London & Quadrant Housing Trust (202440302)

Background

1. The resident lives in a ground floor flat with communal use of a garden. She lives with her son who has a low immunity condition that makes him more susceptible to illness or disease.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about:
   1. The landlord’s handling of reports about pest control and cleaning of the communal areas.
   2. How the landlord responded to the complaint.

Our decision (determination)

3. We have found that:
   1. There was a service failure in the landlord’s handling of reports about pest control and cleaning of communal areas.
   2. There was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the complaint.

We have made orders for the landlord to put things right.

Summary of reasons

The handling of reports about pest control and cleaning of communal areas

4. The landlord’s responses did not acknowledge the vulnerabilities of the resident’s son in line with its policies. Additionally, the communication with the resident should not have led her to believe that the residents would be responsible for cleaning the faeces.

The handling of the complaint

5. The landlord delayed responding to the complaint in line with its policies and procedures.

Putting things right

Where we find service failure, maladministration or severe maladministration we can make orders for the landlord to put things right. We have the discretion to make recommendations in all other cases within our jurisdiction.

Orders

Landlords must comply with our orders in the manner and timescales we specify. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of compliance with our orders by the due date set.

Recommendations

Our recommendations are not binding, and a landlord may decide not to follow them.

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

What we found and why

The circumstances of this complaint are well known by the parties involved, so it is not necessary to detail everything that’s happened or comment on all the information we’ve reviewed. We’ve only included the key information that forms the basis of our decision of whether the landlord is responsible for maladministration.

6. The resident began raising concerns about cleanliness and animal faeces on 29 August 2024. The landlord cleaned the communal area on 6 September 2024 and confirmed on 13 September 2024 that the faeces came from foxes. On the same day, the landlord informed the resident that pest control does not handle fox faeces and that all residents share the responsibility for maintaining the communal areas.
7. We have reviewed the landlord’s Pest Policy and Estates Management Policy and can confirm that it does not state the landlord will deal with fox faeces. Equally, however, it does not stipulate that this responsibility will fall to the residents.
8. We note that these policies are silent on how fox faeces will be dealt with in communal spaces. In our view, if the landlord’s intention was to require residents to manage this in communal spaces, this should have been included under the relevant section that covers resident responsibilities. We note that the policy states:

“Tenants have a responsibility to keep their properties clean and tidy shared areas such as stairways, corridors and landings clean and clear of rubbish. They must not encourage pests by leaving food out, feeding pests or throwing out scraps for them to eat. On discovering pests in their home, where appropriate, tenants are expected to try to deal with the problem using remedies that can be bought from local DIY/hardware stores e.g. insect sprays, flea and ant powders, mice traps etc. If they are unable to deal with the problem, they should contact L&Q”.

9. In our view, any ambiguity that surrounds this should be interpreted against the party who drafted the policy – being the landlord. Given the health implications, we also would have expected the landlord to have made reasonable arrangements, as the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 sets out the requirement to uphold the health and safety of communal areas.
10. We note the landlord did take some action to attempt to resolve the complaint. These included:
    1. Inspecting and cleaning the area during a visit to the property. The landlord also identified fences that required repairs and completed those repairs in full by 14 October 2024.
    2. Contacting all the residents in the communal block on multiple occasions to reiterate their responsibilities for cleaning the external areas and providing guidance about how to deter foxes.
    3. Organising monthly unannounced inspections of the communal areas to monitor the situation.
11. The actions show the landlord kept in regular contact with the resident and made attempts to resolve the complaint by cleaning the communal space when the initial report was made. However, the landlord explained in the stage 1 response that it was not feasible for it to attend the property to clean the area daily, which the Ombudsman accepts as reasonable
12. It is accepted that there are things that the residents could do to reduce the fox activity, and therefore it was appropriate for the landlord to contact all occupants to remind them to keep the area clean (not to litter or leave food that would bring foxes). This was part of the resident’s responsibility under the Tenancy Agreement. The agreement does not say that residents will be responsible for fouling, however.
13. On 17 September 2024, the resident informed the landlord that the issue was particularly concerning due to her son’s ongoing health conditions. The Vulnerable Resident’s policy says that the landlord should ask how the condition effects the resident and consider how it responds when dealing with residents. The resident told the landlord about her son’s medical condition and how the issue with the fox faeces impacted him, however the landlord gave no response which showed any consideration of the resident’s vulnerabilities.
14. It is acknowledged that it is impractical and unfeasible for the landlord to attend the space every day to clean up the mess. What would be expected, however, is for the landlord to:
    1. Repair the structural issues that provide access for the foxes.
    2. Work with the residents to establish how they can discourage fox activity.
    3. Establish what measures it could reasonably take to improve the circumstance, keeping in mind that the resident has expressed that her son lives with a condition that could be exacerbated by the presence of faeces.
15. We can see that the landlord took reasonable steps to address the access routes, and also made contact with residents to curb any resident activity that may have been attracting the foxes. Additionally, the landlord committed to monthly unannounced visits to monitor the communal spaces, which was reasonable. In our view, however, the communication with the resident should not have led her to believe that the residents would be responsible for cleaning the faeces. The landlord should have confirmed that during its monthly visit, it would continue to deal with the faeces and would explore strategies for a longer-term solution. In the absence of this, we have determined that there was a service failure.

16. The resident formally requested the complaint be raised on 9 September 2024. This was not acknowledged until 1 October 2024. This was not in line with the landlord’s complaint policy which said the process to log and acknowledge a stage 1 complaint would take no longer than 5 working days.
17. The initial delay in acknowledging the resident’s complaint in good time meant that she was not provided a stage 1 in good time and the process took longer than it should have to exhaust. This delayed the resident in being able to bring her complaint to the Ombudsman.