[00:00:00] 

Val: I'm Val Barrett. 

Dr Jeremy: I'm Dr. Jeremy Anderson. 

Val: Welcome to Stories, labels, and Misconceptions. A podcast where we share our stories, experiences, and explore solutions to the issues we face today within the public sector.

Val: And today we have a special guest. Lovely Lady Ayesha 

Ayesha: Hello. 

Dr Jeremy: Welcome 

Val: how are you? So smiley. 

Ayesha: Been a busy morning, but what can we do? 

Val: What do you do first thing, to set the tone for the day to make yourselves feel good. 

Dr Jeremy: Coffee, I. 

Dr Jeremy Sets the tone. Caffeine in the morning required.

Val: Lots of caffeine. 

Dr Jeremy: First, we have coffee. Yes. 

Val: A hug from the dog. 

Dr Jeremy: Yes. 

Val: Not the wife. The dog. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. Pretty much. ~Yeah. ~

Val: ~Ayesha ~what is yours? 

Ayesha: I listen to music. Before I even think about having a drink, usually I would get up in the morning and have a cup of tea or lemon water with chia seeds, but I haven't been doing that [00:01:00] lately. I just get up, turn the Alexa on, and I have to hear music. That keeps me going throughout the day. 

Val: Yeah, me too. I'm moving, I'm dancing. I try and wake up with a positive attitude. Until I look at my bank account. And then it just goes down. But I try and be happy and dance around.

Val: Yes. Okay. Brilliant. 

Dr Jeremy: Okay. And just to circle back I wanna make clear I love my wife very much. 

Val: No, ~you are not ~

Dr Jeremy: ~using, but ~I really do love my dog. 

Val: I noticed the difference in passion. 

Dr Jeremy: The emphasis. The passion. 

Val: She knows anyway knows. She knows. Yeah. Okay. Ayesha welcome. The question I'd like to ask you first is, who is Ayesha? 

Ayesha: I am a woman and I am also a mother. I work for the local authority. I'm always pushing and striving myself to do [00:02:00] better. 

Val: Yeah. '

Ayesha: cause of the current climate that we live in at the moment, you always gotta find some form of side hustle. So yeah. I'm just trying to get through this life.

Val: But what did you do before you had your child? 

Ayesha: I was working for the local authority. I was a regular attender at the gym. 

Val: Yeah. 

Ayesha: I used to support my friends with any things that they needed. 'cause I'm very much I support people by, if they need help with anything, write letters and emails. 

Val: Yeah. 

Ayesha: I was very supportive in that way. I also supported my grandmother a lot as well. 'cause she's got dementia. 

Val: Yeah. 

Ayesha: I'm a very active person. I also play netball there's always something I was doing. But I had to slow down 'cause I had my child. 

Val: Yeah. 

Ayesha: Life has turned completely around for me, I focus on myself. Yeah. But I'm also focusing on my child, which I do. I have to put my child first.

Val: Yeah. So would you describe yourself as a confidence strong woman? 

Ayesha: I don't like to use the word strong. 

Val: Why not strong? 

Ayesha: The reason why, because I feel as a black woman, you are automatically deemed as strong and 

Val: no, I [00:03:00] dunno, some people can use the word strong and take it as a negative towards black women but to me that's not what the word represents. And I think as long as we take back that word and we use that word and we know why we're using that word, see what I mean? Because if Dr. Jeremy said he's strong. You are not gonna look on it in a negative way. 

Ayesha: I think people. Automatically think I'm strong. I'm not always strong. I have moments when I am weak, behind closed doors. I get weak, but I'm a confident woman. 

Val: Yeah. 

Ayesha: I'm confident I do what I have to do to get by. But I don't use the word strong. I just say I'm capable of doing certain things. I have my moments where, I might rethink what I'm doing. I don't like the strong label. 

Val: You said you support everybody else. 

Ayesha: Yeah. 

Val: Who supports you when the chips are down, 

Ayesha: nobody. 

Val: Why does that always happen? Dr. J when there's someone that is the go-to person, has [00:04:00] no one to go to.

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. That's very common. In families. So for example if you have a lot of siblings, you might be known as the strong one. Everyone goes to you. Often people in that position are expected to carry the load. That is a very common experience. ~Just for people, just ~groups of people. That's how it works. Yeah. 

Val: So you need to find your people. 

Ayesha: You can find 

Val: the people, but 

Ayesha: it's whether ~or not ~they're available and true. I had this conversation the other day ~with somebody ~and the mindset was this is just the way it is at the moment.

Val: Okay. 

Ayesha: And it stuck with me and I said to myself, is this how people are really thinking? Now I understand times are hard cost the living gone up. Everything is going up. I get that. Yeah. But the attitude is very selfish now. Across the board. ~And ~for somebody to say that to me I know they've been through struggles. I was there. I've helped, but I've taken a backseat. Yeah. I'm not putting myself forward for anybody unless I really want to. 

Val: Yeah. 

Ayesha: The main person I will do [00:05:00] that for is myself and my child.

Val: Sometimes you can give too much. And then that person always expects it. They won't try for themselves. And I was in that position years ago. Any tiny thing was me. ~So ~I thought, no, I've gotta get, yeah, I've gotta get away from this. And it became toxic.

Dr Jeremy: Can I just ask Ayesha like, when the person you were talking to said that's just the way it is right now I suppose there's different ways that could be taken. So it sometimes when people say that it's really apathy, right? Like it can't change. Give up, right? But then there's other ways of saying it, that is more that's the way the world is now. We need to change it. So how did that person mean it or how did it land for you 

Ayesha: To be honest with you, I didn't care.

Dr Jeremy: No. 

Ayesha: I just said to myself, I need to back off. So the only way I can deal with it is just leave you to it. If that's how you think, that's how you think. I'm not here to change your mindset. You think how [00:06:00] you want to think. If that's how you want to be, then that's fine. But I know, I know whenever I start taking a back seat. Oh, what's wrong with you? Oh, I haven't seen you. 

