Rented Property issues part 2

Soldato
Joined
28 Nov 2005
Posts
12,999
Hi.

I started a thread about this house I'm living in leaking heat and that a while ago, anyway there is more.

One of my flatmates has been dealing with dampness and mould in her room and found out a few weeks ago that it had ruined most of her shoes, bags and also part of her room (wall) is mouldy and wet.

We are currently an end house, but found out that we weren't always and there was another house on the end which was demolished by the council.

So could this be causing our cold, damp, mould issues because it's on the outside wall?

There are several unrelated issues as well, what I'm getting at is our landlord is a waste of space as well...

But anyway, is there anything that can be done from the council or whatnot? Just having to live in a damp mouldy house isn't exactly healthy?
 
Why even bother looking to see if the council will do anything, it's a rented house. If the landlord is useless either move out when your tenancy ends or use the damp / mould and his inability to fix it as an excuse to break it early.
 
An internal wall probably won't?

Not even sure how thick it is.

Yeah, i thought we should threaten with rent payments, as in, not pay? But surely we don't have any leg to stand on to break our tenancy agreement.
 
But surely we don't have any leg to stand on to break our tenancy agreement.

Wouldn't mould and damp etc be? It's not exactly healthy so.

But if you have this problem and the landlord is acting stupid about it then you should get out of there now. Some dodgy landlords will do anything to get money to do up the place so they can rent out for a higher price later on and other stuff like that. In my experience having a bad landlord can cost you more than annoyance :o
 
I know mould and dampness can cause asthma (in a bad situation)

But it's already cost my flatmate quite a bit of money in damage to her stuff.

I might go somewhere like citizens advice maybe?
 
No not yet.

It's got a bit worse tonight, you can feel how wet the walls are in certain places.

We are going to citizens advice or environmental health this week.

It's pretty ridiculous
 
Have you contacted environmental health? I'm fairly sure they can get involved with health hazards such as damp/mould in rented properties.

+1

The damage to your health living in that dump is bad, especially if you suffer asthma.
And it really isn't worth a landlords time to pursue you through the court looking to get money if you bail out early on a rental agreement. If he can't be arsed fixing the problem, do you think he would care about chasing you through the courts on a broken rental agreement.

How long left on it anyway?
 
Our last payment is June, but the contract doesn't end til August.

He wanted us to pay for a 12month contract over 10month incase we ran away in the summer...

That was actually the reason too
 
Might sound silly, and i may have missed it above but have you actually told your landlord about the dampness?

Not sure about your tenancy agreement, but in mine, anything structual is his responsibility and therefore is his job to sort.

Had a similar problem with my student accom recently too, and turns out the gutterings been overflowing due to heavy rainfall/snow melting, cold hasnt helped particularly either. Told landlord about it, and hes sorting out air circulation vents where required and painting where the dampness has affected the walls.
 
Yeh told him and someone came out to look at it, but it's got worse.

We got someone out as soon as we moved in too to clear some mould in the living room.

It's the outside wall that was connected to another house which is causing problems again and again...

So something isn't right with that "outside" wall
 
you're right that the removal of next door is causing a problem! the dpc is either non existent or damaged or theres a ventialtion problem, either which way, this problem will only get worse. get on your landlords case and it's up to him to sort it. notify the council aswell.
 
you're right that the removal of next door is causing a problem! the dpc is either non existent or damaged or theres a ventialtion problem, either which way, this problem will only get worse. get on your landlords case and it's up to him to sort it. notify the council aswell.

em, no. the DPC is in the foundations, it doesnt matter if they ripped down the house next door or not. I would check and see if theres a cavity on this external wall or if its thick. Could very well be that when they took down the existing house they have put the new roughcasting over the the dpc and caused a cold bridge. but even then that wouldn't give you enough damp for the extremity of the problems you are having.

If its a cavity wall then when they demolished the other house there could be a bridge in the cavity and all the moisture is passing right through the wall. if they have put a coating over the wall that could be trapping in moisture that leaves through the wall. but it all depends on the properties age.

could also very well be a ventilation issue. But your landlord sounds like a stand-up chap.
 
Does anyone know what it means when your boiler keeps going off?

It comes on, then there is a sound of like rushing water (inside the boiler) then it goes off...

This process has been repeating all morning
 
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