What can councils & LL's do about tenants who don't adequately heat/ventilate their home so mould grows?

[StarInTheHeavens]

I saw another story in the news of a terribly mouldy house, but it'd been inspected and it was lack of use of heating & inadequate ventilation that caused it. Landlords get a lot of blame but it's not always their fault. Energy is super expensive right now and who wants their windows open when it's cold and they have young dc? Is there another way round this?

Sadly no. People need to ventilate and heat.

Although Landlords do like to blame tenants when actually the house does have a damp or mould issue anyway. We did in a previous house and no matter how much heat or ventilation we did it still had mould and damp. We gave notice and moved on.

I’ve wondered this. My daughter once lived in a house where one bathroom would be prone to black mould and when she moved in the walls and shower were full of it.

After the initial clean up she had to make sure every day she kept in top of wiping it all off and making sure the room was ventilated.

It was annoying but ten minutes once or twice a day was doable.

Some of the photos in the media where people are home all day, look like the tenants haven’t made any effort at all.

The reality is that with a lot of housing association and council
housing stock the problem is NOT tenant lifestyle but problem with poorly built housing.

so I would take a very large pinch of salt with the landlord concluding that it’s lifestyle. It might be - but it very often is not

They pay insurance.

I've let my house out in the past when working and studying away. I had tenants who had come to work and study from Nigeria who weren't used to the English climate. They made the house so damp and mouldy that one room was uninhabitable due to mould. Paint was falling off walls, it took a lot of money to sort and repair. No matter how many times condensation and ventilation was explained they just wouldn't open windows because they were feeling cold and kept the house like a sauna. (I had a plumber out twice because the radiators weren't working, turned out they would just never get to the really high temperature the tenants wanted). I had to have a bedroom window repaired because it had rusted and the tenant just said "it's nothing to do with me, I haven't opened that in 6 months". It was sad as they were clearly not feeling warm but the house is really well insulated and toasty by normal standards.

I've had the house for over 20 years and lived in it for the majority of that time. That was the only point there was a mould and condensation issue. I can well believe a lot of issues come from too many people in small accommodation and people not understanding or not being able to afford to ventilate and heat. New houses are often too well sealed against drafts and so I don't think it's just a problem that we have an old housing stock.

My OH works in social housing. Unfortunately no matter what advice is given people wont ventilate, they block up vents and filters.

Often its because of genuine cold or fear of cold, quite a lot its because they know that if condensation forms and causes mould they will try to argue that its a problem with the building so that they can move. The more focus theres been on avoiding mould, the more this is seen happening as tenants realise how they can create it

I dont know about private rentals.

Most of the time its lifestyle

When you have the odd occasion in the same block, its lifestyle, when you have it happening with one tenant when it never happened with previous tenants, its lifestyle.

People dont want to hear this because its a popular narrative to create a victim out of tenants but its usually lifestyle, sometimes its not

DD's student let developed mould soon after they moved in. Having come from a modern well insulated and ventilated house, it was a new learning experience for her, to live in an Edwardian flat. However, she got on top of it by cleaning the walls/windows effected with anti mould stuff, and then making sure all the trickle valves were open, and opening all the windows at least once a day. They also keep the bathroom window cracked open and make sure they use the extractor (it was broken when they moved in). A cupboard with an outside wall, had a self closing door, this is now propped open. They also have a dehumidified as they have to dry clothes indoors (no tumble drier). Second year now, and all the mould is gone, and has not come back.

My dd lives in a student house, she's had water dripping down her walls in her attic room, which then went mildewy which we cleaned off but isnt fixing the issue. Its due blocked gutter and roof repairs needed. They also have damp on downstairs walls, pointing between bricks is damaged.
The house has night storage heaters which are frankly inadequate.
The landlord threatened to put their rent up if they used too much electricity which they can't afford so they are scared to heat the house even using the rubbish night storage heaters.
I suspect in most cases it a combination of badly maintained house, which is landlords responsibility, possibly no central heating and due to lack of money the tennants struggling to afford to heat the house.

