Southwark Council (202121132)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202121132

Southwark Council

30 March 2023

Our approach

The Housing Ombudsman’s approach to investigating and determining complaints is to decide what is fair in all the circumstances of the case. This is set out in the Housing Act 1996 and the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme). The Ombudsman considers the evidence and looks to see if there has been any ‘maladministration’, for example whether the landlord has failed to keep to the law, followed proper procedure, followed good practice or behaved in a reasonable and competent manner.

Both the resident and the landlord have submitted information to the Ombudsman and this has been carefully considered. Their accounts of what has happened are summarised below. This report is not an exhaustive description of all the events that have occurred in relation to this case, but an outline of the key issues as a background to the investigation’s findings.

The complaint

1. The complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns about bedbugs in the property.

Scope of investigation

2. The Ombudsman will not be able to consider the resident’s dissatisfaction with the standard of the pest control service in this investigation. This is because the landlord is a local authority and its pest control service is part of its wider organisation as the local authority. Complaints about local authorities which are not about its function as a landlord fall properly within the jurisdiction of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (https://www.lgo.org.uk/). This is in accordance with paragraph 41(d) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme which states that this Service cannot consider complaints which concern matters in respect of Local Housing Authorities in England which do not relate to their provision or management of social housing.
3. This investigation will, however, consider whether the landlord acted reasonably and in accordance with its obligations in response to the resident’s concerns in its function as a landlord.

Background

4. The resident is a tenant of the landlord which is a local authority. The local authority provides a pest control service for its tenants and private residents.
5. The local authority’s pest control service attended the resident’s property on five occasions between 30 November 2020 and 1 February 2021. These visits found that there was low level of bedbug infestation and the pest control service carried out chemical treatments. On four further visits between 15 February and 24 August 2021, no infestation was found.
6. The resident raised a stage one complaint on 7 October 2021 in which she expressed dissatisfaction with the handling of her reports of bedbugs. She said that she had needed to dispose of three beds and a carpet because of the bedbugs, which caused her children distress, one of which was allergic to the bites. The resident contended that the bedbugs originated from one of her neighbours and she wanted to be moved to temporary accommodation while they were eradicated. The pest control service carried out chemical treatments on 14 October and 5 November 2021 after finding low levels of bedbug activity and on four further visits on 19 and 30 November, and 3 and 15 December 2021 found no evidence of activity.
7. The pest control department issued the resident with a stage one complaint response on 21 December 2021 which asserted that it had not found evidence of infestations on its last five visits. She escalated her complaint on 17 January 2022, expressing dissatisfaction with the standard of the pest control service and requesting compensation for the items she had needed to dispose of.
8. The landlord’s final response to the resident on 1 February 2022 noted that she had sought temporary accommodation while her reports of bedbug infestation were addressed. It said that it could not compensate her for costs in replacing her possessions, nor agree to moving her into alternative accommodation. The landlord said that its investigations had not identified the source of the bedbugs and therefore it could not move her as the bedbugs could be spread to a new property. It said no infestations had been found in neighbouring properties and it had responded in accordance with policy to each of her reports.
9. The pest control service visited the resident’s property on eight further occasions up to 2 September 2022 and found evidence of low-level infestation on the latter two visits, which it addressed by carrying out steam treatment. On 13 September 2022 the resident informed the Ombudsman that she continued to be dissatisfied as the bedbugs persisted and she wanted to be moved to alternate accommodation in the meantime.

Assessment and findings

10. The landlord’s tenant handbook confirms that, on the discovery of bedbugs in the property, a tenant should inform its Resident Services Officer. This handbook confirms that pest control is offered free of charge to its tenants for bedbug infestations.
11. When a landlord received a report of a pest infestation that it is responsible for tackling, it should act promptly to arrange for the pest control service to inspect and treat the property as appropriate. When an infestation is reported to be recurrent, it would be reasonable for it to carry out investigation of the wider surroundings to determine the source of the infestation.
12. As mentioned above, this investigation will not make a determination on the actions of the pest control service, but will consider whether the landlord acted reasonably based on the reports it received from the service. It is reasonable for a landlord to rely on the opinions of appropriately qualified pest control professionals to inform its decisions.
13. The resident reported the presence of bedbugs in her property to the landlord on 24 November and 5 and 22 December 2020. She made further reports on 19 July, 24 September, 4 October and 25 December 2021. The pest control service attended all of these within 11 working days and attended the property 15 times in total to inspect and treat the reported infestation. These visits were undertaken by different staff members; on 15 December 2021, two senior staff members attended and the visit on 13 January 2022 was attended jointly with the landlord’s officer present. The inspection reports showed that a low level of infestation was found on six occasions up to 5 November 2021 and no evidence of activity was present on the five subsequent visits up to 7 January 2022.
14. The above illustrates that the landlord made reasonable efforts to address the resident’s reports of bedbugs by arranging regular and prompt visits to inspect the property. The pest control service informed the landlord on 1 February 2021 that its investigations had not found evidence of bedbugs originating from neighbouring properties and that it did not recommend a change of accommodation as bedbugs could be spread from one property to another this way.
15. While it would have been undoubtedly distressing for the resident to find bedbugs bites on herself and her children despite the pest control service’s findings, the landlord’s response was fair in the circumstances. As it was reliant on the opinions of its suitably qualified professional staff, it was reasonable for it to base its response on these and decline to provide temporary accommodation to the resident. While it was noted that health professionals contacted the landlord on 25 November 2021 to request rehousing for the resident, in light of the pest control service relaying that there was no infestation, this would not have been sufficient grounds for it to consider rehousing her.
16. There was no evidence that the landlord requested that the resident dispose of any possessions, nor that damage was caused to these by any failure on its part. Therefore, it was under no obligation to reimburse her for her belongings.
17. Since there was no evidence of any continuing infestation at the time, nor was it identified where the bedbugs came from, the landlord responded reasonably based on the information it had at the time. It is noted that, since the final response, there have been regular continuing visits by the pest control service to the property. Therefore, again there was no evidence of a failure by the landlord in its response.

Determination

18. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in its response to the resident’s concerns about bedbugs in the property.

Recommendation

19. The landlord should continue to address the resident’s new reports of bedbugs and engage with neighbouring properties to identify possible sources of infestation.