Val: Yeah. 

Ayesha: I'm okay. I'm just getting on with it because obviously this is the way it is. Do not take things personal, just leave it. Do not argue. Do not question things that you don't need to question. 'cause it's wasting and burning my energy. I'm telling you, being like this. It's lonely. It's very lonely because you just don't know who to approach or what to say because these times are very sensitive. Find another way of dealing with it. Meditate read books and ~just ~go to my bed when I feel like things are stressing me. I think I'll wait for a new day 

Val: Let's move on to your story we'll start with a housing. 

Ayesha: I've been in social housing for many years now, and I'm at the point now where I need to get out of it. But right at this moment in time, the property I live in it's like a, I wouldn't even, it's not a townhouse, it's a house that they converted, but there's no, soundproof in, yeah. Anyway, moved [00:07:00] in here 2019 and I have been experiencing ongoing I would say that it's not ongoing now. I was experiencing racism. Yeah. And there was issue with the floorboards, meaning the structure itself.

Ayesha: There was problems with it, and they needed to address the floorboards. So obviously I got in contact with Peabody as anyone would do, I told them about the floorboards. And they said, yes, you'll get someone to look into it. However, the fact is it wasn't in my property. It was in the property above me. 

Val: Yeah. 

Ayesha: So they had to make arrangement with that person and what have you, and obviously the man upstairs, he clearly has ~some learning difficulty or some ~disability and what have you. Anyway, this, it got to the point where no one was communicating with me ~and telling me what was going on. ~Then I got a call from somebody a community safety officer because he said to me that there was an issue with me and the man upstairs, he heard there was an issue and I said, yeah, the man's being racist ~to me. He's been ~calling me ~all kinds of ~things. So he decided to be proactive Yeah.

Ayesha: And converse with him. And he [00:08:00] was the one that said to me, look, they are looking into the issue with the floorboards. 

Val: Yeah. 

Ayesha: But it's, they're doing quotes and they're realizing it's gonna cost a lot of money. ~So ~that's when I knew Peabody weren't gonna do nothing about it. 

Val: Okay. Do you think that should have been their response to you? How much it was going to cost? Should that really be for you to know? 

Ayesha: No. I'm not bothered about that. I found that 

Val: strange. I found that strange. 

Ayesha: Yeah. IJI just said to myself I said to the man, I said, I don't care how much it's gonna cost, they're gonna have to do it. Yeah.

Ayesha: Because it's disrepair under section 11. If I report it, you are supposed to deal with it. 

Val: Yeah. 

Ayesha: Yeah. So anyway it just got to the point where it got long-winded. I was going back and forth. 'cause this was also to do with ~the ~racism. So it was also, it was all entwined. Yeah. So with the issue, with the floorboards it just went quiet.

Ayesha: Okay. No one was saying anything to me. No one was corresponding with me. All I was doing was just getting messages. I wasn't really getting messages. It was just a case of [00:09:00] no one wasn't really corresponding with me. I was sending emails. No one wasn't coming back to me. Yeah, it was just point blank. I decided then to go to the housing ombudsman. 

Val: How long what was the length of time? 

Ayesha: I can't remember the length of time from when I decided to get in contact, but it was a case of, I complained to the housing ombudsman. They then said, we've gotta do an investigation. No, because they've changed the process.

Ayesha: Actually. They said they've gotta look into it to see if it's worth investigating. Okay. I realized it was worth investigating. Then they had to get a sign, a caseworker, which took another six weeks. Then I got a caseworker and then I would say it took a good few months, about six months, 

Ayesha: yeah. For me 

Ayesha: to even get a response back because they were saying, they inundated with work and this and that and what have you.

Val: I can imagine. 

Ayesha: Yeah. Yeah. Because the numbers of people complaining about their health association from 2019 to now has gone up [00:10:00] dramatically. 

Val: Yeah. 

Ayesha: I finally got a response and they said, yeah, we're gonna look into your case. And I would say that was ~about ~about eight weeks ago, 

Val: Uhhuh 

Ayesha: and I got a response tuesday. 

Val: Before you tell us the response, because we want to do the storyline, right? What about the racism? 

Ayesha: So with the racism now, this was ongoing from when I moved in. So this gentleman I never really had a relationship with him. I'm a person, I'm very, keep myself to myself. I don't really want to be in the mix with neighbors and stuff like that.

Ayesha: Yeah, I'm very much like that. Even if I own my own property, I don't really to talk to you. Hello? Goodbye. That's it. Yeah. Because the building is not insulated, there's no, no soundproofing. He would be banging against the floor and stuff, and I'd be like, what is your problem?

Ayesha: And I, before we had, before it happened, we had an argument because he was banging. ~And ~I said to him, stop banging. ~Yeah. And ~he decided ~that he wanted ~to carry on. So I went to his door and I said, what is [00:11:00] your problem? And that's when all the racism started ~coming out, ~the racial slurs and everything.

Val: Do you mind sharing what he said? 

Val: Call me a nigger. People like you shouldn't be here. Just little things like that to me, which ran off my back. 'cause you get to the point where you're getting older now, and I'm like, is that all you can say? 

Val: Yeah, same. Same old

Val: you haven't got anything else new to say. Yeah. And because of his mindset, he's got a disability, there's a learning disability there as well. I just thought to myself, okay, whatever. I'm not using that as an excuse. No, it's not. No, you've got a problem with me. So I obviously approached him about that.

Val: He's made, he's basically made my life more difficult. And there's been other times going forward, been times when he is, he is used racial slurs towards me. My daughter's overheard what he said. 

Val: How old is your daughter? 

Val: She's seven. Okay. He's, it's just been ongoing. It will be sporadic, where he'll just bang. For no reason. And you can hear it throughout the whole entire property because obviously this property there's no soundproofing. 

