Clarion Housing Association Limited (202525292)

Decision
Case ID	202525292
Decision type	Investigation
Landlord	Clarion Housing Association Limited
Landlord type	Housing Association
Occupancy	Assured Shorthold Tenancy
Date	5 March 2026

Background

The resident lives in a ground floor flat near a communal bin store and repeatedly reported rat infestations to her home, which she believed originated from the bin store. She said the odour in her home was affecting her and her children’s health, leading to medical intervention. She was concerned with the landlord’s management of communal and internal repairs and the delay in resolving the infestation. The resident asked us to assess whether the landlord’s response was reasonable in the circumstances.

What the complaint is about

The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of a rat infestation.
We have also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

We found:
1. Maladministration in the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of a rat infestation.
2. Maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

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

Summary of reasons

Response to reports of the rat infestation

The landlord’s records did not demonstrate it took timely and effective action to address the cause of the infestation. This included limited evidence of following pest controller recommendations and engaging with the community over 7 months.

Complaint handling

The landlord did not acknowledge its delay raising the initial complaint,identify its failure to progress the resident’s escalation request, or answer all elements of the complaint. Therefore, it did not put things right for the resident or learn from the complaint.

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.

Order	What the landlord must do	Due date
1	Apology order The landlord must apologise in writing to the resident for the failures identified in this report. The landlord must ensure: The apology is specific to the failures identified in this decision, meaningful and empathetic. It has due regard to our apologies guidance.	No later than 02 April 2026
2	Compensation order The landlord must pay the resident £250 made up as follows: £150 for the distress and inconvenience caused by its failures in its response to the resident’s reports of a rat infestation. £100 for the inconvenience, time and trouble caused by its complaint handling failings. This must be paid directly to the resident by the due date. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of payment by the due date. This is in addition to the payments it has already made during the complaint procedure.	No later than 02 April 2026
3	Inspection order We have made an inspection order because it is unclear if the resident considers the rat infestation to be ongoing at the point of investigation. What the landlord must do The landlord must contact the resident to find out if she considers the infestation to be ongoing. If she does, it must arrange an inspection. The landlord must take all reasonable steps to ensure the inspection is completed by the due date. A suitably qualified person must complete the inspection to establish whether there is ongoing pest activity and the measures needed to resolve this. If the landlord cannot gain access to complete the inspection, it must provide us with documentary evidence of its attempts to inspect the property no later than the due date.	No later than 02 April 2026
4	Specific action order: damaged possession assessment The landlord must assess whether it is responsible for reimbursing the resident for her damaged possessions associated with the rat infestation. Alternatively, it must provide details of its liability insurers to the resident if she is still within the timeframe to make a claim. It must write to the resident to explain its decision, and this must include a reference to any relevant obligations.	No later than 02 April 2026
5	Case review order The landlord must assess its record keeping for the outcomes of the recommendations made by its contractors. This must include identifying the minimum standards that ought to have been recorded in its repair log, which of these standards it failed to adhere to, and why. The landlord must provide a written report to the Ombudsman detailing its findings and any wider learning it has identified to prevent a reoccurrence of this. This may include changes to process, policy, staff training or other factors.	No later than 30 April 2026
6	Staff training order The landlord must provide evidence of conducting complaint handling training with relevant staff members within the last 6 months. Alternatively, it must now complete the training. The training must cover: The Code timescales for responding to a complaint. How to handle delays in complaint handling. Answering all elements of a complaint. Identifying complaint handling issues and putting things right. The landlord must provide us with: A copy of its training pack. The date the training was delivered.	No later than 02 April 2026

