Residents of a Wicklow housing estate have called for the local council to act to address issues including damp, mould, leaks and rodent infestation, which have deteriorated to the point some say their health is now being significantly impacted.
Prime Time visited the Hillview estate, overlooking Wicklow town, earlier this week. Rats were clearly visible moving around in the estate, in some units, water was flowing down internal walls due to significant leaks.
One resident has had to place a bucket beneath her sink to catch leaking water due to rats having bitten large holes through the plumbing tubes.
Another resident says they have been regularly cleaning the walls and repainting every 18 months due to persistent black mould that spreads across their entire home.
In numerous boarded-up units in the estate the entryways are filled with dumped waste material.
"It just feels like we're forgotten up here. They don’t seem to want to deal with us," one resident, Martina, said.
"It's very bad it’d make you very depressed," another added. "Getting up to this every morning, you should be getting up to a perfect house, you're paying rent for it."
Martina has lived in the estate for 20 years, and says the problems are only getting worse.
"It impacts us, two of my kids have asthma, we have a neurodivergent household. All of us are either autistic or ADHD," she said.
"My daughter, she's 24, I'm her full-time carer and she's currently going into kidney failure."
Another resident, Bridgy, showed Prime Time a leak in her ceiling which has caused significant water and structural damage to her home, and worsened damp issues.
"The council woman said that roof can come down any minute, water is getting in there. You can see all the marks of the water," she said.
Wicklow County Council has told Bridgy she will be moved to an apartment within the same estate but that property also requires repairs and is not yet ready for her to move in to.
"They can't stop the water because of the rats, and my husband is all the time putting down rat poison," she said.
"You can’t have people living in that. It's very bad," she added.
Tom, another resident of the estate, has had €3,500 worth of furniture damaged from the mould in his property. He says he has made complaints to the council, who sent out an engineer to examine the property.
"Three times I've had an engineer up. She said, 'I'll be back next week with a report,’ and I'm still waiting. It's just soul-destroying now at this stage," Tom said.
"Your mental health is battered with it, when you're confined to your four walls you can't get away from it."
"Once you get put up here, you're left up here," he added.
The estate was developed in two phases in 2006 for Wicklow County Council.
In recent years, tenants who vacated units within the estate have not been replaced – seemingly due to the issues within the units – as a result twenty of the units are unoccupied and boarded up.
Many of the remaining tenants in the estate told said they want to be moved elsewhere.
Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore told Prime Time the condition of the properties require urgent intervention.
"There's the immediate issue of dealing with the homes that are particularly badly impacted.
"There needs to be a structural engineer coming out on site to look at the homes and to see exactly how bad they are, and alternative accommodation found for anyone who is in a particularly bad home," Ms Whitmore said.
She said reports of defects in the properties date back as far as 2008.
"I don't think anyone should be living in them, there's major health and safety issues with some of these properties," she added.
"If this was a private estate with private landlords, we absolutely wouldn't be accepting this standard," TD Whitmore added.
In a statement to RTÉ Prime Time Wicklow County Council said it is aware of the ongoing concerns in Hillview Estate and is committed to working with residents and the local community to address them.
"Currently maintenance works is being carried out on some of these properties. In the months ahead additional plans will be developed to regenerate this estate, and this regeneration project will be subject to the availability of finance," the statement said.
