Forced out of home (From Barry And District News)

Forced out of home

A BARRY resident claims the state of her new home forced her to move back to her old property.

Debra Powell of Camrose Court, who was originally given the house under the Homes 4U scheme, said it was infested with bluebottles and dead birds.

The mother of two told the News: "Everything looked fine and well painted when we moved in for Monday June 7. But by the time we had put all the furniture at Glyndwr Close in St Athan the rooms were infested. There were at least 50 bluebottles to each window and 10 or 12 birds.

"We were all very stressed about this and had to arrange another van to take all the stuff back to my old address."

The 35-year-old was looking forward to starting afresh with her children.

She said: "I am disgusted with the mess which I ended up with. My furniture had bird muck on it. My eight-year-old son Andrew and his nine-year-old sister were traumatised by what happened. They ran out of the house in horror. There was obviously something dead in the house because there was an awful smell."

A spokesman for the Vale of Glamorgan Public Sector Housing department said: "Mrs Powell put in a successful bid for the house. She went for an accompanied viewing of the property with a housing officer before moving in and at this point no problems were noticed by either party.

"But after moving in, Mrs Powell contacted us but failed to meet a pre-arranged meeting for the pest control company so they could not get in.

"Mrs Powell then said that she would prefer to move back to her old property.

"She is back on the Gold priority list and the pest control company will investigate the alleged problem before anyone else is homed there.

"Mrs Powell has alleged that some of her furniture was damaged by bird excrement and we have advised her to make an insurance claim for any damaged property, which will be processed by the Council's insurers."