A few months ago my neighbour was living in a mouldy house. She complained to her landlord. Nothing happened. She complained again. Still nothing. Three months of going back and forth, and in the end she just had to leave because she had run out of options and didn't know where else to turn.
She lost her deposit. And a few days after moving out, her landlord was still calling her to complain about a wear-and-tear issue. And here she was, on the phone, apologising to him.
That moment broke something in me a little. She had lived in mould for three months. She had lost her money. She had lost her home. And she was the one saying sorry.
Here is the thing that gets me: Nearly every proptech product out there is built for landlords. Better listings, rent collection tools, portfolio dashboards, yield calculators. The people actually living in these homes, paying the rent that funds all of it, barely get a look in. If landlords can be empowered by technology, why not renters?
StreetLens is my answer to that.
What it does
Residents can report housing and neighbourhood issues, track them, and escalate them to the right local authority. You can report anonymously or with your name attached. Critical reports get flagged and trigger automatic email notifications directly to the relevant body. No chasing, no waiting, no hoping someone notices.
But the feature I am most proud of is this: when you submit a report, StreetLens automatically scans what you have written and surfaces the exact laws that apply to your situation, instantly. No googling. No hoping you stumble onto the right information. The law comes to you.
Describe an illegal eviction attempt? StreetLens tells you that Section 21 has been fully abolished and what to do next. Mention a rent hike? It flags whether your landlord followed the legal Section 13 process. And it does not stop at just telling you what the law says. Depending on the county and address you enter, StreetLens surfaces the right contact details for your situation and gives you a direct link to the gov.uk local council finder so you can get in touch with your specific council immediately. No dead ends. No "contact your local authority" with no guidance on who that actually is or how to reach them.
Most renters have no idea these protections even exist. That is not an accident. StreetLens fixes the information gap and then takes you all the way to the door.
Core features for v1
- Anonymous or identified reporting
- Automatic legal detection: submit a report and instantly see which housing laws apply to your situation
- Location-aware contact routing: relevant authority details and a direct gov.uk council finder link based on your county and address
- Admin escalation workflow for critical reports
- Automatic authority email notifications
- Email-verified user authentication
- Account management and admin dashboard
The stack
React Redux Node.js Express PostgreSQL (Neon DB) Cloudinary JWT Nodemailer Resend
Nothing exotic. The hardest part honestly was not the tech. It was figuring out the escalation logic so reports do not disappear into another black hole, which would make the whole thing pointless. And making the legal detection actually useful rather than just noise.
Where it's at
Live with 4 real users. Small, but these are real people with real problems using it. I am iterating based on what I hear from them.
- Live: Streetlens
- GitHub: Git Repo
What I would love to hear from you
The legal detection and escalation workflow are the heart of this, and I am still refining both. Has anyone here built anything in the civic tech or reporting space? What did you learn?
And if you have ever been in a situation like my neighbour's or
tried to report something and hit a wall; I want to hear it. That is exactly what this exists for.
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