VIDEO. Mold, lack of insulation and heating … the daily life of a family in fuel poverty

Since 2016, Amine and her family have been living in an energy-poor apartment with young children. They have all become ill from the mold they breathe, from the humidity or from the cold. It is estimated that 12 million people in France are energy insecure. This means that either they are cold at home, or they go broke to heat themselves, or sometimes both. “Every winter I pay more bills since I used another electric heater. If you put on the second heater, there is a call for air. There is something blowing because there is no insulation on the outside“, explains Amine.

Amine and her partner have launched several petitions intended for all the inhabitants of the building, to warn about this scourge they suffer on a daily basis and so that the owners become aware of the problem. “If the landlord doesn’t want to initiate energy renovations, the tenant will stay there for months and years,” explains Manuel Domergue, director of studies at the Abbé Pierre Foundation. “And in the social housing, this household can apply for a transfer to change social housing, but in Paris, a transfer request is very, very rare to succeed, it can take 10, 15 years ” , he adds.

In France, if we renovated the 5 million existing energy strainers, we would have 800 million savings in healthcare costs each year. “A recent study showed that renovating all rental energy strainers would save 10,000 lives in just a few years. So this is really an extremely important public health issue“, concludes Manuel Domergue.