What can tenants do about LLs that paint over the ventilation and not maintain the heaters?

LL here coming to say it isn't always the tenants' behaviour. I rent out a flat in a small Eighties block. My tenants had this problem - black mould on one side of the flat. Other LLs in the same block kept saying with kids and washing it was only to be expected. However it turned out to be badly rendered external walls (with some cracks that had just been patched) so any rain got through to the external bricks underneath and then into the internal walls. Once the facade was dealt with the problem went away. In the interim I found giving them a dehumidifier helped enormously - and the lack of damp in the air/heat generated meant costs roughly broke with the central heating they'd otherwise feel they needed on.

I lived i my house for 10 years with no issue. Then rented my house out to a young couple. About a year later black mould started growing on the walls. I was mortified and gave them a 200 reduction in monthly rent while I tried to sort it out. They assured me they were ventilating and heating the house. They moved out after 1 year (of the reduced rent) I had to have it completely replastered. Turns out they didn’t want to spend money heating and were using an ‘air blow dryer thing to dry their clothes without opening any windows. I moved back in and never had any problem with black mould. So sometimes it is the living style of the tenants causing the issue.

Sometimes it is sometimes it isn't. I worked in Social housing and saw tenants who kept windows and doors shut all the time, didn't use their heating, showered and bathed and didn't use an extractor fan or open a window after the bathroom steaming up. Also pans cooking on the hob for hours without an extractor on caused condensation in the kitchen. Overcrowding in bedrooms (9 kids in a 3 bed house in one I saw) so the rooms had bunk beds stacked up even over the windows. These were all clear indicators of condensation and mould due to how the house was being lived in.

In other cases it was leaks, construction etc.

I am experiencing this at the moment, my siblings and I rented out my mums house to cover her care home fees two years ago and this winter the tenant is complaining about mould and condensation. My mum lived in the house for over 60 years and never had this problem so we suspect it is because of the high cost of energy and the tenants need to economise.

We have so far met all her requests to alleviate the problem, fitting a vent in the kitchen to use when cooking as well as cleaning and painting a small area of damp in the kitchen. We have provided a tumble dryer but she does not want to use it so installed a washing line in the garage for her to use on wet days - it’s a brand new garage, very clean and dry. As far as I know, she is not using it.

We also offered to buy her a dehumidifier to use in the room where she dries the clothes on an airer but she does not want one due to the cost of using it. As the same time, we replaced the shower unit which she says is only working intermittently although we have no evidence of this as it worked properly when the plumber went round! We use a management company to look after the property and were billed over £800 last month for the work - expensive but we are not local to do maintenance ourselves.

All these repairs and problems have only been raised with us recently, coinciding with us issuing her with notice to end the lease as Mum died recently and we want to sell the house. The tenant knew two years ago when moving in that we planned to sell the house eventually but we are now slightly worried that she is not going to move out at the end of the lease!

I’m potentially renting out a house to a Ukrainian family in March. I’m going to add in a clause about adequate heating and ventilation.

It's not as easy as all that.
We've been in this house over 10 years. Had no mould problem. We keep the place well heated and adequately ventolated.

Then Covid came and all 3 dc were home plus dh started working from home. We didn't change heating nor ventilation, but that winter I was battling mould continuously.

There were two major changes that year:

1. The working from home meant that rather than the house being empty all day 5 days a week, we had 4 people home all the time
2. We got a better shower so the children were using that rather than baths.

So we introduced a rule to say that after any shower the bathroom window must be left open (they normally did this automatically, but sometimes not when it was cold) and that has made some difference, but not total difference. And that all rooms must have the vents open on the windows.

Another interesting thing on the mould was dd2 told me this morning that her room was dreadfully mouldy. It wasn't, but it was beginning to grow on the corners again. It hasn't had a problem since we introduced the new rules.
She had been working outside the home until December, and since then has been working from home in her room.

