Mum 'left with PTSD' after garden wall collapse - which could cost £30k to fix
A mum says she has been left with PTSD after her garden wall crashed into the house in the middle of the night - which could cost up to £30k in repairs.
Lucy Gawthorpe, 33, says she was awoken by a loud bang at around 4am on February 9 and rushed downstairs to see water spraying out across the kitchen.
The 30-year-old garden wall had crashed through the conservatory window of the family home in Nottingham.
After a panicked frenzy to turn the water off, Lucy and her partner attempted to claim through their insurancers - but were told the company would not be helping.
More than two months on and the pair say they are worried about their safety - especially that of their two-year-old.
Lucy Gawthorpe, 33, says she was awoken by a loud bang at around 4am on February 9 and rushed downstairs to see water spraying out across the kitchen.
The 30-year-old garden wall had crashed through the conservatory window of the family home in Nottingham.
After a panicked frenzy to turn the water off, Lucy and her partner attempted to claim through their insurancers - but were told the company would not be helping.
More than two months on and the pair say they are worried about their safety - especially that of their two-year-old.
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FunTranscript
00:00 About four o'clock in the morning, it fell all in one go, shook the whole house,
00:05 went into the kitchen to hear hissing water, looked under the sink and there was just water
00:09 spraying everywhere. We had no idea what to do, whether it was safe. Spoke to someone on the phone,
00:14 he started taking all the details, asked if we had anyone vulnerable here. I explained we've got a
00:18 nearly two-year-old toddler, so he said, "Oh yeah, that's a vulnerable person, so it's an emergency."
00:23 And then we got to the end of it and he said, "Oh actually, I can't do your claim on the phone,
00:27 you need to log it online." I took my daughter to my sister-in-law's. Most of the wall had fallen,
00:33 but there were still bits here and there still falling, so I didn't know if the rest of it was
00:37 going to go in one go, so we obviously vacated the house. When I got to my sister-in-law's,
00:41 I logged it online and then they said that they'd instructed someone to come out and look at it.
00:48 So the first time that they came out, it was just an assessor, took some photos. It came about five
00:53 days after it happened, so there was no urgency there. He then reported it. They then came back
00:57 and said, "Oh, we need to send a structural engineer out to see if it's insurable." So even
01:01 at that point, they were like, "It might not be insurable." So then they had a structural
01:05 engineer report sent through to them. It took them a few days, maybe a week after, to come back to me
01:12 and say, "It is not insured because it had insufficient weep hole drainage." So I instantly
01:17 asked for a copy of the report because they hadn't sent that at this point. I read through the report
01:21 and the report said, "Due to debris at ground level, they were unable to determine whether
01:26 there was sufficient weep hole drainage." So I instantly ran back and said, "I don't agree with
01:31 your answer because it says this in the report." So then they said they can pass it on for a review
01:37 for them to come back and say, "Oh yeah, I'll raise it in this meeting with my team leader
01:41 and I'll raise it in that with the team leader." And every time I'm telling them,
01:44 the wall's still half standing. I keep telling everyone how urgent it is and everyone on the
01:48 phone's really nice and they're all like, "Yes, I understand. Yes, it needs sorting immediately."
01:52 But then I'm sat waiting again for weeks. So it was just toing and froing, constantly going,
01:58 "Nope, they've made a decision. It's not covered." Me arguing it again and them saying,
02:01 "Right, we'll escalate it to so and so." And then them coming back going, "No, it's not covered."
02:05 And then the last person that came out was someone from their internal surveying team
02:12 and he said he was only coming out to look at the damage to the house. The wall wasn't covered at
02:16 this point. They're just looking at the house and they're going to look at how they can remove the
02:22 debris to do the damage on the house without making more damage with the wall falling down.
02:27 But my point was that they have to remove the wall to make it safe, so why not just rebuild the wall?
02:33 So then he came into the back garden and he saw in the remaining wall that it had weep hole drainage
02:40 and he said to me, "Did this go across the whole of the wall?" And I said, "Yes." And he said,
02:45 "Well, why did the report say that there isn't sufficient weep hole drainage?" And I said,
02:48 "I don't know. It's not your report." So he said he'd raise it. So then he went back, raised it.
02:54 Within a day of him doing it, he told me he'd done his report and then I was waiting
03:01 another two weeks before anyone got back to me on the report after me chasing constantly.
03:08 And then they've come back this time and said, "Final decision. It's gone as high as it can go.
03:14 It's not covered due to poor design, but they will cover all the windows on the house and the
03:21 tap that's been damaged. I want the insurance to rebuild the wall." I mean, if I have to go to court
03:27 and fight them, then I'll go for damages because I've had countless nights of worrying about how
03:32 it's going to be built, how I'm going to afford to do it, the safety of me and my family. So it's
03:37 more than just the wall. It's a constant stress and I've had to try and deal with this while
03:41 working full-time and being a mother, just trying to get everything sorted.
03:48 [BLANK_AUDIO]