Our family of four all sleep in one room because the mould is so bad: Mother-of-three reveals how her children are suffering from asthma and eczema due to 'botched' cavity-wall insulation

A mother and her three children are sleeping on mattresses on the floor in one room because their family home is infested with mould, which she says was caused by a 'botched' cavity-wall insulation. 

Zoe Godrich says her house in Swansea looks like a squat and she has to scrub black mould off the walls every two weeks.

She has chucked away all of the beds and wardrobes and her six year old daughter's baby doll was also binned when it was caked in the fungi.

The heartbroken mother says the problems began three years ago when contractors fitted the house with cavity-wall insulation through a government 'green' scheme. 

The firm that carried out the work in 2021, InstallersUK, has insisted the insulation is not to blame and says it was caused by a hole in the roof. The firm has since gone bust. 

Do you live in a mouldy home? Email matt.strudwick@mailonline.co.uk

Weeks after the work was carried out Ms Godrich says water started pouring down the walls 'like a waterfall'.

One of her daughters is now taking medication for asthma and her son's eczema is so bad his cracked skin bleeds. She says neither had to be treated for these conditions before the insulation. 

The desperate mother was advised to have the insulation removed and took out a £7,000 bank loan to pay for the work. But now the house has no insulation and she can't afford to put on the heating, which has caused more damp and mould issues.

Ms Godrich told the BBC: 'It's absolutely heartbreaking because I can't provide for my children's basic needs of a safe warm home.'

A building surveyor of 25 years inspected Ms Godrich's home in April and blasted the 'botched' insulation and said the extraction work hadn't been done properly as well.

David Walter said the industry is motivated by money as they get government grants for doing the work. 

'So there's an incentive for the contractors just to get people signed up, get the job done and get the grant money,' he said. 

City Network Limited helped Ms Godrich to secure funding for the work to be carried out and the firm was named as a guarantee on the work.

But the firm says this was done by mistake and it should not have been written on the form. 

Although it has sympathy with Ms Godrich's predicament and has tried to assist her, City Network says it has no obligation to help. 

Ms Godrich added: 'The life has just been sucked out of me. For the last few years all I've done is fight company after company after company.' 

Independent company Trustmark was tasked by the government in 2019 to set up a quality scheme to make sure the work was being carried out properly.

The company said: 'The problems at Ms Godrich's property are complex. The work was carried out under an earlier standard and did not take the "whole house" approach that current standards do, preventing some of the issues seen here.

'However, the situation Ms Godrich is left in is completely unacceptable and needs to be put right. We will work with the British Assessment Bureau and City Energy to achieve a suitable solution that makes Ms Godrich's property a warm, comfortable and healthy home for her and her family.'

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero told MailOnline it could not comment on individual cases and instead directed us to a ministerial statement by Lord Callanan in February.

He said: 'The Government acknowledges the findings on consumer experience, where some consumers may face difficulties when carrying out retrofit work, and on standards, where the landscape offering protections for consumers can be seen as complex and confusing to navigate.

'The Government is committed to protecting all consumers undertaking home retrofit work as well as improving the overall consumer journey.'

MailOnline has contacted City Network and Trustmark for further comment.