Landlord blamed tenants' cat for peeing in the bathroom causing the ceiling below to collapse!

NEWS AND VIEWS: This is an extraordinary story and quite ridiculous. A couple were staying in a housing association home - the landlords. In the UK, housing association homes are low rental homes supported by the organisation which owns them. They are a bit like publicly owned properties in other countries. And therefore, this couple were tenants paying a low rent.

They have a cat. And they had a leak from the ceiling above the hallway at the entrance to their home. They mentioned this to the housing association who sent out a tradesman to have a look at it.

That tradesman said that their cat had been peeing in the bathroom and it had caused the roof below to collapse. This was a ridiculous suggestion because a domestic cat cannot produce enough urine to have "water" leaking through the ceiling onto the floor below. 

And that's what the tenants saw. Domestic cats can simply not produce enough liquid to cause a ceiling to collapse. This is common sense and as mentioned it is idiotic to suggest otherwise.

Because the ceiling collapsed as it wasn't repaired, the pair had to leave the property and live in a hotel nearby while it was fully investigated and repaired.

The housing association have now admitted that it was a leak in a heating pipe which caused the damage. They apologised and confirmed that the safety of their tenants are their primary concern.

Details:

• Housing association: Golding Homes
• The Tenants: Stacey Sell and her partner Mark Twaites plus 2 kids.
• Location: Maidstone, Kent, UK.
• Source: Mirror newspaper.