In the last hour our small team has received two phone calls from tenants desperate for help. One is a young mother of two children exasperated because she has been without any hot water for three weeks and the second is a tenant with water pouring into the bedroom every time it rains. In both cases their landlords refuse to do anything about it - and this is far from an exception.

As an environmental health officer, I work for a district council to uphold the health and safety of tenants in both private and social housing. Every day, frustrated and angry renters rely on us to step in and help. The demand for our help has increased substantially, but we face continual cuts. We have to make hard decisions about who to visit, because we simply don’t have enough people. And it’s worse from October and March, when the colder weather leads to a significant rise in complaints of cold, damp and mould.

My team should be growing to meet this demand, not shrinking. The shortage of social housing means many families with young children now have no choice but to rent privately. In the past 10 years the private rented sector has grown by 120% in my area – and one in three of these properties carry potential health risks. Poor maintenance is a common problem, leading to accidents, while cold and damp can both cause and worsen circulatory and respiratory conditions. I worry about how many young children will develop preventable, life-long respiratory conditions such as asthma this winter, which will prove costly to the NHS over their lifetime.

Many new landlords seem shocked when inspectors like me have the audacity to ask them to spend money making the property safe. There are now many such new landlords in the private rented sector who have been tempted by the “easy” money to be made, but who have little or no knowledge or understanding of their legal responsibilities.

As funding cuts bite further, more landlords will recognise the chance to get away with doing less than the bare minimum. Only this week two landlords admitted that they knew what they needed to do to their properties, but were waiting to be told by us to make improvements. Officers like me are increasingly frustrated at not being able to help the people who need it most.

Most of the tenants calling on our help live in solid brick houses that in our area are cheaper to rent but expensive to heat. I inspected a terrace property the other day where the tenant was putting a crippling £300 on their electric meter every month as well as falling well behind on their rent.



Worse still, we know that many tenants who have the audacity to complain to the council will instantly be given their notice by the landlord and told to leave, whether the complaint is justified or not.

Changes in the law have been made, but it is unlikely to encourage tenants to call us. The fear of the consequences will remain for a long time to come. Just one recent example was the tenant who had asked us for support to get improvements and as a result found his possessions out on the street.



You might well ask why we don’t prosecute more landlords who break the law, but prosecutions consume considerable resources that just don’t exist. And even when our prosecutions are successful, often they only result in very small fines. We have prosecuted landlords and will continue to do so, but the risk of being caught and levels of fines are not the deterrent that they should be.



With all the cuts and staff shortages, I just hope there are enough of us left to help when you or your family need us most.

This series aims to give a voice to the staff behind the public services that are hit by mounting cuts and rising demand, and so often denigrated by the press, politicians and public. If you would like to write an article for the series, contact kirstie.brewer@theguardian.com

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