Glasgow dad left out of pocket after leak damages home

Darren Thompson couldn’t sleep and had to send his children to stay with their mum after water poured into his Govan flat.

The 36-year-old said he had to take unpaid time off work to battle the leak which left the property soaked last month. 

Darren has been left out of pocket (Image: Colin Mearns)

The leak has stained the ceiling and soaked the carpet (Image: Colin Mearns)

Darren said: “I had a really bad leak in my house and I am so angry that I was left to live with it.

“Water was pouring in my daughters room very badly, I had to empty the buckets every 30 minutes so I couldn’t even sleep.

“I had to take time off work to keep on top of it and now I need to pay for the damage it caused to the place, it has cost me hundreds of pounds.

“The place stinks of dampness and it has caused such a mess, I was terrified the roof was actually going to come in.

“I think the housing association took far too long to come out and deal with it which made the damage worse, the full situation has been a nightmare.”

Board planks had to be placed on the ceiling to battle the severe leak (Image: Colin Mearns)

Darren claims the leak caused damage to his Govan home (Image: Colin Mearns)

Linthouse Housing Association confirmed the damage and said repairs were delayed due to bad weather.

A spokesperson for Linthouse Housing Association said: “The association on Monday,  January 22 attended the property and inspected the damage while giving advice to Mr. Thompson.

“On inspection by the property officers, it was their professional view that the water ingress was contained to the spare bedroom ceiling, did not impact any other area of the flat and the ceiling was structurally secure albeit with some puncture holes to allow excess water to escape into containers.

“This information was used to come to the conclusion that it didn’t warrant a decant as the disruption was limited and contained to the spare bedroom.”

They added: “Unfortunately, the rectification works were all external works to the high-level guttering and drainage system and given the recent storms we could only carry out temporary repairs internally as we couldn’t risk the safety of the contractors to traverse the roof and external areas of the building when the weather conditions were so unpredictable.

“The association is not aware of any claim made by Mr Thompson for damaged items, but we would welcome Mr Thompson to contact us to discuss the matter further and to see how we may be able to assist him going forward.”