Help Luana love her home

Hi, my name is Rachel and I'm fundraising for my partner, Luana.

Luana lives alone in a council flat which she used to share with her mother until she passed away four years ago. Her mother was a hoarder, and the flat was in an extreme state of neglect by the time she died. Luana has never been able to work due to lifelong severe mental illness and is dependent on benefits to get by; her mental illness also means she has found it impossible to look after the flat, and after four years it is now in a deeply unsafe and unsanitary condition, constituting a genuine risk to her health and safety.

She has been waiting to be downsized to a one-bedroom flat since her mother died, but (as with all things involving council housing) this may yet take years to come to fruition, even four years down the line. She will likely be stuck with this flat for many years yet, which is why I want to make it as pleasant a place for her to live as possible - give her a fresh start, a like-new clean home.

I've been given quotes from two separate cleaning companies which specialise in cleaning properties in this extreme state of disrepair which are both just over the £2,500 mark. In addition to this, we will also need to hire a skip to deal with the large volume of rubbish that will need to be removed from the property, bringing the total required to £3,000. Any money donated past this point will go towards buying Luana new furniture to replace pieces which are damaged and need to be disposed of.

Luana is a brilliant artist and 3D modeller, and would like to start a career as a freelance artist but she needs a usable, liveable working space first, a home she can be proud of. Giving her the gift of a clean home would literally change her life and let her start living independently for the first time.