Tennease
Legend
I am listening to BBC News radio and it's been talking about the deteriorating housing condition in Marseille. I was surprised that in Europe there is problem like this. They're talking about how the house beams were rotten where a house collapsed and killed a tenant. There are termites on these houses too, and moulds and other defect in the structures such as the stairwells. The council apparently didn't do much about this deteriorating house condition. This is awful! I thought Europe is not like this??
I just found the article in the BBC website:
https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-48789016
'My flat was covered in mould - I rented it from the deputy mayor'
By Lucy AshBBC World Service, Marseille
The collapse of two apartment buildings in Marseille last November left the city in mourning for eight people who died, but also furious. In the past, the story of a young woman whose rented flat grew a layer of black mould might have received little attention - now it's seen as cutting to the heart of the city's problems.
Half-way up the Rue d'Aubagne there's a gap where numbers 63, 65 and 67 used to stand - this is where two apartment buildings crumbled in a matter of seconds at 09:00 on 5 November 2018. Among the eight victims pulled from the rubble were a mother from the Comoros islands who had just returned from taking her son to school, an Italian student and a young man from Algeria, who'd recently crossed the Mediterranean in a small boat, dreaming of a new life in France.
That tells you something about the kind of place it is. Someone counted more than 100 different nationalities living and working here. Shoppers weave past piles of uncollected rubbish, graffiti-covered doors and young men hawking contraband cigarettes. Restaurants sell Moroccan couscous, Algerian cakes, Neapolitan pizzas, French cheese, Indian curries and Ivorian stews.
copyrightGETTY IMAGES Many houses close to the collapsed houses were evacuated
The tall townhouses were built in the 18th Century by wealthy merchants. But over the years they've been subdivided into smaller and smaller flats. Some buildings have flooded cellars and water-saturated walls - and it was no secret that many had become unhealthy and unsafe.
A 2014 map of Noailles, the neighbourhood surrounding the Rue D'Aubagne, uses different colours to show the state of each building: green for good; yellow for a little shabby; orange for substandard and unhealthy (usually because of damp, infestations and rot); and red for high-risk, indicating there is a danger the structure could collapse. It was made by an urban development body attached to the city hall.
copyrightSOLEAM The buildings coloured red were classified as "high risk" five years ago
A government report published in 2015 said 100,000 Marseille residents were living in squalid, private accommodation dangerous to their health or security. But despite these warnings little was done. The slum landlords, known as marchands de sommeil - sellers of sleep, were allowed to continue as before, making money from poorly maintained and hazardous properties.
The problem is not confined to Noailles, however, as 23-year-old Jennifer Mbon's story illustrates.
"I was in a relationship which broke up and I suddenly found myself homeless," says Jennifer, who works as an administrative assistant in a care home for the elderly, earning France's minimum wage.
She saw an advert for a studio, available for 520 euros (£466) a month in the upmarket Eighth district of Marseilles, and went to have a look.
It was described as a "small detached house", though it was poky, little more than a shed, and the rent was high for someone earning only 800 euros a month. But it seemed quite nice and had been freshly painted, so she took it.
The good impression created by the new paint soon began to wear off, however.
"Within a few months I noticed mould growing up the wall behind my sofa-bed," Jennifer says. "It spread very quickly to my wardrobe, to the kitchen, the bathroom and even the floor."
Mould grows round a socket in Jennifer Mbon's apartment
The mould wasn't just unpleasant to look at, it had a foul smell, and it got everywhere. Jennifer shows me some pictures of her clothes and shoes which she had to throw away as they were covered in fuzzy green slime.
And there was another problem. The electricity meter was positioned dangerously - and illegally - right opposite the shower.
Shower on the right, electricity meter on the left (behind the half-open white cupboard door)
Jennifer's lawyer, Julie Savi, tells me that when her client signed the lease the property was a garage for motorbikes. It was never meant for human habitation. But for some reason the mayor of Marseille himself signed a document re-designating it as a studio apartment.
The owner of the flat turned out to be Marseille's deputy mayor in charge of heritage and historic monuments, André Malrait - an architect and prominent member of the ruling party in the city, the centre-right Les Republicains.
Jennifer only discovered this when he contacted her employers. "He demanded that my company pay him the rent I owed out of my salary directly, without going through a court bailiff," she says.
"I thought, 'He has got a real nerve first of all to rent me such a hovel and secondly to allow himself to ring my boss and play that kind of power game,'" she adds. "He knew that my company had been subcontracted by the city of Marseille and that my employer would find it hard, in those circumstances, to stand up for me."
Image captionPoster calling for Andre Malrait to be sacked
When I ring André Malrait, he tells me the studio flat was ruined by Jennifer, who should have left the windows open. He says he has since moved the electricity meter out of the bathroom. Then he hangs up.
