Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

Curo Housing seriously damages tenants health

Bleak Times | 17.12.2012 19:30 | Social Struggles | South Coast | World

Bath tenants 'stress over shoddy work caused stroke'

Bath's biggest landlord has apologised after one of its tenants suffered a stroke which he blames on a catalogue of errors plaguing work on his kitchen.

Retired caretaker Tony Gifford became distressed and angry after work carried out to his kitchen and bathroom on behalf of Curo went from bad to worse.

He ended up being admitted to the Royal United Hospital after collapsing at home, and has been left with a permanent stutter.

The 74-year-old said: "There is no doubt in my mind that my stroke was bought on by the stress caused.

"I live on my own, and was feeling so stressed and upset and didn't know what to do."

Work on his flat at Combe Down started in March, and what was supposed to be two-week project lasted more than five months.

The wrong-sized sink was installed twice, sewage leaked into the bathroom, and an electrician drilled through the electrics and knocking out power to the whole building.

Mr Gifford was also left with no washing or toilet facilities for 11 days, and when he tried to complain, he says, he was pushed from one person to another.

The final straw came when a hanging light in his living room fell down after being secured to the ceiling with furniture screws, narrowly missing him.

Following this incident Mr Gifford passed out on the sofa, and came round a while later feeling weak and disorientated.

He was taken to the RUH, where he spent two hours in surgery

Mr Gifford said: "The work that was done on my flat has been shoddy.

"The stress caused me to have a stroke, which has left me suffering with a stutter and nose bleeds.

"It is not the severity of the mistakes, it is the quantity.

"I felt no one was listening to me when I rang to complain – the customer service is appalling."

Curo director of transformation and business improvement Donna Baddeley admitted the organisation – previously known as Somer – had lessons to learn.

She said: "We are very disappointed that we have not met the high standards that Mr Gifford, and all our customers, should expect from Curo and our contractors.

"We have looked into what went wrong and met Mr Gifford recently to discuss how we can restore his trust in Curo.

"We have apologised to Mr Gifford and offered to carry out all the works needed to bring his home up to a standard he is happy with.

Bleak Times

Comments

Display the following 2 comments

  1. terrible, but why on indymedia? — Fox lover
  2. Politics in it? — Customer Counselling Collective

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech