Residents in a Dundee tenement had a lucky escape when a 40-foot pole used for hanging out washing collapsed and crashed into the building.
The pole toppled at about 12.30pm on Thursday and just missed striking the window of one first-floor flat at 15 Baldovan Terrace.
Around a foot in diameter, the pole then bounced backwards and was left hanging precariously over the garden, after getting caught in the washing lines attached to it.
Several tenements use washing lines that stretch from individual flats to large poles in the back garden.
James Knox, from Baldovan Terrace, said the pole collapsed because the wood had rotted right through.
He said, “The large pole for hanging clothes completely snapped at the bottom and hit the wall of the tenement. I felt the whole building shake.
“There was a woman in another close who was hanging out her washing (from her window) as it happened and saw the whole thing.
“It’s lucky no one was out in the garden when it happened because they would have been killed.”
However, Mr Knox said Hillcrest Housing Association, which owns the tenement, had been warned that the pole was on the verge of collapse.
“Hillcrest were notified that it was leaning to one side and rotten right through,” he said.
The housing association sent workmen to remove the remains of the pole but ground-floor resident Gillian Law said she had first complained about it some three years ago.
“I think there have been changes in housing officers and things like that since then, though,” she said.
“And somebody was out taking a sample for it a few days ago so they were planning to do something about it.”
Gillian has tended the common garden for years, twice winning prizes in Dundee City Council’s annual best-kept garden competition.
“Funnily, when the chap who judges the gardening competition was round, he said to me, ‘I notice that rotten pole hasn’t gone anywhere.'”