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

Date	What happened
13 November 2024	The resident reported that she had found rats in her bathroom and the communal bin area. She said her family had vulnerabilities and she was concerned local fly tipping was causing the issue. The landlord arranged for pest control to attend, and they recommended proofing works to the property and a CCTV drain survey to check entry points.
22 November 2024	The resident complained because the infestation was ongoing and the landlord had not provided her with any updates. She said the landlord had said bin lids would be provided but it had not. She said this was causing her anxiety, stress and sleep disruption as well as being a health hazard to her children. She asked it to block the entry points, remove the dead rats, clear up the communal waste bins, and compensate her for any damage as well as the distress caused. The landlord acknowledged the complaint on 11 December 2024.
5 February 2025	The landlord issued its stage 1 response explaining when the resident reported the issue and when it attended. It said the resident asked for temporary accommodation in December 2024, but it could not arrange this, so it paid £100 for her to stay with friends. After checking the property for odours, it found the property was still habitable. It said a CCTV drain survey and proofing work were completed on 5 February 2025, with more work due on 18 February 2025. This was to be followed by a deep clean. The landlord said it had acted in line with its policy but accepted the resident had been inconvenienced. It paid £250 compensation (£50 for the delayed complaint response, £150 for the impact of the pest issue and her vulnerabilities, and £50 as a goodwill gesture).
12 February 2025	The resident escalated her complaint because there was still an “overwhelming” smell in the property, which she believed was caused by dead rats. She said the family were sleeping in the living room and avoiding using the heating because it made the smell worse. She reported that her daughter’s respiratory condition had worsened and her own mental health was being affected. She asked the landlord to contact her urgently. The landlord acknowledged this on 10 April 2025.
2 June 2025	The landlord issued its stage 2 response explaining its earlier decision was fair and followed its policy. It said the resident did not request an escalation on 12 February 2025, so it treated this as a service request. It had arranged a further pest control assessment to investigate the odour and remove dead rats. It confirmed a large hole under the gas cupboard was sealed on 27 February 2025 and said there was low to no rodent activity found up until April 2024. During this time bait was refreshed but later removed when no activity was detected. And by 24 April no further visits were deemed necessary. It said it would review any new reports and paid an additional £50 for the delay in sending its response.
Referral to the Ombudsman	The resident referred her complaint to us because there was ongoing rat activity causing damage to her property, including her carpets. She wanted it to resolve the issue and reimburse her costs.

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.

Complaint	Response to the resident’s reports of a rat infestation
Finding	Maladministration

The resident’s tenancy agreement is silent in relation to pest control. The landlord’s pest control policy states it is responsible for identifying and blocking structural access points for pests and regularly inspecting estates with known pest problems. It must arrange ongoing pest control treatment for high risk blocks, repair structural damage including outbuildings and pipework, and eradicate infestations in communal areas caused by disrepair. It also states communal areas, including bin stores, must be regularly cleaned.
For context, the landlord was aware of a rat infestation at the building before the resident’s reports and had been operating routine pest control visits to the bin store.
Between November 2024 and February 2025, the resident made 4 reports about rat infestations in her home, which she believed were originating from the bin store. The landlord appropriately arranged for its pest control contractor to attend the resident’s property and the communal bin store on 13 occasions during this time. They made the following recommendations to the landlord alongside baiting both areas:
1. Extensive proofing works in the resident’s kitchen, downstairs toilet and bathroom due to openings around floor junctions and including holes in the gas cupboard.
2. A CCTV drain survey to inspect 4 drains, alongside repairs to a broken drainpipe and a wall defect that could allow pest ingress.
3. Removing old furniture that was providing harbourage after they identified rat burrows and access points around the building, including damaged doors and frames.
4. Waste management improvement due to overflowing bins, debris build up. They said household rubbish near the building required clearing, with increased collections while rats remained active.
5. Keeping bins closed, removing food from external areas, improving housekeeping, and cleaning spills promptly to support pest control measures.
6. Further installation of proofing and access panels were recommended at the front of the property to investigate and remove dead rodents.
The landlord took 3 weeks to arrange a CCTV drain survey, with no clear reason for the delay. It later rescheduled the first appointment made. It is unclear why it did this based on the records. It then booked another appointment a month later. It is unclear if this was the first available appointment. This contributed to the delay the resident experienced. It later said in its complaint response that the survey found “no major issues”. However, it did not provide us with the contractor’s report. Further, its records continued to recommend the survey, and its repair logs did not evidence any survey was completed. As a result, we could not be satisfied it responded reasonably to the resident’s reports by following its contractor recommendations. Or that it took reasonable action to identify all the possible entry points.
Similarly, the landlord took 3 weeks to arrange proofing works and said pest control needed to attend first, but it gave no reason for this dependency. It then re‑raised the job and booked another appointment a month later. As a result, the appointment occurred 2 and a half months after the recommendation, causing delays for the resident. The notes only recorded “2 entry holes [were found]” and the need to “block [an] entrance” but not that it had completed work to remedy this. Additionally, while its complaint response said it sealed gaps in the gas cupboard, its repair records did not confirm the work had been completed. Due to poor record keeping, we could not be satisfied that it acted promptly to carry out the recommendations or that all the works were completed.
The landlord planned to “open up the garages, remove the bins, and clear up the area” in November 2024, which was positive given the contractor and resident’s repeated concerns about fly tipping. However, there is no evidence any of this work took place, including bin store cleaning or bin lid replacement, which was a requirement in its policy. This was a missed opportunity to show it was acting on recommendations and policy obligations. As well as to engage with the community about fly tipping, which could have reduced the infestation’s duration and impact on the resident.
The resident reported health impacts from the smell of decomposing rats. The landlord appropriately inspected but could not find the carcasses. It later raised a job to create hatches for further inspection. However, the records do not show whether this work was completed. Therefore, we could not be satisfied it acted on this recommendation appropriately.
The resident later said she and her children required emergency hospital treatment due to the odour. The landlord paid the resident £100 for staying with her family. It also inspected within 24 hours and confirmed the property was habitable after completing odour checks and testing gas and carbon monoxide levels. It then explained why further temporary accommodation was not appropriate in the circumstances. This was a reasonable response to the resident’s concerns.
The landlord said it kept the resident updated, but we found little evidence of this. As a result, the resident spent unnecessary time seeking help from environmental health and repeatedly reporting the infestation. The landlord also said it responded promptly to all reports and followed its contractor’s advice. It acknowledged the household’s vulnerabilities and the inconvenience of repeated visits, and it offered compensation for this. However, we do not consider the landlord’s remedy was proportionate to address the detriment caused by the additional failures we found.
This is because while it continued routine pest control treatments, its records did not show effective action to address the cause of the infestation. Nor did it show timely structural or drainage investigations, bin cleans, timely removal of fly‑tipping, or community engagement over 7 months. This caused the resident avoidable distress and inconvenience. And it remains unclear whether the infestation has been resolved. We have ordered an additional £150 to recognise this, which is in line with our Remedies Guidance for the level of failure.

