Cumbernauld man’s shock as renovations expose crumbling inner wall

David Wharton (49), from Cedar Road, was left stunned last Wednesday when a council-contracted plasterer removed a partition frame from his living room during some renovation work – to reveal a huge, gaping hole and crumbling brickwork in one of the main walls of his house.

The shocked plasterer immediately called in for an expert to check the wall, and although an inspector showed up at 6pm the same day, David was left in a state of worry as he was told it would take at least a week before someone could come to start work on the wall.

David said: “I couldn’t believe what I saw. The plasterer was just as shocked as I was. The brickwork was just crumbling. It was like watching sand. My wife and I have been complaining about that wall for years. Every time we shut the partition door we could hear crumbling but every time we told the council about it we were palmed off. They just said it was nothing.

“I have been hearing the same crumbling from the wall since I moved here in the 90s.

“There’s lots of things wrong with the house and that’s partly why we had the guy in removing the partition. But when he took the frame off and I saw that wall, I couldn’t believe it.”

David and his family, wife Lynnann (39) and son Jamie (5), have been told that the weight pushing down on the wall should hold it in place but have been