A WATER leak which wasn't fixed for eight months has turned a family home into "a health hazard" after the damp caused poisonous mushrooms to grow.

Sonia Alshraideh, 39, says the water has leaked from her neighbour's broken overflow pipe into her home, in Bedivere Road, Grove Park.

It has rotted the walls in an upstairs bedroom and the kitchen, causing £5,000 of damage.

Even though she has complained about the problem since August - first to Lewisham Council who owned the house next door, and then to Phoenix Community Housing association after the transfer in December - it was only repaired last week.

On Friday a surveyor from Lewisham Council's building control department told her she should be wearing a mask in the kitchen where fungus is growing on the ceiling and walls.

Mrs Alshraideh, who owns her house, and husband Abdel, 32, a student, are now demanding compensation.

"I'm really angry with them," she said. "It's taken months for them to come in and fix it and it's left all this devastation.

"There's wet rot, dry rot, and fungus. A surveyor came round and said I shouldn't be in there, it's a health hazard. The mushrooms are poisonous."

Mrs Alshraideh, who has two adult sons, said it has even caused one of them to move out of the family's three-bedroom home.

However a spokesman from Phoenix said it had been trying to gain access to her neighbour's property since the beginning of December, and had arranged with police to carry out a forced entry.

However this was not necessary as they managed to gain entry last week.

"We have sent letters, cold called and we finally managed to get access on March 5 and completed some repairs," she said.

"The repairs carried out were to the ball-valve to the main storage tank, a repair to a broken overflow pipe and clearance of the rear guttering."

She said although several people have been round they "have been frustrated by the seeming lack of willingness to allow access from the tenant".

A spokesman for Lewisham Council said it visited the property in October 2007 to inspect for damp.

She said: "Our inspectors identified that there was damp at the property, which appeared to have been caused by overgrown bushes blocking the gutters.

"We were unable to gain access to the property at a later date in order to clear the bushes causing the obstruction.

"We were not made aware of any long-standing damp problems at this property whilst it was owned by the council."