The six blocks ISSUE 2 NOVEMBER 2018

ISSUE 3 JULY 2020

IN MEMORIAM GRENFELL

repairs are carried out immediately.

WHERE THERE’S SMOKESince that article was sent in wehave received reports of two oth-er broken fire doors, one on the1st floor of May Court, the otheron the 13th floor of Birnies.There are probably others. If youfind one in your block don’t justadopt a ‘Somebody should dosomething about it’ attitude . . . Report it.

We accuse Edinburgh CityCouncil of endangering tenants’lives by flaunting the fire safetyregulations and failing to per-form emergency repairs until be-ing forced to do so by LivingRent and the Fire Brigade.

And emergency repairs are notthe only thing the Council hasbeen failing to do during the virusepidemic. Read on . . .

ACTION BY the Muirhousebranch of Living Rent has suc-ceeded in forcing City of Edin-burgh Council to repair twodefective fire doors in OxcarsCourt. Only after Living Rentcalled the Fire Brigade, did on-line publicity and contactedcouncillors and managers did theCouncil finally act to secure resi-dents’ safety.

HALF A DOORThe fire doors were missing panesof reinforced glass so there weresubstantial gaps – in one case nearlyhalf the door! In the event of a fire,smoke and flames would have gonestraight through the empty gaps.Now the glass has been replaced.. The fire doors were brokenfrom around 27 April and so it tookthe Council at least three weeks tocarry out this emergency repair.Putting residents’ safety at risk likethis is not acceptable. Have the

Council forgotten the 72 lost lives inGrenfell Tower caused by the crimi-nal neglect of that local council? This episode shows it is vitalthat tenants act to insist on safe andhealthy housing, otherwise our land-lords can get away with murder.Join Living Rent in forcing the Cityof Edinburgh Council to put propersystems in place so that emergency

‘DEFINITELY ON LOCKDOWN’

THE STAIRS in many if not allthe low rise council blocks, in-cluding Muirhouse Drive, Gar-dens and Grove, are Councilcontracted to be cleaned by pri-vate company ISS. But tenants paying about£200 per year for stair cleaning havebeen dissatisfied by the poor per-formance of ISS for several yearsand this has been compounded bythe drastic reduction, and even com-plete stopping, of cleaning in somestairs since the pandemic started. Tenants report that theirstairs in Muirhouse Grove and Drivehave not been done by ISS sinceMarch. They have complained to the

the walls or banisters A Muirhouse Grove tenanthas been complaining to ISS and theCouncil for 4-5 years and last yearinspectors from both organisationsvisited. This tenant says many oth-ers in Muirhouse Grove complainabout the service. One MuirhouseDrive tenant has complained toAlistair Bell the CEC Housing Of-ficer, but there has been no improve-ment. This dire situation is madeworse by the presence of someowner–occupiers in the stairs whodon’t pay cleaning charges and aresupposed to take a turn doing thestairs, but refuse to do it.

(continued) full length of the block, just toget to the shops or the ‘recycling depot’An Inchmick tenant with a health condi-tion tells us, ‘I have to ask the conciergeto help me with the rubbish. I can’t man-age it alone with the lift broken.’ On 17 April, at the height of thecoronavirus epidemic, the Birnies odd-number lift broke down yet again. Anotice was stuck on the lift door statingthat the lift was ‘a little unwell at themoment.’ If it was meant as a joke, itwas a bad one, with fear stalking theblocks and folk scared to go out in casethey caught the virus.. But if both lifts were out, ortenants were scared to use them, well,at least the fit and those on the lowerfloors could use the stairs. If they had astrong stomach, that is . . .

Council and to ISS over the years,but nothing was done.

DO IT YOURSELFSome have taken to cleaning thestairs themselves and report thatwhen ISS eventually turn up to‘clean’ they often make the stairsdirtier due to the use of filthy mops.(ISS use a mop with no water andsome kind of cleaning agent in atank on their back which theyspray.) Tenants have many com-plaints about ISS: they often onlyspend less than 2 minutes cleaning astair when they are supposed tospend 10 minutes: there has been nodeep clean in years: ISS never clean

THE FARCE OF THE BIRNIES lifts continues. For the three years since theCouncil took out lifts that worked perfectly well and replaced them with twothat are constantly breaking down, Birnies tenants have had to do with oneworking lift at best, often with none at all.

