One for the landlords - mould

platypus

platypus

platypus

Caporegime
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We recently received a complaint about mould from our letters. I'm keen to try and be a good/fair landlord here but this seems a little off to me.

The agents are going in to inspect the property soon, after a power boiler flush and boiler service (it aint cheap being a landlord!) so we'll see what the extent of it is, but we lived in the house for 7 years before letting it, and whilst I know you let certain things slide when you actually own a property, we never ever had mould in there, and if there had been even a hint of it we'd have done whatever necessary to get rid of it.

Would you charge the tenants for this either to get it fixed straight away or take it out of the deposit?
 
Depends on if they're at fault. If the mold is around the shower then depending on how bad it is I might just scrub it off and repaint. Give them a lecture on airing out rooms.

Might be a slow leak somewhere.
 
Charge them for what?
Tell them you lived there for 7 years with no mold issues, tell them to open the windows and stop drying clothes indoors. Or let them buy a de-humidifier.
 
depends on the source of the mould.

i.e. a leaky gutter making an external wall wet or the tennant running their hot water without cracking a window or running the extractor vents.
 
Do you have a clause in the contract stating its the tenants responcibility to ensure adequate ventilation to prevent mould, and to pay for repairs to rectify?
 
The only thing I could conceivably think it is is that they're not airing the bathroom properly, eg having showers with the window closed or not running the ventilation fan.

We dried clothes indoors, no mould. I don't - thinking about it - remember if we specifically opened a window when doing so, but we'd often have a window open anyway.

Skeeter said:
Do you have a clause in the contract stating its the tenants responcibility to ensure adequate ventilation to prevent mould, and to pay for repairs to rectify?
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That's a good point, checking with the boss now.
jimhaumman said:
Hm tough one.Inspect the flat yourself and see how bad it is.
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Unfortunately that isn't possible.
 
You need to find out if its their fault first before starting to charge the tenants. The reason could be anything. Our flat has mould and no matter what I do it keeps coming up. The agency/landlord wont do anything in our situation though which is as annoying as what you must feel atm.
 
platypus said:
The only thing I could conceivably think it is is that they're not airing the bathroom properly, eg having showers with the window closed or not running the ventilation fan.

We dried clothes indoors, no mould. I don't - thinking about it - remember if we specifically opened a window when doing so, but we'd often have a window open anyway.

That's a good point, checking with the boss now.

Unfortunately that isn't possible.
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Do you know which room it is in?
 
neil_g said:
depends on the source of the mould.

i.e. a leaky gutter making an external wall wet
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Had this myself not long ago, it caused some pretty fast growing mould in the corner of the living room which was against the wall with the blocked gutter. In typical me fashion i panicked and thought it was something like dry rot when it was harmless and clearing the gutter put an end to it.
 
pinkowl said:
You need to find out if its their fault first before starting to charge the tenants. The reason could be anything. Our flat has mould and no matter what I do it keeps coming up. The agency/landlord wont do anything in our situation though which is as annoying as what you must feel atm.
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Well that's why I'm keen to find out whats going on and will wait and see what the agents say. I do actually want to do the right thing, but just find mould an odd one.
 
xb8browney said:
We get pin mould above our shower, I've left windows open and increased the extractor fan time but every 6 months it needs retreating.
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Some rooms it's almost impossible to stop. B&Q have some fungicidal paint that almost put an end to my problem. I'll see if I can dig it out and give you the exact name.
 
A friend of my mothers rented a flat to some East Europeans who did the old clothes collection thing. They cleaned the clothes and hung them on lines in the flat without opening windows with the heating on full chat.

She ended up having to get them evicted and the mould damage cost a fair penny to put right.
 
Yeah definitely need to find out what the cause of the mold is IMO - my last flat there was (apparently*) a tiny leak in a pipe above my bedroom that started to cause it - in other cases it was sortable by changing where clothing was dried/ventilation.


* Moved out due to the landlord being reluctant to sort it due to the work required to get access to the pipe.
 
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