18 weeks pregnant - Living situation is causing me anxiety

[mamatobe92]

I’m currently 18 weeks pregnant with my second baby. This is my first baby with my current partner and we are currently living in a 2 bed maisonette flat above a shop.

I lost my first baby at 37 weeks, 6 years ago, so while I’m delighted to be pregnant again I do have some anxiety.

The flat we are in has some serious disrepair - ceiling in our loft room (bedroom) fell through after a leak and there is a hole in the roof - and on top of that there is a huge metal staircase to get in and out, not ideal pregnant but will not be practical with a baby.

We are currently finding it very hard to find anywhere to rent for a reasonable price and having a dog seems to be ruling out a lot of options. We had a ground floor flat secured but our current landlord promised us a 3-bed house, which then fell through days before we were due to move and he has not been helpful at all.

The social housing in the area is limited and don’t know if we would be eligible, but we’re not getting anywhere with rental applications. It is so so competitive.

I will be having a c-section at 35 weeks and I don’t think we will be able to get out of here before baby arrives.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated xx

So sorry to hear you have this worry whilst pregnant and after all you’ve been through. Are you renting? Will the landlord not do anything? Especially as you’re pregnant?? Are you able to stay with family until you find somewhere else?

I'm sorry to hear about the loss of your first child. I hope everything continues to go well in this pregnancy but I can imagine the anxiety you might feel.

My bathroom ceiling fell in last year - and it happened the day after having my second miscarriage- due to my landlords negligence so know some of the stress you describe.

I also work with private and social tenants for a living so apologies for the long message below!

Your landlord is legally responsible for fixing the structural issues your home has under Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, so they must fix your roof.

You can put the issues in writing to your landlord (eg via an email) and give a deadline of a few days by which the landlord must make repairs. Shelter have useful letter/email templates you can use on their website.

Many landlords do not however do the required repairs and so your local council should have a team/department responsible for ensuring standards in Private Renting - you should be able to call them and they could inspect your home/issue an Improvement Notice to the landlord/pressure them to make the structural repairs. I wonder if a midwife could also help with approaching the council?
(Some people don't want to escalate to contacting the council before they've tried all options to keep it friendly with their landlord though.)

If you live in a city you may also want to approach a Renter's Union or Shelter for back up/support too. This can also be helpful to remind you that this is no way an individual issue for which you are to blame - thousands of people are in the a similar position to you and our broken housing system is to blame.

Although you are right that there is a huge shortage of social housing right now it's still worth looking at applying for it (generally you can apply to join the register on your local councils website) as you may well be eligible and even though it probably won't solve your immediate issue it may end up being useful in the future. You may well be able to argue in your application that the metal staircase means your home is not suitable for a little one.

Other than that all you can do is keep looking as you are doing, the rental market is pretty savage right now, but hopefully something will come up at some point and friends or family could help with the move.

Good luck with it and remember you're not alone and doing everything you can!