A mum with three young children has been left devastated and homeless after a house swap dream turned into a nightmare.

Paula Phillips exchanged her three-bedroom home in Waterdales, Northfleet, for another three-bed in the same street, but with a downstairs bathroom more suited to her daugher Jessy-Lee who has complex physical and behavioural needs.

She said: “What hit me first was the smell, everything stank of mould and damp.

"Obviously I looked at the house before the swap, but there were candles lit, air fresheners, food cooking and the heating on so you couldn’t smell it.

“The worst of it was from the bathroom.”

With the help of ex-husband and asbestos remover Dexter Geiss, she pulled up the flooring and says everything underneath was sodden and stinking.

Video: Paula has complained of damp and flooding to the council

She discovered the toilet was leaking every time it was flushed, the floor was caving in, brickwork was crumbling and tiles fell off walls which were soaked behind and so soft, you could get a screwdriver through them with a gentle push.

The kitchen ceiling fell through after a couple of days, possibly due to an upstairs boiler leaking for months.

"They (Gravesham) still refuse to accept the house is damp, or that there’s any flooding issues" - Paula Phillips

Ms Phillips, 29, added: “Luckily nobody was hurt but my kids could have been stood under that when it all came through.”

The kitchen floor is also wet, and the cupboards mouldy.

Patio slabs have been put in the back garden over existing flooring, raising the level above the damp course and directly next to air bricks.

Every time there is heavy rain, water gushes into the house through the holes, under the kitchen and bathroom flooring.

She has moved out and is sleeping on her mother’s sofa.

She said landlords Gravesham council did put some temporary flooring in the bathroom but added: “That isn’t going to solve the whole problem.

"They still refuse to accept the house is damp, or that there’s any flooding issues. Somebody has been out to look at the hole in the ceiling, but I’ve no idea when it’s going to be fixed.

“I don’t feel like the house is safe to live in, especially with my kids. My daughter Roxanne had pneumonia as a baby and she’s got scarred lungs. I can’t keep her in a damp, mouldy house.”

Ms Phillips said she is not looking for special treatment, just fair treatment. Before she left her old house, she redecorated in neutral colours and paid to have plastering done and doors replaced.

She said: “I need this place fixed, and somewhere to live in the meantime. I feel like I left my home and in that second, I lost everything.”

Ms Phillips was offered temporary accommodation in a flat in Wallis Park, but initially declined it.

She said: “Wallis Park is a dive, there’s alcoholics and drug addicts there, people wee in the lifts. I was frightened for Jessy-Lee as well, she’d climb over the railings and fall three storeys the second my back was turned. It’s just not safe.

“I didn’t want to go there, but they said it was all they had. When other options didn’t work out I rang back and said I’d have to take it, but my housing officer said it had already gone and there was nothing else available.

"I asked for a B&B but they refused. Now I’m on my mum’s sofa and the kids are cramped into one room together.

“Nobody is telling me anything. The housing officers just keep saying there’s nothing wrong with the house.”

A spokesman for Gravesham council said: “We aware of the situation but cannot comment in detail at this time.”