To clarify exactly what a council house looks like

[Lifegoeson5]

So many posts about council housing and 'benefit scroungers' getting 'free' housing.
I pay £150 a week for this...

A lot can be a mess moving in. Mine was. If you’ve just moved in call them with any issues now so they can sort them - ie boiler. If it’s been empty it’ll explain the damp. Warm the house up and keep on top of it and will likely be ok by Xmas.

Or do you buy into the myth that they're all poor and on benefits?

If you’re moving into a council house these days, it’s a fair bet you are poor and reliant on benefits to some extent. With the strain on council housing as bad as it is, you won’t get one otherwise.

Ok how much of that was there when you moved in on day one?

@Lifegoeson5

Mould is caused by condensation, typically drying washing, baths and sweat - houses need airing and orca dehumidifier otherwise they get mouldy - nothing to do with ownership, my neighbours as covered in black mould after just 2 months of students living there, they moved out, it was cleaned up, sold and current neighbours bought it, no mould returned.

I will bite the bait ... 7 people, who has 7 in their family before they have a high paying job and own a mansion? Not that anyone should have 5 kids, it's environmentally irresponsible

@CaviarAndCigarettes we’ve got a 1949s ex council and had similar problems.

The tenants (who had bought the house from the council) during their tenure as tenants had none of the upgrades done that the council offered.

We had just two gas heaters (which were condemned shortly after moving in) so we ended up with oil filled rads.

After a couple of years we moved out for a month and had new ceilings (so we could insulate), a heating and hot water system out in and a full rewire.

We’ve since had new windows and front door and the house re pointed. Re pointing made such a difference so I’d recommend that in a heartbeat.

Sorry for de railing, but to recap what PP have said. You will get mould without adequate heat/ventilation. Unless you have a combi boiler you won’t have a constant flow of hot water.

If you have a traditional system it could be that your hot water tank is filled with limescale (again speaking from experience) and it will only hold a baths worth of water at a time.

I’m in a HA new build home that was 5 years old when I moved in

I had no carpet
No cooker
No TV aerial
The walls were gross (purple and dark blue) colours and badly painted
There was rubbish absolutely everywhere in the front and back garden
The kitchen and bathroom were filthy
The radiators had rubbish shoved down the back of them and are all rusty
The hot water didn’t work properly
The enamel bath has massive rusty chips in it
I had no wheely bins

I was frustrated by the state it was in and probably have spent £1000 on it. I carpeted in the cheapest thing I could find (and it has already started to fray on the stairs ) got a cheap cooker and a load of paint and filler from Wilkinson’s and did the worst rooms first. I am glad I invested a bit into it, it has taken time though!

My parents Had a council house and until I was about 13 it had single glazing and storage heaters only, it was so cold you would wake up wet in your bed in the mornings

But I have also lived in private rent that is really horrible and had storage heating, broken plumbing etc

There are things you can do and you do have security and the council are obliged to ensure your living conditions are not dangerous, if you feel it is dangerous then keep reporting repairs

But they aren’t obliged to paint your walls or fit a shower (you could fit a mixer tap to the bath) and you do need to address the damp from laundry. I have always cleaned my windows regularly from condensation and vented the windows open.

Whispers “ it’s filthy love clean it! Open the windows it’s mouldy”

From what I can see there are a few cracks, mould that can be cleaned off and managed (we have it too, not council rented though).

All this can be managed. It’s not ideal but life isn’t perfect.

Do you know what OP, you're not going to be moved on in 6 months or subject to unfair rent increases.... Just clean the place up.

You seem to have a sense of entitlement OP! Sorry!

I live in a council flat, it was a bit of a mess when I first moved in a year ago. I expected that though! I didn't expect a palace! I needed a home for me and my son, so I didn't really care. I've spent the best part of a year decorating room by room, and it's now lovely, homely and clean. My housing officer came a few weeks ago so I could sign my running tenancy and he could not believe the difference!

It's not going to be a palace OP, it takes work and a lick of paint.

OP the mould looks like the type caused by condensation.

To fix it you need to use bleach carefully - mould spores can spread when airborne.

To stop it coming back: a) Get heating on, instead of switching it on and off - try to turn it up and down - dont switch it completely off even at night. (boiler repair is essential), b) avoid drying washing indoors - easier said than done I know - maybe a shed outside for the tumbledryer? c) ensure fans and airbricks arent blocked, leave windows open slightly to vent and increase airflow, d) consider a dehumidifier as 7 people will breathe a lot of moist air into the home and you cant avoid that!

Im a landlord and my tenants all hate the idea of leaving the heating on while windows are slightly open, but it is essential when you have a lot of people in a relatively small house.

£150 a week, so roughly £700 or a bit more a month? How many bedrooms? There are people paying far more than that to rent privately.
You can buy bleach for £1.
What kind of responses were you looking for?

