A GOUROCK dad who escaped serious injury when his ceiling collapsed slammed housing bosses for failing to take action.

Shocked Mark Thompson says he was lucky not to be badly hurt and was left looking on helplessly as debris plunged onto his living room floor.

He told the Tele he had made calls to River Clyde Homes a month ago urging them to fix a water leak at his window.

Mr Thompson has now slammed the housing association as the 'worst landlords in Inverclyde' for neglecting the maintenance of buildings.

Mark, 44, from Nelson Road, said: "I was in my bedroom when the ceiling started to come in, I ran through and I was hit by plaster as I tried to stop it.

"I am so angry because you call out River Clyde Homes to report problems and they never do anything about it.

"This could have been avoided.

"I reported a leak at my window a month ago but they never did anything about.

"The water is coming in because the gutters are needing cleaned and repaired - if they just carried out routine repairs this wouldn't happen.

"Now days after the ceiling came in, the water is still coming through the ceiling and the leak is still not fixed at my window.

"It is unbelievable."

Mr Thompson says the ceiling collapse has ruined his carpets and that his living room has a big hole in it.

The River Clyde Homes tenant says the ceiling collapsed at around 7pm on Sunday.

An emergency repair team was called out to board up the ceiling but since then the water has continued to leak.

Mark, who lives in the flat with his 17-year-old daughter Taylor, moved in a year ago.

He added: "I also had problems with my heating system before and I am still waiting for them to come back and fix it all properly.

"You phone them up and nothing ever gets done.

"But the ceiling is going to cost a lot of money to fix and it could have been avoided.

"Honestly, they are the worst landlords in Inverclyde."

River Clyde Homes dispute Mr Thompson's claim that no repairs were carried out prior to the ceiling collapse and say the window repair was attended to on October 1.

Bosses also told the Tele that work is scheduled to take place.

A spokeswoman said: “This job was attended to within our emergency response time of four hours, when our trade operative made safe the external guttering which had a problem at the joint which was causing the water ingress into the flat.

"A follow on works order has been issued this morning to have the gutters renewed at this property and we have contacted our scaffold contractor to have scaffold erected at this property as soon as possible so that we can complete this repair.

"We have also notified our factoring team of the repair as this is a shared ownership block of four, with two River Clyde Homes customers and two owner occupiers, who require to be notified of impending repairs."