Cork City Council tenant ‘begging’ for repairs to Mayfield flat

A Cork City Council tenant who is wheelchair-bound and suffers from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) has said she “begging” the council to fix the heating in her home, make it wheelchair-accessible, and solve the rat infestation in her estate.

Josephine O’Keeffe has been a social housing tenant in Glenamoy Lawn in Mayfield for over a decade.

She told The Echo she has been asking the council for help for years but, she claimed, no help has been forthcoming.

“I keep asking them to fix the heating, the doors, and the bathroom, that they could make it accessible for me,” she said.

“I was in this wheelchair when I moved in, so this is going on since then.” 

Ms O’Keeffe said damp was an issue in her flat, and that had been caused by the heating system which the council installed almost a decade ago.

“The heating is a bad issue. It doesn’t heat the place at all and it costs about €60 a day, and it can be very, very cold in here,” she said.

Tenants in Glenamoy Lawn and the neighbouring Árd Bhaile have been complaining about heating in their flats since the council replaced the previous air-to-water heating system in 2016 and 2017 with an air-to-air system.

There are 157 homes in Árd Bhaile, and 109 in Glenamoy Lawn.

Tenants have also complained that the area is “infested” with rats, an issue which has been exacerbated by a minority of tenants littering the area.

Ms O’Keeffe’s flat backs onto the enclosed green square at the centre of Glenamoy Lawn.

That area is overgrown and strewn with litter, and Ms O’Keeffe said it is full of rats.

“We have to keep the door and the windows locked to keep the rats out, they’re big massive things,” 

she said.

Ted Tynan, Workers’ Party councillor for the north-east ward, said Ms O’Keeffe needed to be rehoused.

“I am appealing to Cork City Council to help Josephine,” Mr Tynan said.

Cork City Council was asked for comment.