Sorry, I don't believe that window is mould that won't go away- it's uPVC window- get some cillid bang on it and get it open for a bit! No way has that recently been cloned! Mould on windows is just condensation and it shouldn't come back if you ventilate the house. What room is it in?

As for the other two pictures, they are just DIY jobs- my house walls looks like that under the wallpaper!

Looks like it needs cleaning and decorating🤷🏽‍♀️

After looking at all the photos, I think it could all be sorted in a day with about £20 outlay.

It would have been nice if your house had been cleaned and brought up to scratch after the last tenant left op, but don't waste any more time chasing the overstretched council or complaining on here - a quick trip to B&Q or similar and a few hours work, and it'll be all sorted.

Regarding your other complaints - they're right about the best way to combat mould, and you don't have any entitlement to a shower but I would pursue the issue with the boiler. Do you really mean that it stops working after one bath, or just that it only heats that much water at a time and then you have to put it on again to heat more?

OP, mould happens even in non council houses, you just have to tackle it. If you're anything like me you won't be very good at doing that but sometimes needs must. I've no idea why I have mould occasionally in my bathroom because it is ventilated, I insisted on that when I had my bathroom re-done more than ten years ago - the builders wanted no window, just an extracor. However I have a window, not one that opens but has a vent area (thing that goes around letting air in), at the bottom.
Still I have had mould.

Life wasn't meant to be easy with housing whether you have social housing or own your place. Not an insurmountable problem though. In your case, I'm afraid the council will say it's down to the tenant.

You have my sympathy btw as I am not naturally domesticated and it takes me ages to tackle a problem like that one.

I can’t believe how rude people are being to the op!
Do you not think she would have tried cleaning it?
No one should have to live like that.

Well £700/month would be a lot for private rent near me @maddiemookins16mum it all depends which part of he country you I've in.

Plenty of houses for sale are equally as bad if worse. Need to work on getting the humidity in the house down by improving ventilation and not hanging damp laundry in the house unless you have decent heating.
Plenty of homes including private that have only enough hot water for one bath.
You can rig up a shower arrangement using the bath taps. I know it's more common these days to have a shower and not a bath but a bath and not a shower was the norm 30 years ago so it's perfectly manageable.

Mine has storage heaters so the house is freezing. I only put on 3 heaters because it's too expensive

We're currently paying nearly 900GBP a month for a fancy old apartment in a great part of town... and our windows definitely look like that if we don't air the place out and wipe the windows down regularly in the winter. It's not just council housing that suffers from damp and condensation. Plus we have an internal bathroom and the walls / ceiling get mouldy very quickly if we don't open the doors and air it out (and scrub it with bleach every few months).

I'm not going to make any suggestions to you OP because only you know the reality of your family situation. I hope things get easier for you soon, and that you can get the house up to a good-enough condition to live in. What's the location like? If the house was in better nick, would you be happy to stay there? Because if this is a long-term tenancy, then you have some breathing space - you don't have to get it perfect straightaway, just work slowly and steadily. Bon chance!

Why oh why do people never want to ventilate their houses then complain about mould?

OP with 7 (!) people in one house their will be some serious condensation building up just from the number of people then add in condensation from drying clothes, cooking and bathing so yes you need to open windows regularly and put the heating on, I’m not sure what you were expecting.

I’m afraid I can’t feel too sorry for you when you have five children and secure tenancy and low rent, I can only afford one child because I have to pay a mortgage. Yes I’ll own an asset in 30 years time but it will probably get sold to pay for mine and DHs care in old age anyway.

I don’t think there’s a sense of entitlement, there’s a lot of race-to-the-bottom-ment going on. It’s the 21st century FFS, surely social housing for families should include a basic electric shower as standard and there should be a responsibility on the owner of the property to make sure damp courses etc are fit for purpose and it’s at least dry and clean when a new tenant moves in. It’s all very well saying “get a dehumidifier” but depending how bad the condensation problem is and how long you have to run it for, that’s extra electricity you have to pay for often at a time you can least afford it.

You were always on a hiding to nothing though OP, because too many people’s default setting to anyone who says they have a council house is envy at some level, even though they’re unlikely to want the shit that leads up to getting one and we end up in the MN version of the Three Yorkshireman sketch. And I speak as one lucky enough to have recently bought my own house after years of private renting (and am waging my own war on condensation and mould in my bathroom!)

@Derbee....... and breathe 😉. Feel your frustration, the op is coming across as entitled and ungrateful.

Are you taking the piss, OP?

I was stuck in privately rented for years, when I eventually bought my own house, it took weeks to clean it and make it liveable.

Every private rental I've lived it required a few days of scrubbing, airing, and basic repairs before I moved in.

Did you think you were going to move into a palace where you didn't have to lift a finger?