@StarInTheHeavens I prefer to think that you have not read all the facts and are inadvertently peddling a lie about the entirely avoidable death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak.
That's because I wouldn't like to think you or anyone else on this thread was deliberately misleading people. I'm sure you would hate to cause any more distress to the parents over the entirely avoidable death of their two-year-old son.
Awaab Ishak's parents were from Sudan and lived in a flat rented by Rochdale Boroughwide Housing.
The parents made repeated complaints about the mould which, if you've seen the state of the place - I guess you have taken the trouble to look at the pictures - was revolting. I cannot imagine keeping an animal in there.
Yet the housing officials took the view that Awaab's parents were not ventilating the place by opening the windows and it has been suggested they thought this because the parents were Sudanese.
There was no real reason for them to think this. Many people from all cultural backgrounds live in homes that are poorly ventilated and keep windows closed to keep the cold out and bills down. I am one of them. But I am white and middle class and if I was a private renter you can bet your life I would complain like hell. But I own my house and despite my habits don't have mould like that or any mould at all, actually.
That leads me to suspect there might have been a greater problem with that flat than not opening the windows and keeping it heated. The coroner certainly thought so and now so do housing secretary Michael Gove and health secretary Steve Barclay who have promised to make it a priority to look into why this happened. Government ministers don't usually do things unless they think there is a bit of a problem.
As a landlord, particularly a social housing one, Rochdale should have taken vigorous steps to make them aware of the problem. They didn't. I'm not sure there was a language barrier. I'm not sure Rochdale did because they don't appear to have spoken to the Ishaks that much. They washed their hands of them. I bet the Ishak family wished it was that simple.
Like I said, I don't know whether they mistakenly thought this was what all African people do or it was because they were lazy and didn't want to do their jobs. I'm sure someone will get to the bottom of it now a coroner and two secretaries of state are on the case.
It's a bit like landlords in the '50s and earlier who didn't want to put in baths for white working class people because it was assumed they'd just keep the coal in it. Again, maybe they believed that of their fellow human beings or maybe it suited them to circulate that myth because they were tightfisted and couldn't be arsed.
Or in other words - bad landlords.
At the very least people in private rented accommodation - I believe this flat fell under that - should be able to go to the Housing Ombudsman. The coroner has made that one of the firm suggestions from this terrible case of a two-year-old dying of an entirely preventable illness.
I think that would be a good idea, don't you? I don't think it will make a great deal of difference because this government have brought in no-fault evictions to make it easier for landlords to rid themselves of troublesome tenants. But it's the thought that counts.
Disclaimer: I'm not a landlord so I'm not up to speed with the law but I believe that is broadly the case and if not I'm sure someone who knows will correct me.
There are thousands of good landlords but Rochdale fell quite a way short of best practice as the coroner pointed out at Awaab's inquest.
If I was a landlord I certainly wouldn't want to defend them. Would you? Would anyone else here who has condemned this poor family without even bothering to look up the facts?