Woman fears wrangle over storm damage to her home

High winds caused part of the gable end of Wendy Croucher's Victorian property on Greevegate, Hunstanton, to collapse on Friday, September 25 Picture: Chris Bishop (Image: Archant)

Part of the gable end of Wendy Croucher’s house in Greevegate, Hunstanton, blew down during Friday night’s gales, injuring her lodger.

“I was sat in the house and there was an almighty gust of wind,” she said. “Then the man who lodges with me ran in from the garden, screaming a lump of brick had hit him on the head.”

Miss Croucher, who is a Hunstanton town councillor, said she had to take her tenant to hospital to be treated for his injury.

A large section of the gable end fell from Wendy Croucher's house on Greevegate, in Hunstanton, during high winds on Friday, September 25 Picture: Chris Bishop (Image: Archant)

When she surveyed the damage, she found rubble strewn across her neatly-kept garden.

“I’m now starting the fight with the insurance company who are telling me I haven’t maintained it,” said Miss Croucher, who has lived in the three-storey property on the corner of Valentine road since the age of five.

“I said I have emergency cover. I need to know if my house is safe to live in.

Rubble litters the garden of Wendy Croucher's house on Greevegate, Hunstanton, after part of the gable end blew down during high winds on Friday, September 25 Picture: Chris Bishop (Image: Archant)

“They said: ‘That’s not what we insure you for under emergency cover’.

“I said it looks like an emergency to me. After I spoke to the insurance company I just felt worse.”

A large quantity of the chalk and carrstone used to build the three-storey property in the 1880s fell into the garden, narrowly missing a wooden summerhouse.

Several tonnes of chalk and carrstone have fallen from the gable end of Wendy Croucher's three-storey property on Greevegate, Hunstanton Picture: Chris Bishop (Image: Archant)

A section of gable end more than 2m square collapsed during Friday evening’s gusts, exposing one of the original rafters to the weather.

That side of Miss Croucher’s home faces north, from where the worst of the winds came.

She said at the height of the storm, she could hear them swirling around the property.

Miss Croucher said she has maintained her home including having the wall re-pointed.

She is now waiting for assessors from her insurance company to come and survey the damage.