Af­ter years of bat­tling se­vere flood­ing and per­sis­tent mould in her apart­ment at Or­chid Gar­dens, Pleas­antville, Pa­tri­cia Hugh­es says she is pre­pared to take le­gal ac­tion against the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC).

Hugh­es said she and her fam­i­ly have been forced to live in dire con­di­tions since 2021, with wa­ter reg­u­lar­ly seep­ing through the walls from a tank room di­rect­ly above her unit.

“The mould is every­where, and it’s af­fect­ing my chil­dren’s health,” she said, not­ing that her chil­dren have fre­quent­ly fall­en ill due to the damp­ness and poor air qual­i­ty.

“We’ve had to con­fine our­selves to one room, and every­thing else in the apart­ment is packed up in bags just to keep it safe from the mould,” she said.

In­side her home was musky when Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed on Fri­day. There was wa­ter on the floor and the cor­ri­dor out­side.

“There are pi­geons liv­ing in the ceil­ing and one day I came home to find mag­gots falling from the ceil­ing. There was a dead pi­geon up there,” she re­vealed.

Hugh­es says the last flood­ing oc­curred three weeks ago. She said she has lost fur­ni­ture and ap­pli­ances be­cause of the floods and when­ev­er the tanks above are filled, the wa­ter flows through her unit’s elec­tri­cal out­lets, fur­ther en­dan­ger­ing her fam­i­ly.

Re­peat­ed com­plaints to the HDC have not brought re­lief, she said.

“I even went to the Om­buds­man and San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris to Faris Al-Rawi and noth­ing was done,” she added.

The HDC ac­knowl­edged Hugh­es’ com­plaint but said an in­spec­tion on Oc­to­ber 25 found the tanks above her apart­ment were emp­ty with no di­rect ev­i­dence link­ing them to the wa­ter in­tru­sion in her unit.

The HDC added that of­fi­cers vis­it­ed the ten­ant to con­duct re­pairs in her unit in the past but she re­fused claim­ing that she wished to be re­lo­cat­ed.

“The ten­ant is al­so in ar­rears of over $20,000 and has re­fused to set­tle her debt or ho­n­our her month­ly com­mit­ment to the Cor­po­ra­tion, cit­ing the state of her unit as a rea­son for her de­ci­sion,” the HDC added.

Staff from the HDC’s Es­tate Man­age­ment Di­vi­sion will vis­it the ten­ant to de­ter­mine the best course of ac­tion since she was not home on Fri­day when the ini­tial in­ves­ti­ga­tion was com­plet­ed.