Woman hospitalised after living with mould sets up training academy to help fix horror homes

A woman who feared she was going to die after contracting pneumonia from damp and mould in her home has now set up a training scheme to help housing professionals make homes safe.

Lisa Malyon, 42, was hospitalised in Sutton, Surrey, with community acquired pneumonia in 2020 after she and her daughter Phoebe had struggled for years with breathing problems and chest infections.

Malyon discovered that water damage in the roof of her home was to blame. That put her on a personal crusade to address damp and mould, which affects around 1.3 million homes in England, according to the most recent English Housing Survey.

The mum-of-three set up a Facebook group called Mums Versus Mould, which has 3,100 members at the time of writing, to support mothers living in squalid homes.

Just a month before Awaab’s Law launched last autumn, Malyon unveiled the UK Centre for Mould Safety (UKCMS) to raise awareness and improve home standards.

“Our academy has the capacity to upskill every tradesperson in the UK, urgently putting more boots on the ground, equipped, and safe in the knowledge they are identifying and fixing the cause before safely removing the mould once and for all,” said Malyon.

“The academy opening marks the end of the repetitive and unsafe ‘chemical wash and stain block’ treatment status quo, which has downplayed the health risks associated with this far too common biological hazard.”

Malyon moved into her home in 2015 but, in the years that followed, she and her daughter Phoebe were plagued with respiratory problems.

Upon moving into the property, Malyon had seen stains that showed signs of water damage but thought nothing of it. That was until her health declined.

“Me and Phoebe kept getting chest infection after chest infection and taking trips to the doctors,” Malyon told Big Issue. “Eventually, after a year and a half of just being really sick, the antibiotics just stopped working for both of us.

“Phoebe was having lots of time away from nursery. I was having lots of time off work, I was like an 80-year-old woman. I couldn’t walk up the stairs without just having to stop and get my breath back.”

Malyon’s health continued to decline and she collapsed in January 2020 and was admitted to St Helier Hospital in Sutton.

The mum-of-three spent a week there with doctors diagnosing her with community acquired pneumonia.

“When I was in hospital, I didn’t know it was to do with my environment. All I wanted to know is: why is this happening to me? I’ve always been really fit and healthy,” said Malyon.

“My partner said to me: “I think you’re going to die. I’m scared that you’re going to die.” I remember seeing my daughter Phoebe who was four at the time and I remember her saying goodbye. At that point they hadn’t got it under control, I was on medication and a drip, I was feeling really rough.”

After her hospital spell, Malyon discovered water damage to the roof that meant her home was “like living under a wet blanket”. She ended up selling the home at a discount.

But Malyon’s brush with death inspired her to tackle damp and mould and she set about educating herself on the causes and solutions to addressing the problem, from ventilating homes to safely removing mould from walls.

“When we got to the new house, I then thought to myself: I wonder how many other people are going through that?” she said.

“I started doing some research, spoke to loads of people in the medical profession, and they just said somebody needs to raise awareness, because it’s huge.”

As well as her Facebook support group, Malyon launched The UK Centre Mould Safety community interest company last year, just as the government took action with new laws to speed up fixes in social housing through Awaab’s Law.

Now Malyon has unveiled a national training academy to help train professionals to fix up homes.

Using US Institute of Inspection Cleaning and Restoration Certification standardisation, the academy is designed for people in housing, surveying, property management, building maintenance, retrofit and remediation.

Read more:

• Family trapped in damp and mouldy horror home for 10 years: ‘This family is owed respect’
• The mouldiest places in Britain to live, revealed
• Labour has announced its Warm Homes Plan. Here’s what it means for energy bills and the climate crisis

The training programme has four stages, ranging from a half-day training course delivered via online videos to a four-day programme training people to don protective gear and work with a trainer to clean mould safely off walls. Malyon said the courses range from £110 to more than £1,000. 

Ryszard Jankowski, technical director at the UKCMS, said the courses are designed to bridge the gap between legal guidelines and how they work in reality.

Jankowski said: “That gap between what’s known and what’s done increases risk unnecessarily. In cases of microbial activity in a home or public place, the consequences of getting it wrong can be severe for the workers and anyone affected by the work.” 

Malyon spoke to Big Issue just as the government unveiled its £15bn Warm Homes Plan setting out plans to make homes more energy efficient through better insulations and green technologies such as solar panels and heat pumps.

The plan references 2021 Building Research Establishment research showing that the NHS was spending an estimated £900 million annually on treating illnesses associated with living in cold or damp housing.

Ministers have also introduced Awaab’s Law to require social landlords to fix serious hazards like damp and mould to strict timeframes. That will be extended to the Renters’ Rights Act in the future.

Malyon told Big Issue that preventing mould in the first place is the best course of action, including not drying clothes indoors and ventilating homes where possible.

She also warned people to be careful using chemicals to tackle mould in their home. 

Now she is lobbying for a ‘warm, dry home certificate’ which would prevent estate and letting agents from handing over the keys to a property unless it has been verified to be safe.

But she is determined to help people enduring damp and mouldy homes.

“When I was in hospital, I didn’t know if I was going to survive,” said Malyon. “That feeling is what kind of keeps me going because that is the feeling that is going through these mums’ minds.”

For more information, head to the UK Centre for Mould Safety website.

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