Social housing 'like a living nightmare'

Amber Furby has lived on the social housing estate in St Saviour for the last six years

A social housing tenant has described living in her property as a "nightmare" with significant long-term maintenance problems.

Amber Furby has lived in States housing in St Saviour for the last six years and said the poor maintenance of the property by the government is affecting her family's quality of life.

Employment and Social Security (ESS) President Peter Roffey said he could not comment on individual cases but has requested more money in 2025's budget for maintaining social houses.

Ms Furby said: "I just want to know my kids can not worry about plants growing through their walls or sharing rooms with woodlouse, I don't want to live like this."

Amber said she has been told by the States the ivy is growing through the foundations

She added: "It's embarrassing.

"I don't like having people around, I don't like having guests as I don't like people to see how I live."

Roffey admitted the States was not as good a landlord as it should be.

Ms Furby noticed there were issues with the property six months after she moved in.

"We noticed there was salting on the walls, wet floors, a lot of the windows and doors were leaking," she said.

When contractors visited the house to do some maintenance earlier this year, they left without finishing, with some floors left cracked meaning new floors could not be laid, she added.

"I can't repair broken walls, broken windows.

"I can't seal windows that were never finished," she said.

Maintenance workers earlier this year left issues unresolved, Ms Furby said

She complained about the amount of time it had taken to get work done on a States property.

"Sometimes I'll have three separate members of staff coming to see what you're complaining about before getting the work done," Ms Furby said.

"They say all the work here has been completed, but it hasn't."

'Awful quality of life'

Six years ago Ms Furby moved from a two-bedroom social house at the Genats housing estate, an estate now earmarked for a revamp.

She moved to St Saviours as her family grew in size.

"If I had a choice I'd have stayed in my small house down at the Genats estate and made it work," she said.

"This is awful for my quality of life, the state of this house is like living in a literal nightmare. There's nothing I can do to make it nice.

"I want to put floors down, I want to decorate my kids rooms, I want to make sure there isn't wind and rain blowing through their windows."

Ms Furby said some of the work that hadn't been finished meant she couldn't lay down floors

'Embarrassing situation'

Proposals from Policy and Resources (P&R) had suggested ESS should get just under £7m for social housing maintenance in 2025.

Roffey has asked for £670,000 more than his committee has been budgeted for maintenance.

"I don't think we are maintaining our stock as well as I would like," he said.

"We have the very embarrassing situation where we can't even afford to put down floor coverings when people leave and leave their houses with bare floors.

"Very often some of the poorest families in Guernsey have to move in with no floor coverings."

Roffey added he would be "embarrassed" if his amendment is not successful as the current situation was "unacceptable" in his view.