In June, ACORN members Deb and Davinia had a horrific house fire. There was no working smoke alarm in the house, and they were lucky to get out alive!
They took action alongside ACORN to try and force their lettings agency to make fire safety improvements to all their properties.
However, they received a Section 21 "No Fault" eviction notice instead of fire safety checks! ACORN took action to ensure Deb, an NHS worker who didn't have the savings to find a new home, wasn't made homeless.
Members organised two large pickets of the letting agents offices (during which we heard from some of their other tenants that they had recently carried out loads of fire safety checks - we wonder why?), turned up every day on the trot for two whole weeks, and over 450 members of the public emailed in to express their disgust.
And we won! The landlord and letting agents have agreed to give Deb £1000, return her deposit in full and cancel court proceedings so she can find a new home at her own pace!
Deb said: "I hadn't heard of ACORN before my house caught fire. I reached out to ACORN to help me on a mission to force the letting agency to make their properties fire safe. All the amazing ACORN folks stood by me and stood up for me. I am happily a member and hope I can help others too. The agency quietly completed their fire safety checks and, this week offered me money. We won! We have literally saved lives and stood up to the greedy powers that be."