Although city inspectors described the studio as insalubre - harmful to health - in court the judge took a more lenient view. Jennifer got a paltry 800 euros compensation for "certain defects". Her lawyer will appeal.
I just found the article in the BBC website:
https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-48789016
'My flat was covered in mould - I rented it from the deputy mayor'
By Lucy AshBBC World Service, Marseille
- 28 June 2019
The collapse of two apartment buildings in Marseille last November left the city in mourning for eight people who died, but also furious. In the past, the story of a young woman whose rented flat grew a layer of black mould might have received little attention - now it's seen as cutting to the heart of the city's problems.
Half-way up the Rue d'Aubagne there's a gap where numbers 63, 65 and 67 used to stand - this is where two apartment buildings crumbled in a matter of seconds at 09:00 on 5 November 2018. Among the eight victims pulled from the rubble were a mother from the Comoros islands who had just returned from taking her son to school, an Italian student and a young man from Algeria, who'd recently crossed the Mediterranean in a small boat, dreaming of a new life in France.
That tells you something about the kind of place it is. Someone counted more than 100 different nationalities living and working here. Shoppers weave past piles of uncollected rubbish, graffiti-covered doors and young men hawking contraband cigarettes. Restaurants sell Moroccan couscous, Algerian cakes, Neapolitan pizzas, French cheese, Indian curries and Ivorian stews.
copyrightGETTY IMAGES Many houses close to the collapsed houses were evacuated
The tall townhouses were built in the 18th Century by wealthy merchants. But over the years they've been subdivided into smaller and smaller flats. Some buildings have flooded cellars and water-saturated walls - and it was no secret that many had become unhealthy and unsafe.
A 2014 map of Noailles, the neighbourhood surrounding the Rue D'Aubagne, uses different colours to show the state of each building: green for good; yellow for a little shabby; orange for substandard and unhealthy (usually because of damp, infestations and rot); and red for high-risk, indicating there is a danger the structure could collapse. It was made by an urban development body attached to the city hall.
copyrightSOLEAM The buildings coloured red were classified as "high risk" five years ago
A government report published in 2015 said 100,000 Marseille residents were living in squalid, private accommodation dangerous to their health or security. But despite these warnings little was done. The slum landlords, known as marchands de sommeil - sellers of sleep, were allowed to continue as before, making money from poorly maintained and hazardous properties.
The problem is not confined to Noailles, however, as 23-year-old Jennifer Mbon's story illustrates.
"I was in a relationship which broke up and I suddenly found myself homeless," says Jennifer, who works as an administrative assistant in a care home for the elderly, earning France's minimum wage.
She saw an advert for a studio, available for 520 euros (£466) a month in the upmarket Eighth district of Marseilles, and went to have a look.
It was described as a "small detached house", though it was poky, little more than a shed, and the rent was high for someone earning only 800 euros a month. But it seemed quite nice and had been freshly painted, so she took it.
The good impression created by the new paint soon began to wear off, however.
"Within a few months I noticed mould growing up the wall behind my sofa-bed," Jennifer says. "It spread very quickly to my wardrobe, to the kitchen, the bathroom and even the floor."
Mould grows round a socket in Jennifer Mbon's apartment
The mould wasn't just unpleasant to look at, it had a foul smell, and it got everywhere. Jennifer shows me some pictures of her clothes and shoes which she had to throw away as they were covered in fuzzy green slime.
And there was another problem. The electricity meter was positioned dangerously - and illegally - right opposite the shower.
Shower on the right, electricity meter on the left (behind the half-open white cupboard door)
Jennifer's lawyer, Julie Savi, tells me that when her client signed the lease the property was a garage for motorbikes. It was never meant for human habitation. But for some reason the mayor of Marseille himself signed a document re-designating it as a studio apartment.
The owner of the flat turned out to be Marseille's deputy mayor in charge of heritage and historic monuments, André Malrait - an architect and prominent member of the ruling party in the city, the centre-right Les Republicains.
Jennifer only discovered this when he contacted her employers. "He demanded that my company pay him the rent I owed out of my salary directly, without going through a court bailiff," she says.
"I thought, 'He has got a real nerve first of all to rent me such a hovel and secondly to allow himself to ring my boss and play that kind of power game,'" she adds. "He knew that my company had been subcontracted by the city of Marseille and that my employer would find it hard, in those circumstances, to stand up for me."
Image captionPoster calling for Andre Malrait to be sacked
When I ring André Malrait, he tells me the studio flat was ruined by Jennifer, who should have left the windows open. He says he has since moved the electricity meter out of the bathroom. Then he hangs up.
Although city inspectors described the studio as insalubre - harmful to health - in court the judge took a more lenient view. Jennifer got a paltry 800 euros compensation for "certain defects". Her lawyer will appeal.
