Letting agents - more woe

my girlfriend is living in a flat with damp which has been there since they moved in, the landlord has supplied her and her two flatmates with a dehumidifier but obviously the electricity bill is going to be huge as its on 24/7. My girlfriend has turned around and said she no longer is happy to pay to running costs of the dehumidifier. Its a bit more complicated as one of the girls she lives with is the landlords daughter who is getting her bills paid for her by her parents as she doesnt work!

can you give me some advice on where my girlfriend stands with this problem please?
 
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parents let their kids live in a damp flat that requires dehumidifiers on 24/7? Jesus, i know fine well my parents wouldnt dare have one of us live somewhere like that, nevermind pass it off as a lettable property. Some people are just cheap etc.
 
can i just ask what area you're in?
Im in heaton and my last flat i had the downstairs bedroom which was looking onto the back yard, it got a puddle in the corner even with the room getting up to inferno temperature (overclocked pc + radiator, window often open but still mega heat!)
Iv moved to the street over now and the people before me ruined this bedroom so it got stripped, front wall ripped out and rebuilt, then new carpets etc layed, its quality although get a bit of a draft from having a few airbricks and a gap under my bedroom door.
Flatmate has the backyard room which tbh is nowhere near as bad as mine was last year, but he moans about it giving him a wheezy chest etc etc and got a dehumidifier, left it on overnight and it was inevitably full of water.. the thing is.. he was sleeping in the room.
 
shes in jesmond, i dont think its the damp that is the problem coz its not huge just the fact they are expected to pay for the running costs. i think what they really need is airbricks put in and with the new firedoors the flat doesnt get much air
 
problem is the idiot landlords and estate agents buy the cheap double glazing without vents in, and dont bother with airbricks, hire cowboys etc. Devalue property n what not in long run and basically cause a lot of avoidable issues. Absolute dip*****.

Thats what she gets for livin in jesmond.. the snooty cow!
 
i think their whole place has been done by cowboys since theyve moved in both shower doors have smashed, elec has gone off twice, saniflo toilet doesnt flush properly, skirting board in kitchen has come off. to be fair to the landlords it looked like they bought it off property developers who did a quick botched job!
 
about right, all places iv seen are complete tips, makes me really look forward to buying my own place and do it up good, ill have a bit of help of the old fella though, he shoulda bin a painter n decorator!
 
Get an independant specialist in to report exactly what the problem is, then get it fixed and bill the landlord for the whole thing.
 
a lot of people just aint willing to put up the cash for it really, we had someone check our place out and parents looked at it(one building engineer other had years of experience in everything like this as gas/electical tech manager) and both came to same conclusion of crap ventilation, estate agents and landlords will ALWAYS say heating on and windows open which just isnt feasable financially, aswell as this it has security risks. They'll also always say drying clothes on radiatiors too, even if theyv never seen you do it or observed your general laundry habbits(mine said it before, even though i put mine on a clotheshorse and have the heating on full blast with the windows open whenever im drying things solely because i dont want them smelling, nevermind the dampness.)
 
Surfer said:
so how does one fix this problem?

Stinky you say its in the structure of the building?

op shouldnt have to use a dehumidifier (unless the landlord is willing to pay for it)
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damp is usally caused by water getting in from the outside. obviously if you make a habit of keeping wet clothes against the wall then it can soak it up that way, or overflowing the bath a lot etc. but from normally day to day living there is no reason why the damp should just appear from the inside.

if a property is damp it is the landlords problem to sort out. been talking about this in the office. and everyone is saying the same thing. it is worth wiping it off and see how long it takes boefre its back. and try not to dry clothes in that room
 
singist said:
Get an independant specialist in to report exactly what the problem is, then get it fixed and bill the landlord for the whole thing.
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if this doesnt work get the work done, and inform the landlord you will be withholding the rent up untill it has been re-imburst in full. then start paying the rent once its paid for
 
peetee said:
problem is the idiot landlords and estate agents buy the cheap double glazing without vents in, and dont bother with airbricks, hire cowboys etc. Devalue property n what not in long run and basically cause a lot of avoidable issues. Absolute dip*****.

Thats what she gets for livin in jesmond.. the snooty cow!
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estate agents dont buy anything for the property, its all the landlords responsibility all we do is get the quotes for the landlord, we then recomend a contractor that we use or is associated with our company. if they dont take us up on the offer. its there problem not ours.

there is only so much we can do
 
Stinky said:
if a property is damp it is the landlords problem to sort out. been talking about this in the office. and everyone is saying the same thing. it is worth wiping it off and see how long it takes boefre its back. and try not to dry clothes in that room
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think the damp is caused by drying clothes in house and general day to day living. My girlfriend has decided she would rather wipe the damp off the walls and try and get as much dried outside than pay for the dehumidifier on constantly. its just the landlords daughter who she lives with think that is needs to be on 24/7
 
I've been on the phone to EH today and they said that the landlord is kind of right, though exaggerating. Window needs to be on trickle vent and heating needs to be comfortable, bit annoying but better than blazing heat and windows wide open! Contractors coming out tomorrow to clean the walls and carpet. If that doesn't work then I guess we'll have to see what they suggest!
 
we've had them round to clean the mould off the wall, but our radiator is now broken so we're waiting for that to be fixed. I'm just in the middle of getting some details of our BT visit so I can bill our landlord for that! It's an irritating situation, to say the least, but at least they seem to be doing something about it now!
 
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