{"id":343467,"date":"2026-02-18T11:53:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T11:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/343467\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T11:53:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T11:53:07","slug":"cork-city-tenant-says-hes-lucky-to-be-alive-after-masonry-falls-from-window","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/343467\/","title":{"rendered":"Cork city tenant says he’s ‘lucky to be alive\u2019 after masonry falls from window"},"content":{"rendered":"

A council tenant living in dilapidated social housing flats on Cork\u2019s southside has said he was lucky not to be killed by a piece of masonry which fell two storeys, striking him on the shoulder.<\/p>\n

Colm Olden, aged 54, who has lived in the six-decade-old flats on Clashduv Rd for more than 18 years, said he was using the outdoor tap in his yard when a piece of windowsill hit him.<\/p>\n

The Clashduv Rd flats are the same design and vintage as Noonan\u2019s Rd flats, which are currently earmarked for demolition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was bending over, using the hose, when I got a wallop on my back. If I was a few inches back, it would have hit me on the head,\u201d he told The Echo.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a piece of the windowsill from the top floor of the flat upstairs, and it weighed more than 1kg.<\/p>\n

\"ColmColm Olden with the pieces of masonry. Picture:\u00a0 Noel Sweeney.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt left a right mark on my shoulder. If it had hit me on the head, it would surely have killed me,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Mr Olden said he has repeatedly drawn the council\u2019s attention to issues with his home, but to no avail.<\/p>\n

He suffers from COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), which he said is exacerbated by the damp and mould which can be seen in several rooms in the flat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had to replace several units in the kitchen, and it\u2019s a constant battle keeping the mould at bay, and we\u2019re spending \u20ac70 a week trying to heat the place,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had terrible trouble with rodents too. I woke one night to find a huge rat on the bed. I tried to bundle him up in the duvet and get him out of the house. I have an industrial rat trap in one bedroom, and you can hear them travelling along the ceilings all the time.\u201d According to Cork City Council\u2019s tenants\u2019 handbook, tenants are responsible for dealing with rodent infestations in their homes.<\/p>\n

However, several tenants have said rats and mice are running through the connected ceilings and walls and coming in from neighbouring, overgrown, and litter-strewn gardens.<\/p>\n

Similarly, multiple tenants have complained of crumbling masonry in the flats.<\/p>\n

Mr Olden said his home had suffered water damage on multiple occasions from the upstairs flat, which is currently unoccupied.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn fairness to the council, they supplied me with a new bed and linen the last time, but it\u2019s never-ending. These flats are years past their sell-by date, and they should be knocked,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cAt this stage I\u2019m appealing to the council to move me to a new home.\u201d\u00a0\n <\/p>\n

The flats at Clashduv Rd and Noonan\u2019s Rd, are three-storey maisonettes of a style introduced across Cork city in the 1960s by then city architect, Eamon O\u2019Byrne.<\/p>\n

Last December, The Echo surveyed all 160 of the city\u2019s O\u2019Byrne flats, receiving a 59% response rate. Black mould was an issue cited by 85% of respondents, while the same number said they had trouble heating their homes, and 65% reported persistent issues with rodents.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson said Cork City Council does not comment on individual cases.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Clashduv Rd flats are of significant age, and presenting with maintenance works that are to be expected of properties of this nature.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe council continues to invest in housing maintenance and improvement programmes and operates a responsive maintenance system to address urgent repairs in these and similar complexes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A council tenant living in dilapidated social housing flats on Cork\u2019s southside has said he was lucky not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[781,79,42,18,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-343467","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-cork-news","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-cork-city-council","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116091499615855124","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}