A woman has claimed a cockroach infestation in her flat that has been unresolved for more than a year has left her “anxious, stressed and unable to sleep”.
Salma Gajia, who is aged in her 60s, has lived on the Guinness estate in Stamford Hill for 35 years.
She claims that she had never had any issues with her housing association The Guinness Partnership until July 2022, when she noticed cockroaches in her home.
Ms Gajia said: “I had never even seen a cockroach before in my life but all of a sudden we started getting infestations throughout the block because they travel through pipes and things like that.
“I was absolutely disgusted because I’ve got underlying health problems and they carry all these diseases.”
She added that she has seen the cockroaches in her cutlery drawer and her toaster, describing it as an “ongoing problem”.
After Ms Gajia complained about the issue, The Guinness Partnership sent pest control to try to tackle the infestation using traps in roughly a quarter of the 19 flats in her block.
She said that at first these visits were every couple of weeks, but became more and more infrequent, before stopping for good in January this year even though the problem had not been resolved.
A complaints investigation carried out by the housing association in March found that it had “acted appropriately when notified” by Ms Gajia.
But Ms Gajia has claimed she is not happy with the findings of the investigation, and escalated her complaint to the Housing Ombudsman earlier this month.
She said: “Nothing has been resolved. I am so angry – this is my home, and I shouldn’t be living like this.
“They should have treated the whole block, fumigated the whole block.
“I just feel like the landlord has failed us. They’ve failed the whole entire block.”
On Thursday (August 10), a spokesperson for The Guinness Partnership said that the housing association is working with other relevant agencies, confirming that the cause of the infestation is “a sensitive situation”.
They added: “We are very sorry that the issue appears to have returned after our comprehensive response to the issue which we understood had been resolved from the last visit (11th visit) of the pest control service.
“The resident contacted us three days ago to report recurrence of the issue and we are responding to this.”
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here