Mousebound – Rodents force Sally Topping out of her Cope House home
Published: 12 February 2010
by PETER GRUNER
AN elderly woman was detained in hospital for eight weeks because, it was claimed, a mouse infestation made her sheltered accommodation in Finsbury a health hazard.
Sally Topping, 80, had to remain in the Highgate wing of the Whittington hospital, where she’d gone for tests, after an environmental health officer for Islington council decided the flat was unfit.
However, last Friday Mrs Topping finally returned to the flat at Cope House in Bath Street, after hospital officials at Highgate Mental Health wing – where she had gone originally for a two week stay for a cognitive examination before Christmas – decided they needed her bed.
Mrs Topping’s son, psychotherapist George Topping, this week spoke out against the housing association Circle Anglia for not curing his mother’s mice problem.
“She’s had mice in her flat for two years,” he said, “and they don’t seem to be able to
cure it. They’ve put poison down and used traps, but nothing seems to help.”
Mr Topping, who lives in nearby Whitecross Street, said the problem has got so bad that mice have been nesting in his mother’s clothes and shoes. He added: “Circle Anglia, who operate this sheltered housing project, have been indifferent to the problem – so much so that my mother had not been allowed to leave hospital as her home was considered a health hazard.”
A spokeswoman for Circle Anglia said they take the mice problems at Mrs Topping’s flat very seriously.
“There have been several attempts to cure the problem,” she added.
“Our operatives are going into the flat again to try and remedy the situation.”