Although their homes are structurally unsafe, residents who live in the Housing Development Corporation’s Wellington Gardens, Tarodale Hills, Hillcrest Gardens, Ridgewood Gardens, Harmony Hall and Edinburgh Gardens developments are continuing to enter into mortgage agreements for legal acquisition of their properties.
Despite the fact that a recommendation was made that the HDC relocate 400 families from Wellington Gardens because their homes were structurally unsafe, residents said yesterday they had no choice but to move to convert their Lease to Own and Rent to Own agreements to mortgages, as they were fearful their homes could be taken away.
Identified as one of several HDC settlements constructed under the Patrick Manning administration without adherence to proper building codes, Wellington Gardens, in particular, is still riddled with infrastructural problems such as loose ceilings, swollen walls and uneven floors.
In an interview yesterday, resident Andrew Habib said his home is slowly slipping away because the pillars are not anchored properly.
“Normally, pillars are 12 by 12 but in my home it is 8 by 8. All the screws in the roof are rotted away and the gypsum is falling apart,” Habib told the T&T Guardian.
“My home is moving downwards. It could fall. I have cracks in my wall, my flooring is coming apart. My bathroom is leaking into my bedroom and there is a hairline crack on the main foundation beam. My staircase in detaching from the house and the steel is protruding.”
Having made numerous complaints to the HDC, Habib said he was fed up but said he still intends to purchase the house because he liked the location. However, he urged the HDC to construct two retaining walls at the front and the back of his home to protect it from caving downwards.
Another resident, Doolarie Lalchan, said she finally converted from rent to own to a mortgage arrangement two months ago and although she liked the comfort of having her own home it was painful to know she was paying such a high price for a house falling apart.
“When you add legal fees and other charges, I will end up paying about $550,000 for this house,” Lalchan said.
Her ceiling hung loose and the walls of the house were warped and swollen. Unlike other HDC settlements, houses in Wellington Gardens were built with prefabricated concrete boards.
“It is like a cardboard sheet sprayed with concrete, so if you hit it hard enough you can punch a hole in it,” Lalchan explained.
When she first moved into the house it was impossible to hang pictures by drilling the wall, she noted.
“I could have cried because when we drilled we had a big hole in the wall,” Lalchan added.
Resident Gabriel Bissoon meanwhile said she spent almost $350,000 to refurbish her house.
“We had to do over everything. The house was on the verge of collapse. We had to do over the walls, ceiling, electricals, plumbing. There was no drainage. Our home looks nice now but we spent almost as much as the house to make it this way,” Bissoon said.
At Ridgewood Gardens, Golconda, residents also had similar complaints. Unlike Wellington Gardens, these homes were built with concrete and priced at $375,000, about $75,000 cheaper than those of Wellington Gardens. Residents of Phase 1 complained of similar defects, poor electricals, loose floor tiles and poor drainage. In some of the houses built beneath road level, it was also not uncommon for surface water to gush inside homes.
Neither Housing Minister Edmund Dillon nor HDC managing director Brent Lyons could be reached for comment yesterday as calls to their cellular phones went unanswered.