A LIMERICK woman and her seven children have been on the local authority housing list for the past 14 years, while renting a two-bed house with no hot water.
But Limerick City and County Council has told Sarah O’Donnell that they can’t give her a three-bedroom house to move from her HAP assisted rental property in Prospect because she has teenage children of opposite sexes.
Sarah told the Limerick Post that she, her partner, and her seven children – with ages ranging between 14 years and eight months – are all sleeping in two bedrooms in a house that has had no hot water for more than three years. She also says her home has green mould on the ceilings from damp.
“I picked the baby up from his cot the other day and found rat droppings on the sheets. We’re catching two and three rats every time we set traps. They’re everywhere,” Sarah says.
“There’s only cold water in the shower. The kids scream when they stand under it, but I have to wash them. It’s so freezing I wash the six year old in the kitchen sink. The landlord keeps saying he’ll get it fixed but it’s been cold for more than three years now.”
Sarah said that she has been living in the house for seven years and is paying €890 a month in rent, partly through her own social welfare payment along with HAP.
The only bathroom/toilet in the house is in a box-room off the kitchen and sitting room, she says.
“If anyone has to use the toilet while we’re eating it’s terrible. The whole place is disgusting but it’s impossible to find any other house that will accept HAP,” she explained.
Inspectors have come to the house and contacted the landlord about repairs, she says.
In one bedroom, Sarah and her partner sleep with her toddler twins, her eight month old baby, and her four year old daughter, who has only one kidney due to a birth defect.
“I asked the Council for a three-bed house but they said they can’t do that because I have one teenage boy and a teenage girl and the Council can’t give us a house where they would have to share a room.
“They told me they would knock two houses into one to give us five bedrooms and they said there were houses on Hyde Road where they could do that, but there’s been nothing done about it. We have nowhere else to go.”
The Limerick Post contacted Limerick City and County Council for comment but none was received at time of going to print.
