A young mother had her holiday plans ruined when the walls -- both literally and figuratively -- began to crash down around her.

Twenty-one-year-old Zackia Goater has feared for her own safety and the well-being of her three-year-old daughter Jahkeya since Wednesday when a huge chunk of her apartment ceiling fell down, narrowly missing her head.

"A piece of the ceiling had already fallen down, and I told my landlord -- but he did nothing,'' she said. "But around 4 a.m. on Wednesday morning, I was taking Jahkeya to the bathroom and it fell and just missed my head -- her daddy went to the bathroom later, and another piece struck his arm.

"On December 9, I went to court and my landlord was ordered to fix it. But he's seen it, he won't clean it and won't come back to fix it,'' she added.

The bottom of a rusted toilet bowl in the apartment above Ms Goater was visible through the rubble and rotted rafters.

She told The Royal Gazette that she always paid the $675 per month rent for the apartment.

Mother's fury over apartment Ms Goater has lived a nightmare at the apartment on Crown Hill Lane off Dock Hill, Pembroke for the past year.

And the young woman said her landlord Kenneth Burgess did nothing while she suffered for a month in the tiny apartment without running water and a mouse infestation.

Ms Goater showed The Royal Gazette holes in the walls that went straight through to the outside of the building.

And she said although she had appealed to everyone from Rent Control to the Health Department, no one was taking any action other than writing letters.

Although she has been to court, the case was adjourned until late January -- and in the meantime she is expected to live in the apartment and continue paying rent.

"He's trying to tell me I should be paying rent for this?'' she exclaimed, pointing out a mouldy, smelly cabinet.

"How can I stay until he fixes things? I can't do anything because I can't trust that the rest of the ceiling won't fall in,'' she added. "This is just ruining my Christmas, I can't even get a Christmas tree.'' Ms Goater's neighbour, who was a tenant for the same landlord, was in an equally grim predicament -- although she did not wish to be named.

The woman said she spent her 50th birthday last week in an apartment where she and her visiting son had been bitten by mice.

"The mice are attacking us -- my toes have been bitten although it didn't break the skin,'' she said.

"The ceiling is all tumbled down -- it's Christmas and I'm 50 years old today and I don't need this stress.'' The woman lives in the apartment with her 24-year-old daughter and her seven-year-old granddaughter. When she turns on her kitchen sink, water spews out of a hole in the wall on the outside of the house.

The water pumps out next to a naked and rusted electrical socket, flows down rusted wiring, and floods the ground outside the front door.

And the woman said she was afraid of prowlers because her bathroom window could not close.

"The refrigerator and the stove are all broken...there are rats in the ceiling and mice running in and out the house -- it's terrible,'' she said.

"At times, there was mice dirt all over the kitchen and I couldn't clean it off because there was no water -- it's unhealthy and unsafe.

"I called Nelson Bascome a week ago and he said people would be coming around -- but no one has come and The Royal Gazette was our last hope.

"As of the 19th, I'll be homeless because I stopped paying rent on this apartment -- but how many more people are the judges going to make homeless before doing something to solve the problem? "The courts need to send inspectors because these landlords are getting off -- they just don't care.'' And both women slammed Health Department employees for being unhelpful and rude.

Both landlord Kenneth Burgess and Health and Social Services Minister Nelson Bascome were unable to be reached for comment. Anyone who can offer either family a one- or two- bedroom apartment for under $1200 is asked to call 237-9301.