So my conclusion is that although ventilation and heating help, there are other factors, like working from home, number of showers etc that can mean a house gets more mouldy for some lifestyles than others.
Yes, it is still our responsibility to look at the situation and change accordingly, but if your situation changed, as ours did, it can take some time before you realise that you also need to change other things.
If you already are in a stressed situation, then it's very easy to not be able to deal with an extra stress-plus some of the mould removal sprays are pretty toxic-I know if I don't have the room very well ventilated while I'm spraying then I struggle to breathe in a way I don't with anything else. So I can totally see how a young mother, on her own, may feel unable to cope with dealing with it.

I live 8n social housing and have had problems with mold constantly. The air bricks have been blocked off before I moved in. After a few years of complaining about the mold and just been told it condensation the housing association fitted a vent in the attic. First one went in 15 years ago since been replaced but it blows cold air into the house constantly. It cost about 40p a day to run and when energy prices went up I switched it off to see if I could save money. Within two weeks under my sons bed was full of the furry mold. So switched it back on spend a good few days cleaning and throwing stuff away. The machine does make the house colder and I do still get mold if anything is too close to the walls.
I think landlords should just install one of these machines in there houses. But the people living in houses with mold shouldn't just be leaving it they can clean it off.
One of neighbours got moved to another house because she just left it to spread and one of her sons started having chest problems. But she wouldn't clean it off
They should be an agreement made between landlords and tenants on who's responsible for sorting the problems.

Sal

I live in a private rented house and the bathroom has black mould . I keep the window always open, but as the landlord won’t pay to for an extractor fan - the open window isn’t enough .
i highlight this in every six monthly inspection from the agency but the landlord refuses to spend any money on the house -
so the mould is his fault .

Ive never had an extractor fan in any bathroom Ive had, never had condensation. The window is open all the time

@bellac11 the issue with this bathroom is the size of the window opening is not adequate enough for the size of the bathroom. It is also a single skinned wall with no insulation .
The radiator is not a sufficient size either .

The landlord is aware of all this - but will not part with the cash to remedy it. I clean the mould but it will always come back until the cause is dealt with .

Nope the landlords need to sort their shit out. Really pissed off with landlords that cut corners and badly maintain their property and then blame the Tennent’s when it’s damp and mouldy.

landlords seem to just be a bunch of money grabbing wankers who are happy to rent shitholes out

Housing Association constantly blamed us for mould issues in bathroom. We were ventilating and heating, but small new build with no room to dry washing, or put a dryer. We bought a dehumidifier which solved the issue in the bedroom. We had multiple workmen out to investigate in the bathroom, they accused us of not using the fan or opening windows, we were. When we moved out a leak under the bath was discovered which had been making the whole room damp. We’d have been told off if we had investigated enough to find it.

I also think poor decoration is an issue, my current private rental is a farm cottage. Dry washing outside in summer and by the fire in winter, but I have space to dry a weeks washing on one day, rather than small loads being out over several days. Have to wipe down windows on cold days but the only room with real issues was the internal shower room which was mainly woodchip paper painted with cheap emulsion. Thin lino over floorboards, so freezing floor. Fan heater and extractor fan. It was constantly damp with black mould that I bleached frequently. I decorated with anti-mould bathroom paint, put new flooring down and re-sealed the shower about 18 months ago, haven’t had a spot of mould since.

I’m in social housing and have lived in places “nicer than others” - on the “less nice” estates I’d notice I was the only one who ever cracked a window. At the same time the occupants were all over FB putting the blame at the feet of the council.

I’m not saying all social housing is in fantastic nick - but there are an awful lot of people there who don’t understand how to look after themselves.

I was advised it was poor ventilation in my house. Having to put vents in the windows to stop the damp as I’m opening the windows and have the heating on so I’m down what I can and wiping down the walls etc. it can sometimes be down to poor ventilation

My OH works in social housing. Unfortunately no matter what advice is given people wont ventilate, they block up vents and filters.

This is sadly very true. I don’t work in social housing, but have lots of colleagues that do. I’m hearing constant reports of tenants blocking air bricks and vents, never opening windows or trickle vents, draping wet washing all over the place.

But as mentioned upthread, PIV systems are an absolute game changer.