Lincolnshire woman 'mortified' after company accidentally sends her rude email

​Vicky Strange, 41, bought a new build home at Gleeson Homes’ Saxon Grange development in 2022.

But since moving in, she claims there have been a raft of issues with the property – including a garden that regularly flooded, an issue with her front door, and a faulty bath.

Gleeson Homes has since untaken a number of measures to remedy some of the problems there.

But after raising some of the recurring issues with the developer, Vicky says she was accidentally copied into a chain of emails from them with one member of staff referring to her as a ‘rottweiler’.

"I was absolutely mortified,” she said. “My emails were not aggressive.”

Vicky first alerted the site manager to flooding issues with her rear garden back in April and was told it would be sorted. She says some work was then done to put in a drain, but the issue persisted when it rained, so she emailed the company to ask again.

“In my email, I thanked them for the work they had already carried out and was just asking for an update on my garden as I was keen for it to be useable in time for summer,” she said.

“So I was a bit shocked to be called a ‘rottweiler’. I even used to leave out tea, coffee and cakes for the workmen when they came to try and fix the drainage issue with my garden.”

Vicky also had an issue with a faulty bath and claims she was told by a plumber that the bottom of the bath was so thin that she was lucky she didn’t fall straight through it. This has since been replaced.

She says that since raising her concerns over the ‘rottweiler’ remark, she has received an apology and a bunch of flowers.

"I’m a customer of theirs and this whole experience has been absolutely awful and caused unnecessary stress,” she said.

"I work for the NHS and I would never refer to a patient in such a derogatory way.

"I’m hoping that by speaking out like this that other people won’t have to go through what I’ve been through.”

A Gleeson spokesperson commented: “We take our responsibilities to our customers and the build quality of our homes very seriously, so where remediation is required and reported to us, we act quickly to make things right.

"In this case, we have worked closely with the resident since their purchase in 2022 to remediate any issues where these have been reported to us, and we will continue to do so as appropriate.“With regards to the inappropriate comment made by a member of the team, we sincerely apologise. We believe that this was not intended to be insulting but reflected sensitivities at the time. Gleeson accepts that this was totally unacceptable, and the issue has been addressed with the team member concerned.”

Addressing the new build snags Vicky has raised with Gleeson Homes, the company says her front door had a ‘manufacturing fault’ and is due to be replaced in June.

In relation to her rear garden, which keeps flooding, Gleeson Homes say they have taken a number of measures to remedy the issue, including installing a ‘French’ drain. However, this did not alleviate the issue, so their labourers are now installing a further ‘H’ drain. They say the issue has been exacerbated by ‘significant rainfall’ and the ‘ground conditions’ at the site.

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