A TENANT fears his home could be subsiding less than two years after it had thousands of pounds of repairs.
Jason Roberts, 36, wants a large poplar in his back garden removed after cracks started appearing throughout his home in Sneinton.
Mr Roberts moved into the home in Elford Rise as part of a house swap in March 2009.
The transfer was agreed by a Nottingham City Homes housing manager, despite the property suffering years of decay during the previous tenancy.
The housing association carried out thousands of pounds of repairs to the property after the problems were highlighted by the Nottingham Post.
But Mr Roberts says new issues have now emerged.
Nottingham City Council informed him this week they had been monitoring the house since October 2008 – five months before he took over the tenancy.
Mr Roberts – who suffers with unstable personality disorder which is made worse by anxiety – says he should never have been allowed to move into the house while the investigations were ongoing.
He said tree surgeons who examined the poplar estimated it to be more than 100ft tall.
He said: "Why did they let me move into a property that they knew had structural damage in the first place and not tell me about it until now?
"Everything is moving. Door frames are cracking and splitting, the skirting boards are moving, and cracks are appearing in the stairs.
"There's also cracks in the bricks and mortar.
"The council is throwing money away on repairs when the whole problem could be resolved by getting rid of the tree. It's just a constant stress and anxiety for me."
The city council has arranged repairs to the stairway, plasterwork, doors and windows, and external mortar as a result of Mr Roberts' latest complaints, but he also wants the tree felled.
The authority, however, has told him it is reluctant to do so as the poplar is a "landmark".
The council estimates both the house and tree date back to the 1930s.
A letter to Mr Roberts from Nottingham City Council's tree services manager, Paul Fountain, states the authority has been carrying out monthly "structural observational monitoring" of the house since October 2008.
Mr Fountain said: "This has been of cracks in the mortar around the gable wall and stairwell of the house.
"These have shown minor movement, however it has not been possible for the surveyors to establish a consistent pattern and therefore the cause."
He added: "Given the tree's current condition it is considered to still have a long life expectancy and is such a prominent specimen it has become a local landmark."
Mr Fountain said at least seven other properties in Elford Rise are within the poplar's "zone of influence", but that the city council has received no other reports of damaged attributed to the tree.
Mr Fountain said: "Everyone is as eager as Mr Roberts to find a lasting conclusion to this matter, but while the cause and therefore remedy is unclear the surveyors need to continue to monitor and evaluate the damage."
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