A Homerton father claims he and his family have had to live in a damp home for seven years.

Syed Alam said he bought his flat from Hackney Council in 2015, by which time he claims he could already see issues including a leaking ceiling and damp walls.

According to Syed, the council said it would resolve the issues once he, his wife and his three sons had moved into the flat.

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Syed claims his sitting room is so mouldy and wet that it is unusable, there is mould on multiple walls of the home and when it rains the water comes in through his front door.

He said: "My hope was we were going to live nicely and peacefully but its been a headache for seven years now."

Syed said he used to live in a flat in the building opposite his current flat but had to move in 2015 because that building was being demolished.

He said the council sent someone round to put up scaffolding outside his flat and to cut into the wall to see what the problem was but was unable to solve the issue.

Hackney Gazette: Syed Alam said Hackney Council sent someone over to cut through the wall in an attempt to clear the mouldSyed Alam said Hackney Council sent someone over to cut through the wall in an attempt to clear the mould (Image: Syed Alam)

Syed added: "When it's raining sometimes I have to put buckets under the bathroom ceiling.

"You can guess how much I'm suffering - I'm distressed. Sometimes I cannot go to work, sometimes my wife cannot go to work if it rains heavily.

"[There are] so many people I've been to... and now I'm stuck."

A Hackney Council spokesperson said the council has undertaken a number of visits and repairs to the property.

This included repairing some of the external brick work and clearing the block's guttering in December.

The spokesperson said: "Despite carrying out work to seek to fix the reported issues, others have arisen and we are extremely sorry for the inconvenience this has caused.

"It appears that due to the design of the building we will need to carry out extensive specialist repair work, including to the roof and damp proof course, which will hopefully resolve the situation.

"We take issues of damp and mould extremely seriously and we have continued to investigate the underlying cause of the issues in this case."