Val: Yeah. 

Ayesha: It would die down [00:12:00] and then ~it'll ~start again. Got the police involved. ~The ~police gave me CAD numbers. Neighborhood police spoke to him. They tried to get in contact with Peabody. My neighborhood manager didn't want to know he was not interested. They gave me diary sheets. I sent them back. Apparently they never got them. 

Val: I don't know the law as such. But isn't racial abuse against the law? Isn't there 

Ayesha: racial hate Unless you can prove it? 

Val: Do you know what I hear that time and time again? Anytime I watch a show ~or watch somebody on a channel and it's ~about racism, prove it. ~So ~first thing ~they always say, ~prove it. ~Yeah. ~So the onus is always on us to prove that person was racist towards us. And how are you supposed to prove it? Record people, 

Ayesha: in other words, yes. But the thing is he admitted to them that he must be racially abusive, but they didn't know nothing about it. 

Val: Oh, he [00:13:00] did admit. 

Ayesha: But they didn't do anything they couldn't be bothered. They did, they don't have to say anything to me. Your actions alone tell me that you don't wanna do nothing about it. 

Val: Yeah. Yeah. 

Ayesha: Apparently they gave him a warning up to now I'm still waiting to see this warning. So throughout the whole process it's been them dragging their feet. Yeah. Lack of communication, poor communication.

Val: Yeah.

Ayesha: It's just ongoing with them. It's just a struggle to get anything done. To pull out a finger and do some work. 

Val: Yeah.

Ayesha: Do something, you know and the thing is, apparently they haven't got much properties within this area, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm not bothered the impression I was getting when they said that was, oh, because you haven't got much properties in this area prepared to come down here and address the problem. Because the offices are in Westminster Road or something like that.

Ayesha: Yes. Yeah. The impression I got was, ~oh, ~because you haven't got much properties down here. I don't know why they said that to me. 'cause I thought is this a cop [00:14:00] out? They don't have the time to come down here to deal with the problem. The only way they can deal with it is if I make contact with them.

Val: Yeah. 

Ayesha: They will respond to me. But you weren't responding to me. Completely ignoring me. 

Val: Yeah. Yeah. So did you ever go down to their offices? 

Ayesha: Oh yeah, I kicked up the stink. 

Val: Did they throw you out? 

Ayesha: I thought they was gonna call the police, 

Val: okay. So what? Happened.

Ayesha: My anger was. Peabody. Yeah, but you can't, my angle was at the wrong people. It was at the person at reception. Reception can't do anything. ~They ~

Val: I feel sorry for the frontline staff. 

Ayesha: Yeah. 

Val: I really do. Because they always bear the brunt 

Ayesha: Yes. 

Val: Of everyone's anger. 'cause when it gets to the stage of you leaving your home 

Ayesha: Yeah.

Val: Marching all the way to their offices. ~Yeah. And then ~it's just Oh, you full force on that poor reception person. 

Ayesha: Yeah. 

Val: Or when you phone. 

Ayesha: Yeah. 

Val: I always apologize. I said, look, I apologize if I come out strong or whatever. I'm just upset. ~And ~[00:15:00] then I go into it. Do you understand? 'cause I know it's not that person on the end of the phone it's not their fault. And they must get it day in, day out. 

Ayesha: Yeah. The woman said to me, she said, you know what? You're not the first person to come here and kick off. No. We've had people kicking off and I said, you know what, I'm really sorry. 

Ayesha: My frustration's not with you, but because you're the first person that I'm dealing with, my anger's going to you. Which really should be going to them upstairs. Yeah. You know the people that won't come downstairs and you deal with the situation, ~isn't ~

Val: They're always hiding. I noticed they turned off their Twitter account so you can't tweet them anything. , do they come out to meetings or anything? 

Ayesha: They come out to meetings, but they won't meet with the ~general ~public. 'cause just think about it. If they meet with the ~general ~public I think their life is at stake here that, you know 

Val: only because they've been ignoring them for so long.

Ayesha: Exactly. But they think if this is the way forward, they actually think, oh, just ignore them. They'll be quiet. They're just tenants, , we're not focusing on them. We're [00:16:00] focusing on the lease holders, the ones that's actually spending money, 

Val: Regardless of whether lease holders or shared ownership or tenants, wherever that money's coming from. They are people's homes. They own the property, but inside that home there's a family. 

Ayesha: Exactly. 

Ayesha: So if you are waking up every day and you know the person above you hates your skin color, just hates you. You have a young child right. To take care of. She's hearing. All those words are age seven. And they can only apologize. That's all they can do. They can only apologize. And I'm like, really? 

Ayesha: Apology doesn't do much. So what is that telling your daughter? What is that teaching her? That it's okay for somebody to use that word , and you just get an apology and then the person goes back to doing the same thing again.

Ayesha: Exactly. 

Val: So it's telling her that somebody that looks like her, [00:17:00] it doesn't matter what you are going through. Do you see what I mean? Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: I guess I'm fairly cynical after a few years of experiencing these kinds of things. In many areas. I think in a lot of systems there is this complaints process. And it sounds like 

Dr Jeremy: for you that there was a process you went through and conducted the ombudsman and there's steps they go through, but then nothing ever happens. And it seems to me there's a lot of processes like these that are set up so that they can be pointed to and said, look, we have this complaints process and you go through the process, but nothing ~really ~changes. No. I'm a lease holder in my flat and I had a similar issue with a neighbor upstairs being extremely loud and there was lots of antisocial behavior going on. Police were called dozens of times. Antisocial behavior team came around dozens of times. And there was this process that we were going through. But nothing was changing. It was just misery. [00:18:00] And, the only reason it resolved was we got lucky because the person was living a fairly unstable lifestyle and just moved out on their own, I think. Okay. They're trying to stay a step ahead of the bailiffs, but the council wasn't going to actually do anything about it.

