Well, I have learned a lot these last two days I can tell you. But I am not going to dwell on the nastier stuff here (and on mse) because there have also been some lovely, kind people who have genuinely tried to offer me sound advice, some have pm'd me rather than post here and I have been overwhelmed by the thought that some people have cared enough to write to me personally and offered me real and practical help, and this has bouyed me up.
So, an update.
I called EHO this morning and tenancy relations at LC (and yes, the boys should be doing this but they have no wifi and little credit on their phones and they dont know what to say- it is just quicker if I do it). Tenancy relations told me that they only get involved if there is tennant harrassment. EHO told me it may take 2 weeks to get someone out to look at it.
The Deposit reciept has appeared now and a gas cert will be emailed to me tomorrow. The landlord has apparently appointed a company called KILLTOX to sort out the damp although they make no mention of where the boys are to sleep or live whilst the place is made good and dried out- this is my task for tonight. I will be requesting alternative accomodation or our money back in full as the place will still be wet for months and they need to be in dry accommodation for the start of term in a week.
The picture I posted by the way is of one of the "bedrooms", on Saturday morning before I arrived, some builders had been round and this was how they left it- it was not like this when the place was viewed by the kids- it had a floor and furniture- of course they are not so stupid as to take a place where a room was like this at the outset.
So my next task is to get the landlord to accept that they cannot live in the place until it is dry. I checked on a couple of damp company websites and they say that it takes a month per inch of depth of wall to dry out after remedial works are done. I suspect that the landlord thinks that dealing with only the room with the three feet of damp up the walls is sufficient but it is not- clearly there is no proper dpc and the whole floor needs to come up and be repaired. I cannot countenance having the landlord use electricity that the boys would be paying for to run dehumidifiers for a month or more while the place dries out. I now have the landlord's number so I shall call him in an hour when he will be "in" (according to the agent).
Thanks again to all of you who have been standing up for me, I really appreciate it. I hope that the others will lay off and that if they ever need help that I can be more compassionate and thoughtful before I fire off emails that describe people as rich, middle class, idiots, I am a single parent living in a terraced house, working 40+ hours per week to pay the tuition and living expenses of a son who might just make a difference because he is studying chemistry in the (probably naiave but possibly not) hope that he will contribute to some kind of science that will improve lives and reduce damage to the planet.