We are the Wylie family. For 12 years, we lived at 30 Findhorn Place, Troon (KA10 7DJ) with our ten children. The property was owned by our landlord, Professor John McKendrick of Glasgow Caledonian University, known publicly for his work on poverty and childhood.
Our experience as tenants of 30 Findhorn Place, Troon (KA10 7DJ) tells a very different story from the one our landlord, Professor John McKendrick, presents publicly. Hospital records noted environmental factors in the serious health problems our children suffered while living in this neglected property.
Our daughter Iona died at just 11 weeks old in a house that was cold and draughty, even though we were spending £150 a week on central heating. During a six-month spell the landlord left us with no boiler and no hot water, our daughter Sia was born prematurely at 23 weeks. Despite every effort, she could not be saved. Later, another of our daughters was born with spina bifida.
All of this unfolded under conditions of landlord neglect. The house at 30 Findhorn Place was left to deteriorate for years, with hidden structural problems and delayed repairs. Only after we moved out did the landlord renovate, finally addressing issues that should have been fixed long before we left.
Nusia – Born Too Soon
In February 2016, the boiler at 30 Findhorn Place broke. We immediately informed our landlord, Professor John McKendrick, and even suggested a government scheme that could provide landlords with new, efficient boilers. He told us he would “look into it” and get back to us the following Monday.
That Monday never came. For more than six months, our family of five children lived without hot water or central heating. Natalie and I worked around the clock—running our new business, M\&N Kidzstuff, alongside her two full-time online jobs, while boiling kettles just to bathe our children.
During this time, Natalie became pregnant with our sixth child. From the first month, she suffered heavy bleeding. On 10 August 2016, our daughter Nusia was born at 23 weeks and 4 days. She could not be saved, and Natalie nearly died from blood loss.
Just weeks later, on 22 September 2016, a Green Deal assessment was carried out at the property. I was not at home, and the assessors attempted to force their way inside. Natalie, grieving and traumatised, stood her ground and refused. Even then, no replacement boiler was fitted. We went into October still without heating or hot water. It was only after this that a new boiler was finally installed too late for us, and too late for Our baby girl Nusia. đź’”
2016–2018: Loss, Spina bifida Diagnosis, and Decay at Home
After losing our baby girl Sia, we were hit with more devastating news. At the twelve-week scan of our next pregnancy, doctors told us our baby had spina bifida. The NHS painted the darkest picture and pushed for abortion, but we refused. Something had made her disabled, and we needed answers.
We already had five healthy children, so the question kept circling back to our environment. We kept a clean home, but hidden problems inside the property told another story.
One day we discovered the toilet had been leaking down the waste pipe, unseen, for God knows how long. Sewage had seeped into the structure of the house. When we phoned the landlord, John McKendrick, he sent plumbers to replace the pipe within a week, but there was no cleanup of the contamination beneath the floors. He never came to inspect it himself and dismissed the seriousness of the problem. The plumbers left huge holes in our kitchen ceiling, exposing the bathroom pipes above. I patched it the best I could, even recreating the coving out of papier-mâché.
But the toilet kept leaking, over and over, for four more years. Each time the plumbers did a sloppy job, and eventually I had to buy a new bathroom suite myself and pay a proper plumber to end the cycle.
By then, the damage was done. The kitchen changed at night. Slug trails appeared across the floor. Sometimes, while making bottles for the kids, I would step on them in the dark. I told McKendrick, and he laughed down the phone “No, there’s not.” That is gaslighting, plain and simple.
The problems spread. While our newborn daughter was in intensive care having operations, my uncle stayed at the house to help with the children. He was furious when he saw the state of the rotten kitchen worktops and the crumbling porch. I rang McKendrick again. He was heading off on holiday but agreed to send his brother with a carpenter.
The carpenter spent five hours struggling with the front door before turning to the kitchen. When he ripped out the units, the truth was laid bare: there were no floorboards at the back of the kitchen. The cupboards had been balanced on scraps of old skirting board that had rotted away, causing them to collapse. The carpenter shook his head in disbelief but was pushed to patch it rather than fix it.
They worked quickly, called it “wear and tear,” and left us with a half-finished kitchen. Cupboard doors were missing. Nothing matched. Our children’s friends couldn’t even come into the house anymore without embarrassment. I told McKendrick the problem would just happen again if the floor wasn’t fixed. He brushed me off.
That gaping hole in the floorboards wasn’t just a structural issue. It was a wound in our home, letting rot, damp, and vermin creep into our lives. And all the while, our children were growing up in the middle of it.
