Terrified mum opens up on the horrors of living in a Leeds council flat
A Leeds mother has spoken about the terrifying conditions she and her two daughters face in their council flat. Louise Clarke, who lives in Middleton, says her family deals with persistent mould, damp, shaky floors, and an infestation of insects.
The situation has been made worse after the girls discovered a silverfish in their bed, following sightings of the pests in the bathroom. Louise says the experience has given her daughters “nightmares.”
The flat also has a serious safety issue: beneath the floorboards of the girls’ bedroom, there is no covering between the room and the basement roughly ten feet below. This has left Louise fearing for her children’s safety.
After Leeds Live raised the matter, Leeds City Council said it would carry out repairs as a “matter of urgency.”
Louise, whose daughters are aged five and 11, moved into the flat in 2018 and says she has been reporting problems since 2020. She claims the lack of insulation in the outer walls is causing ongoing damp and mould, but the council has not resolved the issue. She is also concerned about the bricked-off basement beneath her daughters’ room.
“They have been damp treated but the council keep painting over it. I’ve told them it’s not good painting over them as outside it needs doing,” Louise said.
She recounted a recent incident: “I have a basement underneath you can’t get into. A couple months ago, we had smoke coming from the basement and the fire service came out. They said if we had an actual fire in the basement, how would we be able to get into it? As it’s all been bricked off.” Upon looking beneath the floorboards, the family discovered the dangerous drop. Since then, Louise has been sleeping in the room with her daughters.
“In my girls’ bedroom, they’re getting mould on the walls and it’s really cold on a morning and at night. Even if I’ve got heating on. We’re losing constant heat all the time, from the basement. My youngest daughter, who’s five, she’s scared to sleep in her own bedroom because of the basement underneath us. If you pick my flooring up, you can see into the basement because it’s not covered with anything,” she said.
She also described the silverfish problem: “She’s been having nightmares as we found a silverfish in her bed. We’re getting a lot of silverfish. They eat on starch and if you’ve got damp. On a morning or at night, we find them. We get them in the bathroom, as well. It made me feel horrible, it’s not nice at all.”
Mould is also spreading through other areas of the home, including the living room and hallways. “In my girls’ bedroom, they’ve got damp, the council keep telling me to wipe it over. I have wiped it over but it keeps coming back. On the window frames as well, I keep waking up on the morning and finding them wet through and covered with a black squidgy mould, all on the window frame and on my net curtains,” Louise said.
The floorboards’ unsafe drop has added to Louise’s anxiety: “If my daughters fell down that hole, they’d be gone, we’d all be gone, it’s like a 10ft drop. I’m afraid my daughters are going to fall down into that basement, and are not going to survive the drop.”
The family also worries about the creaking floors. “My floor is creaking as well. The council have tried to tell me there’s nothing wrong with my floors. When you walk on my living room floor, my furniture rattles and the floor moves, it’s shaky. In the bathroom, the floor creaks,” Louise explained. She added that her family wants to move out because they are “not happy here.”
A Leeds City Council spokesperson responded: “The council takes its responsibilities as a landlord extremely seriously and is absolutely committed to providing and maintaining quality homes for people in Leeds. We have previously investigated and addressed a number of disrepair issues that have been raised by Miss Clarke about her flat. Following the concerns reported to us today, we have returned to the flat to carry out further checks for damp and mould and have resecured the floor. Our checks today have identified the need for some further repairs to be carried out, including a mould treatment to the bedroom and some improvement work which will reduce the risk of condensation occurring. These will be dealt with as a matter of urgency.”
Source: LeedsLive, November 2025
