DAMP creeping through Eltham has forced one family to sleep on a single mattress in their living room to escape a "3-D" black mould.

While another Eltham mum says she has to climb into her children’s bunk beds to flee the mouldy menace in her bedroom.

News Shopper received three independent reports of the growing problem in Eltham council properties in the space of one week.

Ryan Homewood, who lives in Linsted Court, resorted to sleeping on a mattress with his partner Gemma Crutch, six-year-old son Heddy and three-year-old daughter Milly as the bedrooms’ mould was so bad.

He said: "It is all black. It is like 3D - it looks like it is sticking out of the wall.

"We have put our mattress into the front room and slept on that.

"My children haven’t stopped coughing so it is getting a bit worrying."

Mr Homewood says the family have contacted the council repeatedly and cleaned the fungus off themselves but it keeps returning.

In nearby Elmbrook Gardens, Jenny Sullivan says she has been living with "smelly" mould for five years which also means she cannot use her own bedroom.

The 31-year-old mother-of-two said: "It is bad. I have never been able to use my bedroom.

"I am having to sleep on my sofa or in the girls’ room on their floor.

"I feel sorry for my kids because if someone comes round we have to apologise for the smell."

Her brother Mish Al-Shaibi once stayed in the room for three days and is convinced it made him ill last year with a viral infection and swollen gums.

The 34-year-old said: "It is just madness. My sister sleeps on the sofa or in bunk beds.

"I just think it is awful.

"They would soon be on top of her if she wasn’t paying council tax but have avoided this for five years."

Lisa Cresswell, of Restons Crescent, also says she has complained to the council many times about damp in her property which she says is affecting the health of her eight-month-old baby.

A Greenwich Council spokesman said: "The Royal Borough recognises the on-going problems with damp and mould in these three properties and will continue to work with tenants to find a permanent solution.

"To this end a specialist team has recently been established within the Housing Department to address these types of issues and a number of additional works have been identified to resolve the specific problems within these properties."