Dr Jeremy: No. Even though they have these procedures in place, the procedures aren't actually designed to do something. 

Ayesha: No. 

Dr Jeremy: They're designed , for the people, as you say above, to not have to do anything. 

Ayesha: Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: ~Yeah. ~I think that's actually what they're for.

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. Or that's how they're functioning. 

Ayesha: And when I wrote to Peabody, I told them, it's not even worth, your policies and procedures are not even worth the paper that it's written on. And I know with my emails. They're quite strong. I word them quite strong, and I know people get irritated by it. It's me letting you know, in other words, without me using profanities to them, that I'm actually putting you in your place. 

Val: Yeah. Without having to swear. Yeah 

Ayesha: without using such profanities. 

Val: Yeah. ~Yeah.~

Ayesha: I'm very good. People have said ~to me, God, ~do you write some serious emails? I said, yeah. 'cause I'm letting you know. I'm pe [00:19:00] off. I'm pe off. ~Yeah ~that's how I've had to deal with it. I've had to send emails, lack of communication, ~just ~poor communication, just no one getting back they receive ~the ~communication and they just don't do nothing about it. 

Val: There's nothing worse. 

Ayesha: Completely ignore you. 

Val: Yeah. Yeah. 

Ayesha: There's nothing worse than someone ignoring you. 

Val: It's like phoning someone. You go onto voicemail or you send them a text. 

Ayesha: Yes. 

Val: They've read it and you can see that they've read it and they just don't reply. There's nothing more frustrating. It terrible. With housing, it's worse. Yeah, definitely. Do you know how many you sent. Have you ever counted? 

Ayesha: I've never counted, but about 30.

Val: With those lots, did you get any response ~to any of ~

Ayesha: ~ ~So I, the email that I did send, I sent it to the CEO 

Val: and so You should, yeah. 

Ayesha: And then the CEO didn't respond. It was the customer [00:20:00] care service team, experience Team, should I say? Yeah, that responded. And because I put in , let me start, sorry. Let me bring it back a little bit. Got in contact with SHAC

Val: they're called Social Housing Action Campaign. ~ ~

Ayesha: Yeah. So there's a template on there with regards to withholding your rent. So what I did is I filled in that form and I sent it to them, and that's when they responded to me because I told them that I'm withholding my rent. So in the, when I said I was withholding my rent, I also talked about the fact that I've experienced racism and I've got an ongoing outstanding repair. 

So when I sent that, I obviously sent it to Mr. McDermott? And then it got forwarded to the customer service experience team. Yeah. And that's when they responded to me. Because I'm going to the top person. So then obviously there's been back and forth, that's when they started to say, oh, they didn't really deal with the racism, but they [00:21:00] started speaking about the repair because in my email I quoted section 11 disrepair.

Val: Yeah. So what's the point in them having this policy on racism, antisocial behavior, and they don't act on it? What is the point?

Ayesha: The policy there is a little tiny snippet about the racial hate, but what they're trying to say is basically in other words, you've gotta have evidence to prove that. He admitted it, but they they gave him a warning. Okay. And I asked them, how long was the warning for? And they turned around and they didn't even say anything to me, ~should I say? ~They didn't say a word. It is only when, I went to the housing ombudsman. Yeah. That they tried to respond to me a bit more because I copied the housing ombudsman with regards to every communication that I had. And that's when people started. ~Yeah. ~Responding. Oh, hello, Ms. Chambers. How are you? Nice. I'm just to myself. You don't care.

Val: Oh dear. 

Ayesha: You're just responding because you feel you, have [00:22:00] to, because obviously if you're not to my emails, which I'm copying into the housing ombudsman, ~then ~it looks worse on you, not me. Yeah. So , I started to get somewhere because obviously, like I said, the housing ombudsman was responding.

Ayesha: Yeah, once the housing ombudsman got involved, yeah. Then obviously things started to move along, but there was still no resolution because they kept saying to me, oh, we do want to resolve the issue with the squeaking floorboards.

Ayesha: We do want to do it, this has been, things have been put back and it was just a whole load of kerfuffle. There was no real answers in your email. And I was just reading it and I'm just getting so frustrated. 'cause I'm like, again, you're talking complete nonsense. You're not doing anything.

Val: How does that make you feel as a intelligent grown woman that the only truly heard you once you got the Ombudsman involved? 

Ayesha: How did it make me feel? I'm not gonna lie, this whole process has made me very tired. Yeah. But I think at the time [00:23:00] in my head, I could either get upset or I keep pushing through ~and ~I said a prayer in my head. Yeah. Because someone's gotta be listening I need to just remain calm. Just remain calm. 

Val: Yeah. 

Ayesha: And just keep responding. Because I feel like they want you to get to the point where you're just like, I turn into the incredible Hulk and I'm not doing that.

Val: Or you just give up. 

Ayesha: One thing with me I don't give up. ~Is that ~

Val: ~ ~you've got your daughter to think about. 

Ayesha: I would say it's struggles that I've experienced from young. 

Val: Yeah. 

Ayesha: I've experienced a lot of things, like many people. Yeah. But I don't let it get the better of me. What I do is I just continue to fight. 

Val: Yeah. Yeah. 

Val: Many people have experienced things, celebrities, and what have you. One main person that makes me think to myself, I have to keep going is Doreen Lawrence. 

Val: Okay. 

Ayesha: She's fought and fought. And she's not loud about it. [00:24:00] She's very silent. She moves like the wind. You wouldn't even know that's there. I've adapted to that. I said to myself, okay, you're gonna ignore me. I'm gonna find another way to get through. And that's what I keep telling myself. I do it with everything throughout life. If work upset me, if I, something happens at work and I don't like it. Yeah. I don't need to get upset with you, I'll just send an email. 