The complications of social distancing when 56 flats on 14 floors with over100 residents are forced to use one small lift during a virus pandemic are dire, witha queue forming during busy times. It was heartwarming to see the behaviour oftenants, refusing to share the lift but letting others go before them. Even innon-pandemic times the hardship these constantly breaking down lifts create canbe demanding, especially for those with mobility difficulties. If the lift that servesyour floor is broken down, it means having to negotiate two hefty self-closing firedoors, walking down two flights of stairs, and negotiating another two hefty firedoors before accessing the lower landing. The difficulties this causes to the elderly,disabled, mothers with buggies and bairns etc. can be easily imagined.

TRAPPEDIn Birnies one lift serves the even-number floors, the other does the odds.They take turns at breaking down. Butsometimes both conk out, leaving manytenants struggling.

Says one Birnies tenant, 'I’m apensioner on the 12th floor. Both liftswere out last week, I had 2 bags ofshopping and my dog and they expectme to climb 12 floors. My legs are bad.I’m sick to death of these lifts - whenthey do work you get stuck in them. Yes,we’re definitely on lockdown with theselifts. It’s terrible what they are doing tofolk living here.'

Another elderly tenant on the

Sick joke in Birnies Court

block’s top floor says, ‘When both liftsare down I’m trapped in the flat. Assimple as that. It’s like doing time for acrime I didn’t commit.’

OUTRAGE In Inchmickery Court one lift has beenbroken down for over three months,forcing some tenants to walk twice the

FILTHBirnies’ stairs have not been moppeddown since last autumn, and rarelyswept. The lower floors especially areoften soaked in urine and other liquids.Muirhouse Living Rent produced a vid-eo of the stairs and posted it on YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=500_hfc1Ukk But it isn’t just the high riseswhose stairs are disgusting. . .

(continued from previous page)Research by Living Rent has foundthat ISS is a huge multinationalcorporation with a reputation forpoor pay and conditions, and that it’scleaning contract with EdinburghCity Council comes up for renewalin October.

PETITIONResidents in the low rise blocks andLiving Rent are producing a letter -petition to be handed into the Coun-cil pointing out these failings on thepart of ISS. Contact us for more info. But of course it isn’t just ISSwho are failing in adhering to theirduty of maintaining hygiene in theblocks. The Scottish Governmentissued a set of Hygiene Guidelinesabout cleaning and hygiene in highdensity housing like the Six Blocks,but they were not made statutory sothe Council just ignored them. In-stead they announced their own pol-icy: ‘For a short period of time wewill not be carrying out our normalstair cleaning service,’ it said. ‘Wewill be carrying out emergency staircleans only at this time..’

Histoplasmosis is a respiratory disease that may be fatal. It resultsfrom a fungus growing in dried bird droppings. Candidiasis is ayeast or fungus infection spread by pigeons. The disease affectsthe skin, the mouth, the respiratory system, the intestines and theurogenital tract, especially the vagina. It is a growing problem forwomen, causing itching, pain and discharge. Cryptococcosis iscaused by yeast found in the intestinal tract of pigeons. The illnessoften begins as a pulmonary disease and may later affect thecentral nervous system. Since balconies, open landings etc. aretypical roosting and nesting sites, the fungus is apt to found in theseareas. Salmonellosis often occurs as "food poisoning" and can betraced to pigeons, starlings and sparrows. The disease bacteria arefound in bird droppings; dust from droppings can be sucked throughventilators and air conditioners, contaminating food and cookingsurfaces in homes. Besides being direct carriers of disease, nui-sance birds are frequently associated with over 50 kinds of ectopar-asites, like bed bugs, which can work their way throughoutstructures to infest and bite humans.

(Info from www.medicalnewstoday.com)

needs to take responsibility. If they planon cladding these blocks they must installnetting to stop birds from nesting. Also,any netting will prevent the small minorityof individuals from disposing of rubbish bythrowing it over the balconies or dumpingit on walkways/deck access areas.

People treat their environment asthey perceive it - “if it looks like a shit hole,they will treat it as one!” The council hasallowed the blocks to deteriorate. Oneweekend I washed down the walkways/deck access area on the 3rd floor of MayCourt and removed 95% of droppings, butthe pigeons promptly restored all thedroppings within a few days. Preventingnesting is the way forward. Lee

Pigeon shit, Oxcars Court

DON’T FEED THE PIGEONS!(Long-suffering May Court tenant Lee de-scribes the impact of pigeon infestation.)

