'It gets thick with mould down there'

RETIRED steel worker David Collins points behind a set shelves in the corner of his lounge.

"It gets thick with mould down there," he says. "I clean it and paint it myself because it gets bad."

The 68-year-old says there are similar problems in his bedroom in the one-bed flat on Dukinfield's Central estate. "There's cracks in the bricks outside - I think that's where the damp's getting in," he adds. "As long as I keep cleaning it I'm not that bothered [about the risk of mould], but it shouldn't be my job to keep cleaning it. It should be their [the landlord's] job to sort it out." 

During a day spent on the estate on the outskirts of Dukinfield town centre, the M.E.N. found several other tenants were experiencing similar problems. Sharne Whittaker says she's suffered from mould and damp in her one-bed flat in the estate's Lyme Terrace block since moving in eight years ago.