Val: But with work. Once you go to work, you leave it. Yes. But ~once you're ~at home, it's ~a ~different ~environ. ~It's your home, ~it's the place. It's not necessarily~ 

Ayesha: true that you leave it. It's not necessarily true that you leave it.

Ayesha: 'cause sometimes as humans, we're supposed to like, go to work and whatever happens at work, fiber comes, we go home. That doesn't all, it depends on your job. It really depends on your job. Yeah. If you're in the caring industry, like where I am, where I'm supporting people, with issues with their children, with their partners, whatever.

Ayesha: Sometimes you take that on. Think of course. So I would like to think, yes, I could leave it there and [00:25:00] then but you don't always do that. ~You don't. ~

Val: ~Okay. But as in terms of the physical place, right? ~You leave that physical office. 

Ayesha: Yeah. 

Val: But once you come home, you're supposed to come home to a nice home ~that ~you've built inside. Peace, tranquility, calm, you open the door to whoever you want to, it's your home where you invite ~your ~loved ones ~in. It's ~a place where you eat, sleep, rest, it's your castle. And to have all that going on, and then somebody above you is being racist, to me, it's a different type of thing ~that ~you can't leave because it's your home. You can shut out the world. Outside they can be shouting, whatever. You come inside and you shut that door. And you are safe. It's supposed to be a home that is safe for you. 

Ayesha: That's right. 

Val: Health and safety. But if it's not, how are you supposed to carry on? How are you supposed to deal with everything day to day? [00:26:00] If the very same people that are supposed to be providing this safety net or this home is, harming you, ~it, it isn't, ~your home isn't supposed to harm you. Just like that little boy Awaab is home. It killed him. Your home isn't supposed to do that.

Val: Whether it is Peabody Hyde Clarion Genesis, whoever. ~At times ~the name doesn't matter. The stories are the same. We fought for nearly a year to get a letter box. Someone stole the letter box. ~It's ~and I thought, shall I replace it?

Val: It's just a letter box because if they can't do the small things, this is how you measure them. If they can't do the small things and get the small things right, how are they gonna deal with the big things? 

Ayesha: Exactly. So I [00:27:00] understand what you're saying with ~regards to ~the little box. Where I'm living now. The light outside, you have to turn the light on by flicking it on obviously as you walk through the door so that when you come up the steps and go into the property, there's light. So . I decided that I was having enough of that because the light kept going and in the man downstairs he would turn it off. Sometimes I'm thinking, was it got to do with you? But anyway, yes. So I contacted Peabody and Peabody had the nerve to turn around and say to me she can buy the light and we'll pay for it to be installed. That was the previous neighborhood manager said that to me. ~So in my head was on fire, literally.~

Ayesha: Alright, I'm gonna get you So I should went online and she found laws duty of care. Yeah. My child is under 18. Yes. Yeah. You are supposed to be paying a duty of care to my child and I And you're not doing that. 

Val: They know this, but they [00:28:00] just, 

Ayesha: no, but they know they will get away with saying certain things to certain people because people won't research it.

Ayesha: No, you can't do me. So I've researched it, send them an email. Oh, Ms. Chambers can you just let us know when you'll be available to fit the lighting I'll let you know. They put the spotlight at the front and by the door. And I said to them, thank you I don't need ~ No, no ~drama just quote them by the law. Yeah. That's it. This is the land that we live on. We're, we're controlled by laws you want. I'm gonna play that game with you. 

Val: Yeah. 

Ayesha: ~Yeah.~

Ayesha: ~And ~I've got my spotlight, got the spotlights, 

Val: Dr. Jeremy, what did you think of that? 

Dr Jeremy: Obviously that's enormously frustrating. I was thinking about, any kind of advice I would give. And like with a lot of ~the ~patients that I work with and I talk about things like stress management or anger management or something like that. But a lot of that is meant for, [00:29:00] something like anger management, anger is only a problem if it's causing a problem in your life.

Dr Jeremy: If you're driving to work and you're getting furious, angry, and. And just, driving over pedestrians or something like that. That would be a problem, right? 

Val: Yes. 

Dr Jeremy: But when you actually have something worth being angry about actually, the anger can be helpful because that's what motivates you to push forward and fight for what you deserve. So in that case, anger's not a problem. I wouldn't say that's a problem. It may be a problem if you're dealing with an issue that isn't being resolved.

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. So stress is normal. There's no such thing as a stress-free life. But, our bodies are designed for kind of short term stressors. It's built for fight or flight, right? Yes. So if you're walking through the woods and you see a bear and you can outrun your friend ~then ~you survive.

Val: I'm sorry, I should laugh 

Dr Jeremy: The stressor is short term because the bear's gonna either catch you very quickly or it's gonna catch your friend very quickly, and then you get away and then you're not in danger anymore. That's what it's designed for. 

Ayesha: [00:30:00] Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: But in the modern world, our stressors are long term. , my antisocial neighbor, it was six months of hell, right? Oh. Oh, like you say , constant chaos going on. 

Val: Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: And the way, our housing is built with no sound insulation in between. So whatever chaos is going on next to you, you live through 

Val: Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: Yourself, right? And when these things don't get dealt with, that's an ongoing stressor and, there may be literally nothing you can do about that. 

Ayesha: I think what worries me is that I'm not a stressor. 

Val: Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: So if you can't deal with this one big stressor over here the next best thing you can do is actually try to manage , the other stressors that you can do something about. So that the cumulative amount is smaller. That might be the best and obviously you want to deal with the stressor in the best way possible. Then step three would be, sometimes you just do get overwhelmed, and so you need to try to find a way [00:31:00] to physically just counter the physical stress on your body. 

