Residents at Oak Tree House on Spey Road, Tilehurst, have been raising concerns that their extra care housing facility is inadequate by general maintenance standards.

Chris Matta, Jane Taylor, Kelvin Chaplain, and Keith Maslen said that the front door to the property has been broken for over eight days with no one having come to fix it despite numerous complaints.

“It’s just not on,” Ms Matta said. “A faulty front door is a security breach and quite frankly it puts our lives at risk.”

The residents said that the managers of the property are great at answering their phone calls, but that the housing company itself simply ignores them.

“Peabody are just the worst,” Ms Matta said. “They think that pensioners have nothing better to do than sit on the phone all day.”

Mrs Taylor said that her husband was on the phone to Peabody for two and a half hours the other week and still nothing has been done about their complaints.

Besides issues with the front door, the residents also said that there has been ongoing issues with the heating since many of them started living at the property.

“It’s ridiculous,” Mr Chaplain said. “Especially for the amount that we have to pay to live there. We expect a certain level of maintenance and they aren’t delivering.”

“We’ve had issues with the heating on and off for ages,” Mrs Taylor said.

Mrs Taylor has lived in the property for two years, Ms Matta for three years, and Mr Maslen for six years.

“We’ve just hit a brick wall,” Ms Matta said. “We’ve gone to councillors, directors, managers, and have gotten nowhere and have been given no straight answers.

“You go to one person and they tell you to go to the next authority, and then vice versa. They all just need to talk to each other and get something done about all this.”

The residents also agreed that the building needs repointing and that the garden is “falling apart.”

“There are so many repairs that need to be done,” Ms Matta said. “Peabody needs to listen to our concerns and take action.”

They did however all agree that the cleaning service has got better.

A spokesperson for Peabody said: "We’re aware of some maintenance issues at the building and are working to fix them as soon as possible. We apologise to residents for the length of time this has taken.”