Leeside Apartments renovation row: Tenants call on HSA to probe renovations

They said the air inside the building is thick with industrial paint fumes, and they complained yesterday of damp, mould, dirt, and cold, in what used to be a warm, dry building.

They have also invited Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy to visit to experience the conditions first-hand.

Sherin Karro, a young Syrian mother who has been living in the building for a decade, said if she and her family were evicted, they will have no option but to return to her war-torn country given the lack of affordable accommodation here.

“We have no other option,” she said.

What else can I do? We can’t afford €1,500 rent a month. I would have to go home even if there is war and it’s horrible there but I have no option.

The 78-unit apartment block was acquired in October by Lugus Capital, which is effectively acting as local agent on behalf of the international vulture fund Bain Capital.

Lugus was not available for comment yesterday.

But, in previous statements, it has said as part of its acquisition of the complex, it carried out a full structural survey and fire safety inspection of the building which established that the apartments are not in compliance with fire certificates.

It said a full refurbishment is necessary to bring the building up to modern standards and to maintain the safety of the residents.

The company insists it needs vacant possession to complete the works.

While most of the student tenants have left one block, more than 20 remaining households in other blocks are facing eviction.

A group of tenants is appealing the evictions in what is one of the first big tests of the new RTB guidelines on what constitutes “substantial refurbishment”, guidelines supported by the housing minister. They spent a full day at an RTB hearing in City Hall last Friday and are awaiting an adjudication.

With homeless figures hovering below 10,000, the outcome is being watched closely by Government, developers, and tenants elsewhere.

Solidarity Cllr Fiona Ryan said the remaining Leeside residents are being treated with “disregard”.

“The landlords are ignoring the fact they are rent-paying tenants,” she said. “The apartment has become a construction site, with unoccupied blocks undergoing significant refurbishment leading to disruption in the occupied blocks. The tenants can’t accept that this is life from now on.”

She said residents feel the refurbishment has been designed to create maximum disruption and create a ‘constructive eviction’ situation, where those left in the building will be forced out.

The residents called yesterday for the landlord to engage with them, and to revisit options outlined in the Spitere Report they commissioned earlier this year, which said the renovations could be done on a phased basis, without the need for anyone to leave the building.

Despite the conditions, the residents have vowed to continue the fight to stay in their homes.

Three Leeside Apartment residents tell us about their experience:

‘There is no consideration for our wellbeing’

Aimee O’Riordan lives with her five-year-old son in a second-floor apartment overlooking the River Lee. It’s been their home for almost five years.

She said life there was good until the vulture fund bought the building. Aimee’s life has been consumed ever since in efforts to save the only home her son has ever known.

“We are not stopping these much-needed works. We are expressing our right to stay in our homes,” she said.

As a paying tenant, as a person and as a mother, the living conditions here since the renovations started are unnecessarily posing a massive risk to the health and wellbeing of my family, and to other families.

“Lugus has brought a construction site to our front door. There is no consideration for our safety or wellbeing, no attempt to acknowledge our distress. We have been left with no choice but to continue fighting to stay in our own homes.”

Ms O’Riordan said skylights in the roof have been left open, allowing rainwater to pour in and flood communal hall areas. She said the cleaning regime is virtually non-existent at the moment with dirt and dust littering the stairwells and communal areas.

She referred to the Spitere Report which residents commissioned earlier this year to examine the validity of Lugus Capital’s claims that substantial refurbishment was needed.

It found the building’s fire prevention and protection measures fall far short of legal safety requirements and that significant work is required, including upgrades to doors in common areas, upgrades to the building’s emergency lighting systems, fire detection and alarm systems, and other works.

But crucially, it said the works could be done without “huge disruption” to tenants and that tenants may have to be moved for a period of just “a week or so” to facilitate the works. The report said the layout of the complex “lends itself well” to the work being undertaken in stages and adds that “such an approach would be assisted very significantly by the fact that many units are already, or will be in the near future, vacant”.

However, Ms Riordan said residents have been met with “complete silence” from the landlords.

‘The message seems to be: Just get out of my building’

Abu Bakari has lived in an apartment in the Leeside complex for four years. His daughter, Mariama, two, is thankfully oblivious to the fact that she and her family could be homeless within months.

But Abu, who is originally from Africa, and who cycled to work on the outskirts of the city until his bike recently went missing from the complex car park, said he is anxious about what the future holds.

His biggest fear is if the vulture fund secures evictions, that he and his family will become homeless, facing into a life in an emergency homeless shelter, a hotel room or a B&B.

He is also furious at the way the new owners of the building have treated tenants since the complex was bought last October.

“They just want us to get out of the building,” he said.

“We have children here, sick people in the building, but nobody cares.

“They don’t care about human rights — the message seems to be ‘just get out of my building’.

I have nowhere to go. My family has nowhere to go. I have my own sofa, my own fridge, and we have all the baby stuff.

“If we have to get out, what do I do with all that stuff? Do I take all this to a B&B or to a hotel room?”

A neighbour, John, lives in a fourth-floor one-bedroom apartment, overlooking the north channel of the river Lee, with wonderful views of the North Mall in front, Shanakiel to the west and Shandon to the east.

But he expects scaffolding to obscure his view within a few days.

He accepts that the renovations are required but says the least the landlord could do is treat him and his neighbours, who are all paying rent, like “human beings”.

“The message just seems to be ‘we just want you out’,” he said.

Some days are worse than others, with kango hammers going on around you, skylights being left open causing damp in a building which was always dry and clean.

But he said he is determined to fight on with his neighbours to prevent their evictions.

‘It’s a disaster living here, but there is nowhere to go’

Dorota Okon wept yesterday as she spoke of the impact the renovations have had on her and her family.

Originally from Poland and a resident of the complex for almost seven years, she lives in a fourth-floor apartment with her husband and six-year-old son.

She has multiple sclerosis and severe asthma, and needs to be close to the nearby Mercy University Hospital, where she receives treatment regularly.

She said a previous landlord maintained the building, was good to deal with, and that life was good until the complex was bought by the vulture fund last October, and everything changed.

She said conditions inside the complex have been horrendous since the renovations started in January.

“It’s absolutely horrible. It’s a disaster living in this building. The dust, dirt, damp and smell is absolutely horrible,” she said.

“Our life, my family life, my neighbours’ lives, it’s absolutely stressful every day.

“During winter, it was freezing, because windows were left open.

“My son was sick every three or four weeks with chest infections and was in hospital twice before Easter. I live on the fourth floor and the lift has not been working for one year. I find walking on the stairs very hard, because of my asthma and health.

The builders started painting or varnishing, I think it was varnish, inside the building, and the smell was so strong, I couldn’t breathe. I had to leave and go outside, because the smell was coming inside my apartment.

“If I could find somewhere to go, to live, I would go, but the problem is there is nowhere to go. I can’t find anything. We have nowhere else to go, except onto St Patrick’s St, sleep there.”

She criticised Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy and the Government for not doing enough to protect tenants.

“I would like him to come for just one day, to stay in our building, to see what it’s like to live there, how is life for us every day,” she said.