Val: You can elaborate a bit more at the end. When we talk about how people can cope with situations like this. cause it's not just about Ayesha but anybody else ~that might listen that is ~going through the same thing. Yeah. That hasn't got anyone to talk to because we all go through stresses. Absolutely. All of us absolutely do. Is not immune to anybody or yeah. And it's how to deal with it, yeah. Can you imagine you are living in mold. Yeah. And you open your eyes ~and ~you have a nice dream. You're on the beach, Hawaii, and you open your eyes and fuck the mold, yeah. Can you imagine that? How your day starts off? Yeah. This woman, her seeding off, her ceiling's gone. I couldn't imagine it. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: So Aisha, where we up to in the [00:32:00] story? The ombudsman. So you got the lights done? 

Ayesha: ~Yes. ~That was when I first moved in. Okay. So I knew ~this ~Peabody was gonna be ~quite ~challenging. 

Val: Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. The one 

Ayesha: is from there, , I didn't really have ~no real ~issues. I had the racism. Yeah. But I think at first I I didn't really make it an issue, I highlighted it to housing. Because obviously my daughter was becoming more aware of what was going on. To me that is a concern my daughter's going to school, ~she's ~mixing with a loads of different people, yeah. She needs to be culturally aware, racially aware. I get that. But she shouldn't be able to hear what this person Yeah. Vulgar person was actually saying.

Val: Did she hear him? Did she hear the word? 

Ayesha: Yeah, she heard the word. 

Val: Did she ask any questions? 

Ayesha: No, not really. , if she hears something, I'll be saying to her at the time, don't worry about it. We'll have a conversation about it. Yeah. At another time, because I'm fuming because he is gone back to saying what he's [00:33:00] saying again. Yeah. I do, have conversations with my daughter. She's seven. It's not like she, she's not gonna understand. She's at that point now where she can understand certain things. 

Val: Yeah. Me, I think that's hard. ~So ~has that been dealt with at all? Where are we up to now? 

Ayesha: So with regards to the racism, it has stopped. But ~what is done is ~now he's decided ~that ~he wants to shout through the ceiling. 

Dr Jeremy: ~Of course he does.~ 

Ayesha: Yeah. And then when I told the housing they didn't really ~ever ~answer to it. 'cause obviously they're gonna turn around and say. You're gonna have to record it. Okay. Oh, shit. So they have a recording app, which I'm locked out of. Tried to email them to tell them ~that ~I can't get in. I'm still waiting. So whenever you try to step forward, it's like you can't, it's like ~you're ~going back. Yeah. 

Val: So the racial abuse has stopped, but the antisocial behavior continue. Hasn't stopped. 'cause they're two separate things. So it sounds like this [00:34:00] person has a problem 

Ayesha: with me, 

Val: with you or just has a problem. Do you see what I mean? I don't know if Peabody have a care team. I don't know. Do they know if there is anything wrong with this person? 

Ayesha: They know that there's an issue. Yeah. However, I was informed that I don't really like to go buy third parties, but yeah, they said that when it comes to people like this gentleman, the housing association get money because they house them. I dunno how true it is. 

Val: But they're also it's not just about housing them, it's about caring for their needs. That's what the extra money's for. But they're not doing that because his needs, whatever it is impacting on you.

Ayesha: But he's refusing, any support when he clearly does need support. So this is where we are stuck. Yeah. So I'm saying since I've got the housing numbers been involved, I've made it very clear to them, yeah, he needs [00:35:00] me out here because this is not going to stop. Yeah. It's not gonna stop. He's gonna continue, he's gonna stop. And then he'll continue. Yeah. Then he'll stop and then he'll continue. Yeah. Yeah. So in order to eradicate this problem you move me outta the situation And you leave him here. Yeah. 

Val: Or move him and somewhere else. 

Ayesha: To be fair, I think it would be better if you move me. You know why? Because you move me out the situation. Then they won't have to do the flooring, so if you move me outta the situation, it saves them money. So you do what you have to do. Then if that's the case 

Val: whoever moves say you do somebody else will move in. They'll still have to do it anyway. If that person complains 

Ayesha: exactly. 

Val: Explain about the floorboards, even though they squeak. Is there anything else? 

Ayesha: The floorboards, they squeak, he walks across the floor, it just makes a lot of noise. 

Val: But there's no gaps. You can see [00:36:00] people living below you. 

Ayesha: No. It's just, years of neglect. 

Val: Oh yeah, of course. Yes. Yes. 

Ayesha: But they've not bothered to even address certain things that have gone on within this building.

Ayesha: And, you, it's just ridiculous you don't wanna take the money to address the issue? Because what came up in the report was the reason why they holded on repairing is because they found asbestos.

Val: Because what? Sorry? 

Ayesha: They found asbestos. 

Val: Wow. 

Ayesha: So that rang a about bells for me. So I said, oh, so because you found, because they could, they wasn't prepared to tell me no, why they weren't continuing with the work. Even though the work didn't really start, they kept saying to the housing ombudsman, oh yeah, the work starting, but it didn't because I've got cameras so I know who's coming in and outta the building. So they kept saying, oh, we're starting. We're gonna do this. They hadn't done anything. 

Val: I think with asbestos, Jeremy remind me. I think, is it only bad if they [00:37:00] start to disturb the asbestos, that's when it becomes a problem.

Ayesha: So this is why they haven't done it. 

Val: don't forget, there was a time in this country, I don't know if it happened in Canada, where all buildings. Asbestos was used. 'cause I remember growing up, and I can't remember, I think it was the seventies, where all the men that worked with it, eventually they got cancer and died. I remember that. Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. We have a family friend. He worked in an asbestos factory only for, I think one summer. 

Val: Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: Or just a few weeks. Like it wasn't a long time. 

Val: Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: And he's now developed I think it's called mesothelioma. 

Val: Okay. ~To ~

Dr Jeremy: the asbestos fibers get embedded in the lungs and they don't leave. And the results in cancer. So the problem with asbestos is when you breathe it in 

Val: Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: And it's removed from buildings because at least there's the potential for it to be breathed in. But especially when the workers start [00:38:00] removing it. When they need to be using a lot of PPE to prevent them from having being exposed to it. And obviously any residents in the building when they're removing it need to be protected as well. 