Complaint	The handling of the complaint
Finding	Maladministration

The Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code), applicable from April 2024, was in use at the time of the resident’s complaint. The landlord’s complaint policy appropriately adopted the definition of a complaint and the response timeframes set out in the Code.
The landlord took 13 working days to acknowledge the resident’s complaint instead of 5 required under its policy. This happened because it allocated the complaint to the wrong team. It recognised this internally but did not acknowledge this it in its response or attempt to put things right.
The landlord later acknowledged the complaint and said it needed more time to respond while it awaited “stakeholder input”. It gave a new timeframe, which was reasonable. However, it told the resident of its delay a month after the response was due and did not update her earlier. This caused avoidable time and trouble in chasing updates. The landlord accepted it missed the deadline, apologised, and offered suitable compensation.
The landlord took 41 working days to acknowledge the resident’s request to escalate her complaint. It said the delay happened because she did not explicitly request a “stage 2 escalation”. However, where any aspect of a complaint remains unresolved, the landlord is required to progress it to stage 2. The resident is also not required to provide reasons for seeking a further review. The correspondence showed she was still dissatisfied. Therefore, the landlord should have recognised this and escalated the complaint or asked for clarification if it was unclear about her intentions. Its failure added to the delay.
The landlord’s stage 2 response took 34 working days. There is no evidence the landlord told the resident about the delay, explained its reasons, or gave a new timeframe. This did not meet the obligations of its policy or the Code. The delay also slowed the resident’s access to the Ombudsman. The landlord apologised for this and offered appropriate compensation.
The resident said the infestation damaged her belongings, including her carpet. Although the landlord spoke with her about this before the stage 1 response, the call notes show the line was “distorted”. This left her unclear about its position and caused her distress. The landlord must address all elements of the complaint and should have clearly explained its position in its response. Because it did not do this, it failed to comply with the Code.
Although the landlord accepted delays in issuing its responses, it did not acknowledge the delay in raising the initial complaint. And while it explained why stage 2 was delayed, it did not recognise this as a failure. Combined with its failure to answer all elements of the complaint, this meant it did not fully put things right or learn from the complaint. Because of this, we have awarded further compensation in line with our Remedies Guidance for the level of failure.

Learning

The landlord should ensure staff understand and follow pest control policies so that contractor recommendations are acted on promptly and effectively.

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

The landlord should improve the accuracy and completeness of its records to demonstrate that recommended works, inspections, and follow‑up actions have been completed.

Communication

The landlord should provide timely, proactive updates to residents, especially when delays occur or further information is required to progress a complaint or repair.