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Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council (202230740)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202230740

Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council

25 March 2025


Our approach

The Housing Ombudsman’s approach to investigating and determining complaints is to decide what is fair in all the circumstances of the case. This is set out in the Housing Act 1996 and the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme). The Ombudsman considers the evidence and looks to see if there has been any ‘maladministration’, for example whether the landlord has failed to keep to the law, followed proper procedure, followed good practice or behaved in a reasonable and competent manner.

Both the resident and the landlord have submitted information to the Ombudsman and this has been carefully considered. Their accounts of what has happened are summarised below. This report is not an exhaustive description of all the events that have occurred in relation to this case, but an outline of the key issues as a background to the investigation’s findings.

The complaint

  1. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s report of an ant infestation at her property.
  2. The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident has lived in a house under a secure tenancy since 11 November 2020. The landlord is a council. For the purposes of this report, the council’s housing department is referred to as ‘the landlord’. All other service areas of the council are referred to as ‘the local council’. The local council operate the pest control service, not the landlord, and therefore we will not be assessing the actions of the pest control team specifically.
  2. The resident reported an ant infestation issue in her property during the summers of 2021 and 2022. On both occasions, the landlord organised for the local council’s pest control team to inspect and treat the issue.
  3. On 6 March 2023, the resident raised a complaint with the landlord. She said the property had an ant problem that comes back every spring and summer. She said the property was not habitable for her and her children because of this and wanted to be rehoused. She also reported the issue to her local MP.
  4. The landlord responded by reinspecting the property on 13 April 2023. It found no evidence of an ant infestation.
  5. After chasing the landlord for a response to her complaint from March 2023, the resident raised a new complaint on 3 May 2023. She repeated the same concerns and said she had never had a response to her previous complaints.
  6. The landlord provided its stage 1 response on 12 June 2023. It said there was “limited evidence” of an ant infestation at the property. It had organised for the local council’s pest control to inspect and treat any issues when reported but agreed to have the pest control team further inspect the property. It explained why the resident did not meet the threshold to move via a management transfer and gave information on alternative ways to find other accommodation.
  7. The resident escalated her complaint on 12 June 2023. She disagreed that there was a “lack of evidence” showing an ant infestation. She felt the pest control team had never treated the issue effectively, and a recent visit from the landlord and pest control showed a lack of care and bias. She asked the landlord to get a second opinion from an independent company.
  8. The landlord provided its stage 2 response on 13 July 2023. It said it felt it had dealt with the pest issue appropriately and organised appropriate pest control works as required. It also felt its staff had dealt with the issue, and the associated complaints, effectively. It maintained that it would not move the resident.
  9. The resident remained unhappy and escalated her complaint to the Service. She felt the landlord had not dealt with the ant issue effectively. She wanted it to move her as she felt the issue made the property unhabitable and was affecting her mental health.

Assessment and findings

Landlord’s handling of the resident’s report of an ant infestation at her property

  1. The evidence shows that each time the resident reported the issue the landlord responded in good time and organised for the local council’s pest control team to inspect and treat any issues found. The pest control team tried different treatments each time it attended.
  2. The pest control works were not recharged to the resident. The local council’s website show pest control services are normally charged to service users. Arranging the works without charge to the resident therefore exceeded the landlord’s obligations, and showed good practice and an appreciation of the distress the issue was causing the resident.
  3. Both of the landlord’s complaint responses explained why it did not consider there to be an ant infestation and why it had taken the steps it had to deal with what ants had been found. The evidence shows it based its decisions on the reports it received from pest control team. The responses clearly explained why the landlord would not move the resident and offered the resident suitable advice on finding alternative accommodation herself.
  4. The resident asked the landlord to get a second opinion on the ant issue as part of her stage 2 escalation. This was because she believed the local council’s pest control were biased. This request was not acknowledged in the landlord’s stage 2 response. While it should have responded to this query either way in its response, it had already used a professional pest control service to inspect and treat the issue. It had no obligation to get a second opinion from a different company, especially as the resident had not provided evidence supporting her concerns about bias.

Landlord’s compliant handling

  1. The resident made a complaint via the landlord’s complaint webform on 6 March 2023, and made clear she wished for it to be treated as a formal complaint.
  2. The landlord acknowledged the complaint via email the same day and said it would provide a response within 20 working days. It then followed up with another acknowledgement email to the resident on 17 March 2023 where it said it was dealing with the complaint as a service request instead.
  3. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) states that landlord’s must recognise the difference between a service request and a complaint. In her webform the resident said she had been dealing with the ant issue for three years and the landlord had never resolved it. That was clearly a complaint, not a one-off service request, and not treating it as such was not reasonable.
  4. Not responding to the complaint from the 6 March 2023 led to the resident needing to raise a new complaint on 3 May 2023 for the same issues. While the landlord did provide a stage 1 response to this on 12 June 2023, it was 66 working days after the resident first complained. That is well outside of the 20-working day response time set in the landlord’s complaint policy, as well as the timeframe set in the Code. There is no evidence of the landlord updating the resident about the delay, or agreeing a new deadline with her, which was also counter to the Code.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of an ant infestation.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of this determination the landlord must:
    1. Pay the resident £100 compensation for the failings found in its complaint handling.
    2. Provide proof of compliance of the above to the Service.