Last week the council finally re-moved all the furniture from 2/8 MayCourt where the pigeons had takenover the balcony for nesting. But theydidn’t physically clean the balcony andit’s still covered in droppings, like manyothers where people allow pigeons tonest. The walkways/deck access areas,especially those around the lifts, arefilthy with pigeon dung. When the team arrived to installthe city-fibre cables they just pulled upthe wire mesh (area to the left of thelifts) and did not fix it back, so the pi-geons can now nest easily under thiswire. Scottish Power are also to blameas when they installed all the new powerfeeds into our homes they failed (as didthe council) to make sure the aluminiumconduit was fitted with bird spikes.

THE BAIRNSQuite a few young children like to playon the walkways/deck access areas inMay Court, and where the birds rest onthe railings they leave droppings. Youngchildren have no idea of the dangers thedroppings pose to them. The council

Filthy stairs, Birnies CourtWe accuse the Council of endan-gering tenants’ health by failingto maintain hygiene in the sixblocks‘ communal areas, andfailing to maintain the lifts so thattenants could safely social dis-tance. But Covid-19 is not theonly virus we have to worry about- far from it. Read on . . .

livingrent.org/joinedinburgh@livingrent.orghttps://www.livingrent.org/muirhouse_deserves_better

Send us your stories and pics.

The City of Edinburgh Council is one ofthe worst landlords in the country on a range ofissues, not least hygiene and minimum housingstandards, but we want to take the fight to themon behalf of Muirhouse tenants. To do that weneed to show our strength in membership tobuild the democratic voice of tenants to win bigfor the Muirhouse community. That happenswith you. Today. Will you join us for £3 a month(or £1 if you're unwaged or broke) to make ourvoice roar in the corridors of power in Edin-burgh? We have a track record of winning anddelivering for our members. Isn't it time wemade victory on your issues the heart of our nextfight? Stand up and be counted.

Block by block, and street by street we are build-ing Scotland's Tenants' Union. But we can't do itwithout your support. We believe that every ten-ant deserves safe, affordable housing – free fromunjust rent increases, discrimination, and eviction.The only way for us to make sure this happens, isto get organised.

We are bringing together people across the coun-try to make sure that: (1) we can hold councils,private landlords, housing associations and lettingagents to account; (2) we have a strong voice inshaping local and national policy; and (3) we havethe power to stand up for our rights. We believe inthe power of being a democratic and accountableorganisation. We are run and controlled by ourmembers and are not affiliated to any politicalparty, group or sect.

With only limited resources our uniondoes a tremendous amount, and it is people likeyou who make this possible. If you share ourvalues, please join today! This helps us becomefinancially sustainable and to be accountable toyou

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SINCE THE START of the Covid-19 pandemic our union won first a three month evictionban, and then a six month eviction ban to safeguard tenants. We have negotiated tens ofthousands of pounds in rent reductions for our members. Alongside this vital support for ourmembers, we have also fought to safeguard tenants from the virus and the inaction of ourcomplacent and idle landlords. Following sustained pressure, we won new hygiene guidancenationally for tenants in Council housing from the Scottish Government.

A NEW MEMBER WRITES: ‘A year ago I contactedmy landlord about the leaking living room ceil-ing in my top floor flat. Obviously the roof wasletting in. Last September I contacted thelandlord’s repairs team and my housing officer.A member of the repairs team came to my flat,stuck a screwdriver in the ceiling and said thatscaffolding would be erected to begin work intwo weeks. It wasn’t, and over the next fivemonths the damage got worse. This year I joinedthe Living Rent tenants’ union and was quicklylinked up with Jack of Living Rent’s Members’Defence Team. We discussed my situation and itbecame clear that the landlord had failed in theirobligations under the terms of my tenancyagreement and the Housing Act. We sent anemail raising my concerns to my housing officer,who quickly contacted Jack. Then I spoke to her.She apologised, saying she hadn’t been in-formed of the promised repairs. I was offeredalternative accommodation. I refused. I was thenassured that as soon as the lockdown was liftedI would get my ceiling repaired. It was throughthe support of the Union and its Members’ De-fence Team that my situation was resolved.’