For many years the Sanctuary Housing Association has been charging its tenants for pest control without providing the service. This is a clear breach of contract. This appears not to be a simple oversight. The group must account for these payments annually. It would seem that a large sum of money is collected annually that simply cannot be accounted for and that should be returned to the tenants.

In one case in East London hundreds of tenants have lived with an infestation of rats and mice for at least ten years. The issue was raised with Sanctuary Housing Association using their own internal complaints procedure. This process took a huge tenacity over three years to finally reach the highest level of complaint. This involved setting up an enquiry panel of ‘independent’ service users (other Sanctuary Housing tenants). Throughout this process many opportunities to remedy the issue were ignored by Sanctuary Housing Association. The housing association simultaneously unlawfully sought to remove the tenant making the complaints from his home. A hasty rent adjustment was made to remove pest control from the tenants rent statement although no reduction in the rent appeared. The independent board upheld all the complaints made by the tenant however they were given no power to suggest or enforce any remedy/solution including the ones offered by the tenant. To date the pest control issues remain unresolved. The tenant, a vulnerable adult, has been told that he must begin another formal complaint within the procedure if he wishes to proceed.

Unfortunately the internal system either by design or default seeks to disenfranchise tenants. Each case is processed as an individual pest control problem. Complaints are not responded to in a timely manner and tenants often misinformed as to their rights. Some of the standard advice from Sanctuary Housing Association;

The Housing Association is not responsible for pest control in any circumstance.

The issue cannot be dealt with unless the whole building/street complains at the same time.

Paperwork and/or reports have been lost or are being indefinitely processed by a team that cannot be contacted by the tenants.

Contractors called and nobody was home , often when tenants wait at home for the whole day the contractors simply do not appear.

Many tenants who pursue complaints using the internal system experience huge delays in the process, sudden rent re-evaluations removing pest control from the rent although never a drop in rent, somehow the rent is recalculated to be the same without this element included.

This petition is to call for solidarity as appears that the Sanctuary Group are not prepared to accept any responsibility or provide any remedy for individual tenants.

Many tenants continue to suffer extreme pest infestations such as rats, flees, cockroaches and mice. Despite this issue being raised to the highest level of the Sanctuary Housing complaints procedure requests for a remedy have been ignored by the group.

The remedy I propose is twofold:

1.     Sanctuary Housing Group provides the pest control that they are responsible for in a timely manner.

2.     Historic charges are used to provide legal advice for tenants affected by this matter.

Should a remedy not be found I propose a call for an independent inquiry into the charges being levied for a service the Sanctuary Housing Association do not provide.