said he felt forgotten by the authorities and spent his days wearing layers and a coat, with the windows open even in mid-winter.

"I wake up and I cough for about an hour," he said.

Ultimately David said it was "not about me" and stressed he hoped to live in accommodation where his daughter could "have her own space" and be "safe" and "happy".

Paul Cowley, who has a severe leak through his living room ceiling and cannot sleep in the bedroom due to mould, said: "I haven't got a clue what I'm going to do."

The former painter and decorator said he suffered lung damage from working in houses with asbestos, and had been signed off work long-term.

Paul, who said working as an artist was now his main source of income, struggles to pay his rent.

At the age of 59, he said: "It hurts - I've worked all my life."

He added that he had to sleep in the living room since the "damp and mould" in his bedroom affected his chest.

Father-of-two Nathan Muzik is also living with damp and mould.

His two children, aged two and three, spend about half of their time with him.

Nathan said his younger child was recently hospitalised with croup, which he said was made worse by the mouldy conditions in his home. .

"It's makes me feel horrible," he said, adding: "I try to keep my flat tidy and then I come in and see this, that makes me feel dirty, it's not nice.

"It's not healthy for anyone, I just want to get out of here. No-one should live like this ever - I think it's unacceptable."

Despite being on the housing list, Nathan said: "I don't feel like I have any rights at all

"I feel like I'm just stuck in a rut, and I'm going to be stuck here with the kids and be ill."

Douglas Council said it was aware of each of these cases and more.

Council leader Devon Watson said the four tenants were "the tip of the iceberg", adding "there are thousands who do rent and then there's a large chunk of them that live in absolutely dire conditions".

He added: "We're one of the richest countries on Earth and it's just horrifying that this basic element of human dignity is subordinate to the right of a landlord to extract profit from a tenant."

Watson said there was a lack of rights for tenants who want to complain about their accommodation.

He said: "The regulations that do exist are seldomly enforced and the regulations themselves are insufficient."

Tenants therefore could not self-advocate nor "press claims on their rights", he said.

The landlord registration scheme was created in 2021 in a bid to crack down on poor standards, and set minimum standards on tenancies, property maintenance, and personal requirements.

However that scheme, while due to be made mandatory, is currently voluntary.

In a statement to the BBC, the Isle of Man Government said the Housing Agency Board was "continuing to consider whether to move to a compulsory registration model".

In the meantime, it said its focus was on expanding access to affordable housing on the island.

Watson said thousands more homes were needed, adding that the authority plans to "leverage existing assets, sell properties that we can't do anything with, and use that as a capital base to build more homes".

It aimed to get the social housing waiting list down by two thirds by the next local authority election in April 2029.

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