Have you got a pigeon or two near your flat?
And, when the pigeon left, did it leave anything interesting apart from either pigeon-poo, or pigeon pie?
The Appeal Court has just made a decision on whether tenants Mrs S and Master S were entitled to compensation when the poultry mites left behind after a pigeon had been expelled by the Wandsworth Council flying-rat-man caused them some irritation.
That is physical irritation, not metaphorical.
And the answer is yes, they were entitled.
HAH Legal Report it thus:
Ms Siveter complained to Wandsworth that pigeons were nesting outside her flat, which was on the fourth floor. The nest was over a cupboard, which had an opening into her flat.
The pigeons were infested with poultry mites. Wandsworth sent a pest control company to remove the pigeon nest and de-infest the area. However the motes remained in the cupboard and migrated into Ms Siveter’s flat rendering it uninhabitable.
Ms Siveter had to leave the flat and claimed damages from Wandsworth on the basis that it had failed, in breach of its obligation as landlord and its common law duty of care, to take reasonable steps to abate the infestation, in particular by failing to remove the mites from the cupboard.
An environmental health consultant she instructed said that once the pigeons were removed the mites had been driven to seek hosts elsewhere, and that the cupboard was a clear route into her flat. The pest control company should therefore have sprayed the cupboard as a minimum.
The local authority called on a representative from its environmental services department, whose evidence was that it was rare for poultry mites to get into a house, but that he would have advised that the cupboard be checked for infestation, given its proximity to the flat.
In his judgment, the judge referred to samples of the evidence of both experts but not all of it. He concluded that once the pigeon nest was removed and the surrounding area sprayed, without the benefit of hindsight, it had not been unreasonable not to spray in the cupboard.
I think, and someone can surely advise, that the mere involvement of the Appeal Court means we are in the £50k to £200k realm of legal costs – for which any decent developer could build you 2 or 3 Affordable Houses.
If you are a landlord, then you will be pleased to know that you are now responsible for the pigeon’s left-overs, should they migrate humanwards.
Of such earth-shattering – for those involved – decisions do the lives of our senior judiciary consist.
But that’s the nitty-gritty of a system of law based on precedent and evolution.
Though there may be something in here about too many levels of Appeal.
Photo Credit.
Matt Wardman blogs at The Wardman Wire, on media, politics and technology, in addition to writing at the Raccoon Arms. Follow me on Twitter.
{ 28 comments }
So what do you propose? No appeal for the landlord?
I don’t have an idea, I’m just aware of the huge overhead of case law – never mind regulation of rental contracts themselves (which is probably appropriate) in the law – on rents.
Matt,
In a sane world the original Judge would have struck out the case and told both parties to settle their dispute through the Small Claims Court or by mediation or other dispute resolution. The Chartered Institute of Arbitrators springs to mind.
The Localism Act 2011 should be amended to require a vote of the full Council to give authority to incur additional legal costs to pursue an appeal.
Brian— spot on
Brian,
The local authority won the trial at first instance, so the appeal was brought by the tenant. Had the authority conceded the appeal they would have had to pay all of the trial costs at first instance as well as the tenant’s appeal costs.
You are probably right that a case like this probably shouldn’t have gone to court, but such cases are very hard to settle when a litigant is legally aided because unless the council pays for their costs they won’t agree to the settlement.
Have the pigeons sued the council for evicting them from their home without notice yet? And if not, why not?
Surely pigeons should be entitled to Legal Aid in this day and age? Why have the RSPCA and RSPB not taken this up?
We should stick up for pigeon rights!
If I could have found one the pic would have been instructions on how to wring the neck of a pigeon.
The internet seems to be squeamish.
You could always have a looky here: http://karenfarfan.com/photography-3/picture-story/pigeon-farmer-2/
No neck-wringing as such but on the vid at the 2 minute mark is one BASTARD of a machine…
Pic 4 is a doozy. And a happy looking cat in Pic6 tells more than a thousand words…
Wooh.
Palinesque.
I’m not sure what the problem is with the decision.
As reported (always an important proviso) it seems that there was a problem outside the flat related to the pigeons, which the landlord decided to solve. They screwed up the process of solving it, and created a more serious problem inside the flat as a result.
Clearly, it is the landlord’s responsibility to provide an inhabitable flat, and clearly the landlord is at fault here (although they may have a corresponding claim against the contractor).
Now, if the point of the post is that letting this go all the way to a trial, judgement, and an appeal court hearing is insane, then I’ll agree 100%. Far better to have spent the money of refurbishing and cleaning out the flat than on the lawyers. Trouble is, you can’t always make a defendant see sense, especially when their choice is between (a) admitting they screwed up and (b) spending someone else’s money in the hope the problem goes away.
It’s actually both.
To point out that Tenancy Law involves the regulation of very mundane stuff, and that it can cost a hell of a lot.
There are a lot of hysterical commentators around telling us that landlording is the Wild West, while there’s a huge amount of regulation out there.
Suspect there’s also something in all of this about Legal Aid availabiloty, but that’s a separate piece that needs some serious research.
I don’t know about that. Sometime ago Fred’s family had a dispute with a department of the local authoristy. Rather than apologise, the local authority offered Fred’s family a family holiday if Fred withdrew his demand for an apology. Fred, being a suspicious sod, insisted that the offer be made in writing and when the authority was unwilling to make that offer in writing, Fred stated that he could not accept the offer because he did not know what all the conditions attached to the offer would have been. So back in the mid 1990′s a local authority might have been willing to spend about £1500 to get out of making an apology.
They’d make a mighty pie!
Might a cat catch mites from a pigeon and bring them home? Would such “third party” transfer mean the council’s responsibility were reduced?
Coo coo cachoo? As some pop star whose name escapes me might observe.
However, any excuse to hear the fabulous Tom Lehrer, suerely one of the greatest satirists of the 20th Century
Alvin Stardust aka Shane Fenton perhaps.
Spot on I think! He turned on the Christmas lights in my local town when I was about 8! That would be about 508 AD…
Twice… pigeons have crapped on my head… First time, aged 11, on holiday in Dubrovnik (not likely to have been a Wandsworth pigeon)
Second time, the day I bought our daughter home from hospital… ‘Er indoors is ‘not from around here… like REALLY not from around here and insisted on me buying some pigeon from the butchers en route to our residence with our new bundle of joys, in order that I could be instructed in the mysteries of making pigeon soup… I moved our daughter from the car then returned to collect the birds. As I crossed the porch step I was bombed from above by a flying rat! Eurgh! Pigeons in hand, Pigeon shit on head… I was, well, Pigeony!!
All pigeons must die…
A couple of ornamental ones can remain if they keep off my washing, but otherwise I’m with you. I blame Walt Disney and St Francis of Assisi.
Shoot the birds, tuppence a round. That’s my motto.
Rats with wings…
Gildas, those are the nice ones. I would never use at the Raccoon Arms what i think of the vast bulk of them.
How does anyone prove that the mites were from the removed-pigeons?
They could have come from a pigeon that arrived after the first ones were evicted.
Naughty Boy , Naughty Boy— made me laugh!
They were poultry mites, so they could have come from a passing Rhode Island Red or Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall, but I’m guessing they didn’t !
Thanks for that, Matt. Best laugh all day.
Maybe they should have cleaned their own cupboard.
That would have saved a lot of bother….
Rats with wings