Val: Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: The more I hear about this, Ayesha I think you're, you're right. I think it's all the better for them to just move you. 

Ayesha: Thank you very much. 

Val: You don't wanna get health conditions, on top of everything else situation. Yeah. But 

Ayesha: the thing is my, this is what I'm saying. In the report it said that they found asbestos, but Peabody apparently haven't given them a report to say that they found asbestos. So why are you halting on doing the repair? So either we've got asbestos in there or we haven't. Which one is it? Because both, either way, you are delaying in trying to address the repair. So my thing is, if you are going to address the asbestos and if you touch it, it causes a [00:39:00] problem. 

Val: Yeah. 

Ayesha: You need to move me and my child out of here. You decant us. 

Val: Whether they touch it now, they may, need to eventually. 

Ayesha: The longer you leave it, you are making it worse. But obviously Peabody don't even wanna hold onto their money. 

Val: The thing I've noticed about them is they're like this. Do you remember Pacman? 

Ayesha: Yeah, 

Val: the game. It just eats up the smaller ones. Yeah. Peabody is eating up other housing associations. 

Ayesha: That's right. And they're getting bigger and bigger. 

Val: And they are getting . Bigger and bigger doesn't necessarily mean you are better.

Ayesha: That's right. 

Val: Because what they're doing, I dunno if that's the reason why they're taking that eye off the ball, but they need to stop eating, stop being pacman, and start sorting all the mold, all the damp out, [00:40:00] get them back up to scratch there. There's so many issues that they have in a lot of their properties. It's not just one or two. You've got the nags head estate.

Ayesha: Definitely, 

Val: and that's bad. You've got so many properties and what they do they buy up and then they turn a blind eye and they don't think about them. They think it's gonna go away. It's not going to go away. It's not, and if it's their plan to leave some places to, to ruin so that eventually a property developer comes along to buy them, that could be another thing. I don't know. But they do have some money, they're always saying that they're broke.

Ayesha: Yeah. Oh yeah. Definitely. They're far from broke. 

Val: Yeah, they are. They are. But somebody needs to investigate where their money goes. Because when you go back to the founder, [00:41:00] George Peabody, why he founded this. They've gone against that I'm sure if let's say by some miracle he was here, he wouldn't like to know that there are people living in his properties in mold or damp. 

Alicia, if you had the opportunity right now to sit down with the chief executive, Mr. Ian McDermott and the Chief Operating Officer, Ms. Ellie Halt, what would you like to say to them?

Ayesha: Why are you not supporting your tenants? Why are you getting bigger and not investing in ~the ~properties that need investment? Why are you allowing people to live in properties with mold? What does it have to take in order for you to [00:42:00] do what you need to do to support these people? To get these properties in a state where people can live without health issues or conditions, does it have to take a death, another death under Peabody?

Ayesha: Because I'm sure Peabody's had about three, four. 

Ayesha: We know they had Sheila Yeah. That died in the property. 

Ayesha: Yeah. How many more people do have to die at the hands of Peabody because you're getting greedy and are focusing on the land that you can buy, build on, and sell.

Ayesha: And, they lie. They just continuously lie. They don't get to the root of the problem. That's exactly what Peabody are. That's what Peabody do. They don't get to the root of the problem they ignore. And the sheer ignorance of them ignoring people is what? Making people come together and fight them. 

Val: Exactly. I would get one of the worst properties. The worst [00:43:00] ones, and get them to spend a night there.

Ayesha: Yeah. I would, 

Val: I've seen some awful ones on video, and I'd get just ~one night, spend ~one night there. It's just, and see how it feels. See how you will feel when you open your eyes. And that ceiling full of mold. You see the bathroom that you have to bathe in the walls are full of mold. Even the kitchen. 

Ayesha: I don't even feel overwhelmed, tired. I feel a bit stressed. Yeah. But I think that's just life. You're gonna be stressed. Yeah. Yeah. And you've gotta learn how to deal with that stress. But I dunno, ~deeds, ~I just don't know what is it gonna take?

Val: I think it has to take the governments to actually step in and there has to be accountability because the government has introduced legislation that allows for the imprisonment of water company executives [00:44:00] for covering up illegal sewage spills, so they can do something like that over into housing.

Val: Because if you look at the properties, if you look at things like mold and damp and things like that, that are a potential killer, you know it's there. You've done nothing for years, and somebody dies in that property, they should go to prison. There should be some form of accountability, not a new legislation that's written up.

Val: Families want to see someone pay for that. They want justice.

Val: America doesn't mess around ~because ~remember the banking crisis years ago, some people went to prison over corporate months manslaughter. And I remember some of the [00:45:00] men committed suicides.

Ayesha: Yes, they did as well. 

Val: Do you remember that? Yes. So perhaps we need this accountability. We need to make them accountable. They shouldn't ~be allowed to be able to ~move from ~the ~CEO of one house association to go to another one. Yeah. And still do the same rubbish. Yeah. There needs to be, if God forbid, somebody else dies, it's corporate man slaughter.

Val: There's no ifs, no buts. And it shouldn't lay at the door of frontline staff. They shouldn't be the fall guy. Fish rots from the head and people follow what the head of the organizations does. ~He sets the tone, ~he sets the tone, and everyone follows that, 

Val: so we are gonna go on to our labels of ~mis ~misconceptions for you. So you've given us your [00:46:00] story, right? So out of ~the la ~the label, what's one label you feel?

Val: Society is wrongly placed on you or people like you, 

Ayesha: think. 

Dr Jeremy: We talked about one at the beginning. Said before. You said 

Ayesha: it before, 

Dr Jeremy: yeah. 

