Nasty, inhumane John Smale & Co Barnstaple
Did you know John Smale & Co have a legal duty of care under HHSRS (housing health and safety rating system) to ensure all their rental properties in radon risk areas (yes, North Devon is such an area) are evaluated and monitored for radon? And if the levels are above the HHSRS hazard level to take urgent remedial action. But John Smale & Co do not do this!
Radon is a naturally occurring carcinogenic gas given off by the Uranium rich rocks in this area that gets stuck in your lungs, gives off radiation aka alpha particles (this is why so many South Western tin miners died from lung cancer and why the SW has such a high ratio of lung cancer sufferers in comparison with other areas of the UK) and becomes polonium (remember Alexander Litvinenko?) which then decays into Mercury (not good for your organs, and especially not for pregnant women). So you would think that John Smale & Co, who paint a picture of themselves being ethical and caring for the local community would, at a minimum, comply with the law. But oh no! It seems tenants are sub-human in their eyes, not deserving protection from radon.
I know from experience when I rented an expensive converted barn just outside Barnstaple. Now, forgetting the tiles coming off the roof, the broken effluence system, the very insecure outer door (one tug and an outsider could get in), the torrent of water from the top floor to the bottom when you have a shower, the subsidence causing nasty crack in the kitchen floor, I have monitored radon levels at TEN times the HHSRS Category One Hazard level. John Smales & Co should have monitored for radon before we moved in, and when we moved in, and then remedied the hazard (it costs around £1500) but did not.
I am now in the process of suing John Smale & Co, not just for the danger they put my family through, but to try and ensure a judge orders them to immediately test for radon in their other rental properties. Nice company? Not in my book (and their staff are so rude IMHO as well).