A VULNERABLE man has been living in "daily distress" after his bathroom ceiling collapsed because of a neighbours' leak which went unfixed.
Jerry Daly, 57, has lived in the "disgusting" flat owned by housing association Curo in Cotham, Bristol, for 27 years.
He noticed nine leaks coming from the upstairs neighbour's flat in a six-month period – but Curo "didn’t solve the problem", with the firm claiming it was "difficult to locate".
As the leaks worsened, plaster from the ceiling in the bathroom fell onto the floor.
The problem remained unfixed for 18 days and left what appeared to be mould on the ceiling, Jerry claims.
Jerry suffers from aphasia – a condition which makes it difficult to speak – due to a stroke.
His friend Eunice Newman spoke on his behalf and said: "I just feel really desperate for him because I know that he's had this stroke, so life's kind of stressful for him anyway."
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She said Jerry's treatment has been "disgusting" and added: "Imagine if he was on the loo even, and that came down on him. It could have been potentially really dangerous.
"This flooding has been ongoing for months since May, and Curo didn’t solve the problem."
Curo has apologised to Jerry for the delays in fixing the issue, and a spokesperson said that they "accept this took much longer than we would have liked".
The firm said restrictions around working in residents' homes because of Covid-19 also made it difficult for them to carry out the necessary fixes.
A spokesperson for Curo said: "We have apologised to Mr Daly for the damage to his home and the distress caused, and we apologise again now for the delays in identifying the cause of the problem.
"We accept this took much longer than we would have liked; the damage to Mr Daly’s ceiling was caused by a long-standing leak from the property above which was very difficult to locate.
"Restrictions around working in residents’ homes because of Covid-19 made this especially challenging, and eventually we had to move the family in the property upstairs into temporary accommodation so that we could remove their entire bathroom and get to the source of the leak.
"We visited Mr Daly as soon as the incident happened and have been working closely with him since then.
"We offered him temporary accommodation while we carried out repairs, but he decided he’d prefer to stay in his home.
"We couldn’t fix the ceiling immediately because it had to be allowed to dry out.
"We have now repaired the ceiling and made good all the damage in Mr Daly’s bathroom – and we have also offered to pay him compensation for the inconvenience and upset this has caused."
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