• 7 months ago
A couple say their new build home dream has turned into a "nightmare" and has been plagued by problems - including an infestation of beetles.

Diane Jackson, 61, and partner Mark, 59, bought the £320k four-bed near Darwen, Lancs., after selling their old property to their daughter.

They were looking forward to the next stage of their lives - but have faced nothing but issues instead, they claim.

The pair say they have discovered damp and mould alongside the insects and, as it stands, the home is unliveable.

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Fun
Transcript
00:00 We thought we'd found our dream home here and then about three weeks after getting the
00:09 keys we started noticing on the, around the window, on the window ledges, little black,
00:16 what looked like little black dots and we'd wipe them away and then they'd just reappear
00:21 very quickly and we couldn't figure out what it was.
00:28 Eventually I got my phone and I sort of photographed one and enlarged it and it turns out it was
00:34 a tiny little, what I thought was a mite, which turned out to be a plaster beetle.
00:44 Two to three weeks later we had a huge infestation of plaster beetles.
00:50 They were all over the floors, they were all over the windows, they were all around the
00:53 house, every room.
00:56 We also found that the only way to kill them was through a heat treatment process, which
01:00 is quite expensive.
01:01 Luckily for us the developers agreed to pay for that, which achieved the goal of removing
01:09 the infestation.
01:10 The only problem was, was that it was, there was a good chance it would come back because
01:15 the beetles live and feed off mould and fungus.
01:21 So we decided we'd remove some skirting boards to see what was behind and found that they
01:26 were covering mould.
01:35 We've had various reports done, we've had cavity wall specialists in who have drilled
01:41 into the wall and found that the cavity wall insulation, which is like a rock wool, mineral
01:49 wool type system, is wet through and that is where the problem has come from.
01:58 So unless we can dry that out we're never going to be able to cure this problem.
02:06 The developers, Applethwaite's, have washed their hands of it, basically blaming us, saying
02:11 that because we didn't move in right away and run the central heating, that's what's
02:16 caused this, but every building report we've had done has said that's not the case.
02:22 We've even brought NHBC in who have also confirmed that that's not the case and it is down to
02:27 the developer and they should be putting it right, but they refuse to.
02:30 So the NHBC have said that they'll cover the cost to do the repair and then deal with it
02:37 with the developers.
02:38 Hopefully, within the next couple of months, we'll be able to move in properly.
02:43 [End of Audio] Duration: 2 minutes and 30 seconds
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