to think whoever you rent a house through that if you have rising damp ..causing you to be ill

[alicesadventuresinwonderland]

That the landlady should give a flying fart

hids head on wall and

remembers

to breathe

[curiositykilled]

landlady should but it is hard to make them.

My old landlord 'forgot' to tell me that the wall in ds's old bedroom got very damp behind the wardrobe and grew mould that he was 'unable' to do anything about. Apparently I needed to keep the window open all year in a room with no heating and spray it with bleach occasionally. I only found out about the mould when DS got a chest infection that needed an inhaler at 6 weeks old. How are you supposed to keep a 6 week old warm in a bedroom with no heating and a wide open window ffs. DS had to room back in with me. Stupid landlords...

[arolf]

we had this and reported it in writing to the landlord - gave them an appropriate amount of time to repond (20 days maybe?) and then when we had heard nothing, reported it in writing to the council (possibly environmental health? can't recall excatly who).

landlord continued to ignore us, and council came round and condemned the property. We had to fight to get our deposit back, and had to find ourselves a new place to live, but it was worth it.

Speak to CAB about it though, they can probably give less vague advice on who to contact and how!

[famishedass]

YANBU - when I rule the world only social local authority housing will be available to people who don't buy their own home. Private landlords are just in it for as much money as they can make really.

[alicesadventuresinwonderland]

this is made worst my the fact

that the landylady is sil

and I have now fallen out with familly on a different matter

logging off for a bit need to calm down

[TAFKAtheUrbanDryad]

alice - have a look on here. I know how much of a nightmare renting is, you have my sympathies.

[Jackstini]

YANBU no, nightmare it is your SIL and she is still not doing anything - have you has issues with her before.
I am a landlady and not only would I give a flying fart but I would have the decency to fix it.
Landlords should never forget who is paying them - happy tenants are always the best kind.

[gorionine]

SIL or not as your landlady she surely has got some responsabilituy towards her tenant? I am a tenant myself and never had that problem but if it was happeneing to me and my calls (as a figure of speach) were falling on deaf ears, I would try my nearest citizen advice bureau. Sorry , just realised that's the CAB arolf is refering to.

[expatinscotland]

my pal just had to move from her flat.

the ceiling fell in in the living room. and i mean fell in. the entire room was utterly unusuable and unsafe.

someone came and put those metal supports in to hold it up, and plaster started falling out in hunks all around it and piles of 100+ year old ash used to soundproof.

she spent months contacting landlady and letting agent.

no one did another thing.

[TAFKAtheUrbanDryad]

expat - that's appalling! Private landlords need to be better regulated IMO. It's shocking what they can get away with. We had a massive hole in one of our bedrooms for over a year. Eventually we moved, because the letting agents told us if we kept complaining the landlord would evict us.

[katiestar]

Are you sure that it is rising damp Alice ?
Can you describe a bit more about it ?

As a landlord myself I have unfortunately had to do quite a bit of rerearch into damp.Damp is very often attributed to rising damp but very very rarely is ,although specialist damp-proofing companies would have you believe it.More often it is poor ventilation or leaky pipes.

[expatinscotland]

Oh, Dryad, my old boss rented a flat owned by a solicitor. The boiler broke. It's illegal to let a flat that doesn't have running hot water, so of course she complained to the letting agent.

She went two months with no hot water in that flat.

In Edinburgh.

And it had no power shower.

She finally had to take him to small claims court.

She won, and he served her 60 days notice to quit.

Then she had to threaten to take him to court again to get her deposit back.

[Narketta]

We moved from our horribly damp 2 bed flat 6 months ago, While we lived there DS developed asthma and DH got bronchial pneumonia,
we constantly complained to our landlady that it was the damp and mould that was making them both ill. She disagreed and basically told us it was our fault because we refused to heat the bedrooms through the day when we weren't using them. (It was costing us £30+ a week) just to heat one room thanks to us only having oil radiators, when I told her we couldn't afford to heat the rooms she just shrugged her shoulders.

Since moving into our new house DS 3.5yrs has only had to use his inhalers once in the hayfever season, so much for the landlady saying it wasn't the damp causing his illness.

Hope you get things sorted.

[mumsiebumsie]

Moved out of flat a year ago that had serious case of rising damp. Mould up walls towards back of house. Thick yucky black mould. All my shoes and coats and clothes were mill-dewed. The place stunk. And letting agent tried to suggest we keep windows open - as it that would rectify it! Found out that 1 year before we moved in, the property had a damp proofing course with a garauntee that lasted 10 years - so landlord had no excuse to not get it recitified. 4 years later we left - looking back I shouldn't have stayed so long. Got deposit back but only because had slanging match on phone with letting agent and to be honest think she was scared of me.

Really feel for you - you're totally NBU [sad}.

[alicesadventuresinwonderland]

I hope that one
day they can see that somethings matter to people and I cannot believe they will not even look at the damp

dd has now moved into her boyfriends as her room is bad

dh wants to sit on the wall...so to speak

heaven forbid he should fall off

[TAFKAtheUrbanDryad]

Or that it should collapse under him....

[alicesadventuresinwonderland]

that is a strong possibilty

katiestar.. if you come back to this thread
I have looked at quite a few damp sites
that looks odd

and it ticks all the boxes for rising damp

ie the height of the damp etc

but I should be thankful I guess that we do not own this house

think it is a lost cause

bit like the inlaws

thank you to all the people who posted

[katiestar]

Alice what do your PILs think about the fact that your SIL is making your family ill ?

[Southwestwhippet]

YANBU I lived in a flat that was annex to main house. Was riddled with damp to the extent that I used to find mould on my clothes. Anything stored under the bed, even in boxes would go mouldy too as damp would come up through floor.

Landlord who lived next doortold me all I needed to do was to clean off mould every 2 days, spray walls with bleach and keep windows open all the time. As he controlled heating from main house and only turned it on for about 2 hours a day and house had no double glazing and massive drafty windows, this wasn't a practical solution! He also suggested problem was my fault as I had a double bed which was too big and preventing air circulating.

A lot of landlords are unscrupulous bstrds - this one was also my boss which made it even harder. Left job and house pretty promptly after that. (he has subsequently rented to a couple so interesting to see how they fair if he is sticking to 'single bed' argument )

[alicesadventuresinwonderland]

katiestar

they really do not care

am unsure now if I have yet another cold

or an allergy from something

I have asthma and feel a tad run down

need to move very soon
but we are waiting on dhs contract

thank you everybody once again