Case Summaries
Back to Case SummariesAccommodation - CS112602
Case summary November 2026 | Not Justified
A student complained to the provider about a prolonged pest infestation in their accommodation and the disruption caused by repeated pest control treatments. They also complained about comments made by a member of accommodation staff during a meeting about the infestation. The staff member had suggested that international students could be responsible for bringing non-native pests into the accommodation. The student experienced these comments as stereotyping and racially insensitive.
The student was also unhappy about delays in the handling of their complaint.
At the final stage of its complaints process, the provider partially upheld the complaint. It acknowledged that the infestation had continued for several months and that it could have communicated more clearly about the problem and the action being taken. The provider also acknowledged that comments made by a member of accommodation staff could reasonably be perceived as racist. It apologised to the student and said it would provide staff training to help prevent a similar situation from happening again. It also offered £100 compensation and had provided alternative accommodation.
The student complained to us because they did not consider the Provider’s response and the compensation offered to be reasonable.
During our review, we asked the Provider whether it would like to settle the complaint. The provider offered another £2,500 compensation. The student did not accept this, but the offer remained open until we completed our review.
We then reviewed the complaint. We saw that the provider had attempted to resolve the infestation through pest-control treatments before providing alternative accommodation. We considered this approach was reasonable but recognised that the prolonged problem and repeated disruption had caused the student distress and inconvenience.
The comments made by the member of staff caused the student significant distress. We were satisfied that the provider’s final response recognised the seriousness of the comments and their impact on the student. The apology and commitment to staff training were appropriate practical steps in response.
The student’s formal complaint had taken more than ten months to reach the Provider’s final response, which is seven months longer than set out in our good practice framework. We considered that this was an unreasonable delay and that it had caused additional distress and inconvenience.
We considered the final offer of £2,600 overall to be reasonable. The provider had also apologised, committed to staff training and provided alternative accommodation.
We concluded that the complaint was is Not Justified because the provider had made a Reasonable Offer. We suggested the provider remake its offer to the student to accept. It was then up to the student to decide whether to accept the offer or not.