Ayesha: It's a label that I it's just a word that I don't really like to use or whatever. Whenever somebody yes uses that word with me, I tend to correct them. Yes, , I can be strong. I'm not strong all the time, I don't like that label because I do have my moments when I get weak. I do have my moments when I get emotional. 

Val: What's one big misconception people have about your experience or people going through this? 

Ayesha: I think misconception. I didn't give up. I pushed through. I'm glad I did because I'm also teaching my daughter to never ever give up. Gotta keep going regardless with every breath in your body. Because my granddad, who suddenly passed away 10 years [00:47:00] ago, said to me, until the body takes the last breath, you keep going.

Val: Wow. 

Ayesha: And that stuck with me, and I will continue to tell my daughter. Yeah, you keep going just don't give up. 

Val: Thank you. That was Alicia. Thank you for Aisha. 

Dr Jeremy: Aisha, 

Val: okay. I've gotta ask ' what was the outcome of your complaint? 

Ayesha: So basically I won my case. It was a lot of paperwork that had gone missing.

Ayesha: They said they could not find this is Peabody here. Shred, shred, yes. Communication, poor communication. Everything fell on those. Things ~that ~I mentioned. Yeah. Yeah. And I think also what helped as well is that I had a really nice investigator. Yeah. From the housing ombudsman.

Ayesha: Lindsay Rowley. She was very supportive, and made sure that she wanted to get the finer details. Yeah. And give the report. [00:48:00] The report was very detailed and strong and you could see ~that ~it was going in my favour

Ayesha: you could see it ~just ~came out in my favour and that brings me, it makes me feel, I was ~so ~overjoyed when I read it. 'cause I thought to myself, Peabody, this is how you know, you mess with the wrong tenant. Really mess with the wrong tenant. 

Val: Thank you Ayesha fantastic. 

Val: Yeah. Thank you for sharing your story 



Val: This is the final segment of our show. It's called Pauses and Protect, A Moment for Your Health and Wellbeing, and it's led by our clinical psychologist, Dr. Jeremy Anderson.

Dr Jeremy: A housing issue like this is enormously stressful but there's anything in life that can be stressful. There's no such thing as a stress-free life. No. I think my three step plan for managing stress this is what I talk about with my patients we need to cope with our stressors, but that's actually step two.

Dr Jeremy: The [00:49:00] first thing we need to do is ~actually try to ~avoid or minimize the stressors that are in our life, that are routine hassles that add to our overall level of stress. If we can avoid those, if we don't have those in the first place, we have a lot less we have to cope with. If you don't, a person can do a whole lot of coping and expending a lot of energy trying to deal with stressors that they could have avoided in the first place.

Dr Jeremy: So the first step is always to minimize the number of stressors you have, and I recognize that a person has to be in a fairly privileged position in order to be able to avoid a lot of stressors. If I said, if your job stresses you out, just quit your job and get a new one.

Dr Jeremy: That assumes you can just do that, right? Yeah. Not every every suggestion is gonna work or not everyone has the same number of options, but if there are options ~you have, ~do those, ~right? ~So you want, so the first step is to try to minimize ~the ~daily hassles that are contributing to your overall [00:50:00] stress

Dr Jeremy: step two is to cope as best you can with the stressors that remain. And often that really big stressor that just isn't going away. How do you deal with it? One thing you talked about in this episode was, the pointed and direct. Emails that you give that maybe people don't like, right?

Dr Jeremy: And maybe it's effective for you. If it is effective, great. Keep doing that, right? I find it in this country. 'cause I'm from Canada, and I think we communicate ~a little ~differently. ~I find very ~often people ~just ~wait for you to show just a glimmer of anger. And they use that as an excuse to not do anything to help you. If you're dealing with a problem and that anger or that the way you express yourself isn't helping you need to find a better way to express yourself. It depends on the situation. Maybe it helps, maybe it doesn't. So you wanna cope as best you can. 

Dr Jeremy: And then the third step is really noticing that even with just Herculean efforts to [00:51:00] cope, sometimes you're gonna get overwhelmed and because. Our bodies are designed for this fight or flight response, and we respond to stressors like, a conflict over housing in the same way. We would respond if we were being chased by a bear. It's not helpful, right. And ~it ~burns us out that's just the way our bodies are made. 

Dr Jeremy: So the only thing we can do in that case is to try to instill the opposite of the stress response. If the stress response makes you tense and uptight and jacked up and adrenalized, we need to practice calming down. At least sometimes just to give ourselves a break my research area when I was doing my training was in, in behavioral cardiology.

Dr Jeremy: I was looking at the impact of stress on people's heart health and really the kind of stress [00:52:00] that contributes to heart disease and heart attacks is that kind of really negative emotional stress that lasts from on and on. Short-term stressors we can deal with. So if you can break up your stressor, even if it's an ongoing problem into short bursts where you're stressed, but then you recover and then you're stressed and you recover, that's actually I wouldn't say healthy, but it's less unhealthy than just letting yourself be stressed and letting that fester for on and on.

Dr Jeremy: So practicing regular relaxation, distraction, getting social support like you were saying as the strong person. Maybe people don't think you need support. Maybe that's the misconception. Yeah. But you do, all of us do when we're dealing with stressful situations. And so seeking out social support can be really helpful

Dr Jeremy: I'm all done. 

Val: Thank you. [00:53:00] We hope you've enjoyed today's episode. Thank you once again, Ayesha 

Dr Jeremy: we are on Apple Podcasts and Spotify

Val: thank you. Leave a review. 

Dr Jeremy: Okay. Bye-Bye everyone. 

Val: Bye. Not wave. Say bye. Oh bye. Sorry,

Val: if this episode resonates with you, or you know someone that's going through similar issues with their landlords, please reach out. 

Val: Do not suffer alone. You can either make complaints to the housing ombudsman or reach out to a national organization called SHAC Social Housing Action Campaign.

Val: They are brilliant. Just go to their websites. We will leave a link in our description below. Thank [00:54:00] you.