A Feltham man had a lucky escape when his ceiling collapsed inches from his head – more than two weeks after he reported a wet patch to his housing association.
Jaimie Wentzell, 34, was chatting to a friend on the phone at his flat in Westmacott Drive when the soaked plaster suddenly crashed against the back of his chair.
“Had I been sitting under that, no doubt it would have knocked me out,” he said.
Mr Wentzell, a cargo handler at Heathrow airport, first noticed damp on his kitchen ceiling on Saturday, April 4, and immediately contacted Thames Valley Housing.
The housing association replied four days later and said it would notify the private owners of the flat above and ask them to fix the leak.
By the following day, the patch had spread into the living room and was growing rapidly by the hour.
Mr Wentzell was unable to contact the owners, and on Monday last week he had a close call when part of the dripping ceiling caved in and landed next to him as he watched TV.
He said: “You can actually see the concrete from the floor above. My kitchen is a complete mess, the ceiling has come down and the living room ceiling has come down.
“I cannot use my kitchen at all at the moment because there is water dripping all over the work surfaces and all over the floor.
“I can not even cook at home because it’s all over the cooker as well, which is electric so I haven’t even attempted to turn it on.
“It is terrible. I am basically living in one corner of my living room. I have had to lift everything over into the corner of the room, the carpets are soaking wet.
“Three weeks is unacceptable for me to be living the way I am. I can’t understand why something hasn’t been done sooner.”
A spokesman for Thames Valley Housing said it was able to contact the owners of the above flat after “repeated attempts,” adding: “We have been assured that the problem is now being fixed."
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