Shared loft spaces in terrace

[1foot2feet]

Posting for traffic.
Turns out my loft space is shared with every other house on the terrace, there's no wall at all between the lofts. There's now a mouse infestation in our loft spaces.
Anyway, is this legal/against regulations?Can't find anything definitive online. I rent, so can't do anything about it myself so would need to go through my landlord but don't want to bring it up if there's nothing saying you can't have shared loft spaces, also I'm pretty sure it invalidates my house insurance!

[Dogno1]

Nothing relevant to add... But I couldn't live in a house that anyone could just 'pop along and let themselves into' 😳 Definately invest in installing a massive lock on the loft hatch! Fuck the mice invaders! 🔐 (but yes ring the landlord it's their problem/and the rest of the row).

[BarbaraofSeville]

We had a house like this - a condition of the mortgage was to brick up access to the other spaces because of the fire risk

Same here, both me and my sister bought houses in the same town, where there were lots of Victorian mill terraces, at around the same time in the mid 1990s and we both rejected several houses that hadn't had the loft walls built - if you bought a mid terrace you had to have two walls built.

Building regulations must have changed at some point, so if a house has not been subject to a new mortgage since the change then there would have been no requirement to separate the loft space from the adjacent property.

[Dogno1]

You still need to raise it with your landlord regardless. It's their issue/and the other owners in the terrace. We had 'a mouse', literally just one and fortunately not a female (they breed like crazy!). We'd watched it make a dash for the house after we stripped long grass past the end of the garden boundary 😳 Mousey then spent time bouncing around the loft with clogs on, and shit/pissed all over the inside of 3 kitchen cupboards till Ddog despatched it in the hall 🙄. That was all in the space of 24hrs when we couldn't call out rentokil.

[NeverGuessWho]

I’m off to see if I can watch Shooting Fish on YouTube.
Hope you get the mice situation sorted out, and a big hefty pad lock to boot, OP.

[bettybattenburg]

The house in one of the Narnia books is like that, I didn't realise there were still houses like it, I'm surprised insurance and mortgage companies aren't pressing for them to changed.

[Aroundtheworldin80moves]

Whenat university, it was made a big thing but many of the terraces had 'escape hatches' into neighbouring attics (a panel that could be kicked out)- it was the fire escape for those in the attic bedrooms. A student had died in a fire who hadn't known. They could be unscrewed as well, but both sides would need to do that.

[ElluesPichulobu]

it's not illegal.

insurance companies will be perfectly happy to accept your premiums but in the event of an incident of fire or theft where the shared loft was a factor, they simply won't pay up. insurers prefer to keep questions to a minimum while the money is flowing towards them and only care when there is a suggestion that money might sometimes come the other way.

your landlord won't do anything about it and there mouse problem will never go away. I would stay looking fir a different home to move to.

[MrOnionsBumperRoller]

Check you ceiling for eye/camera holes.

[1foot2feet]

@cybergran after reading the thread on here the other day about thinking someone was in their attic, I am a bit more concerned that someone can have access to my house via the loft space than mice coming through.

[1foot2feet]

They're not old houses, either 9 or 10 years old.
@ElluesPichulobu yep, spoke to landlord and he won't even let me put a bolt on

[CointreauVersial]

Is pest control the landlord's responsibility, or yours? Will be in the rental agreement.

[Cherrysoup]

A friend in Ireland used to have this, the whole street was connected. Useful for escaping when there were problems, apparently.

[Ponoka7]

"If you're on good terms with your neighbours I'd say try and get everyone to muck in setting mousetraps in their lofts."

You'd have to agree who will empty the traps and reset them and do it all again.

"spoke to landlord and he won't even let me put a bolt on"

I'd put one on anyway, otherwise you might as well leave your doors and windows open.

[Ponoka7]

But I agree with contacting Environmental health.

[Gibbonsgibbonsgibbons]

My childhood home was like this - some like us had the loft lined but you could go through the access hatches then walk the length of the street on the rafters huge layers of dust & discarded ancient toys.

Love Magician’s Nephew

Opening a loft hatch from inside the loft is usually very difficult to do & there are easier ways to rob a house so I don’t think it would bother me.

[Crabonastick]

They had this in the terraces near us, but a rat infestation in about 20 shared loft spaces!

Is the landlord at least going to send exterminators over? I appreciate usually people deal with mice themselves but how are you suppose to coordinate this with plenty of other families?

[WhenOneDoorClosesAnotherOpens]

WTF?? I've never heard of this before. What's the point of having one huge loft space for everyone? No one could store anything in 'their' space as everyone would have access to it and also you couldn't insulate 'your' loft space so what would the energy efficiency be like? Not sure what fire safety would be like. And then there's the fact that anyone could come down through your loft! Why won't your landlord allow you to put a bolt on your loft door for security? I was thinking you must live in an old building that was originally a large house but was divided up at some point or whatever, but you're saying your building is only 10 years old? How strange.

[TruthOnTrial]

I think this may be why your ll rents it out!!

I am surprised anyone would buy new properties with shared loft spaces, given all the issues it raises.

Your security, and insurance, for instance. However, you can insulate your own bit which will work so long as you cover the loft floor in between the rafters so no heat escapes into the loft space.

Your ll is unreasonable, find another tenancy. Any ll that doesn't understand the need for tenants security is a poor ll.

Your insurance will not pay out if you have to claim and part of your home is not secure.

[bionicnemonic]

It’s pretty shocking they were built so recently! I’d be wary of fire and of a burglar coming in through a neighbouring property. It could be that your insurance as mentioned by a pp wouldn’t cover this. I think I’d maybe contact the council building regs department to check it’s all legal

[BikeRunSki]

Very common in Victorian terraces. The London house in “The Magician’s Nephew” is like this, and the one I grew up in.

[BikeRunSki]

X post re Magician’s Nephew. Must RTFT!

[TruthOnTrial]

Also remember this from magicians nephew, and I thought, when I read it many years ago, that it was part of some magic, not that people could actually walk through others loft spaces!

[Northernsoullover]

I'm just marking my place while I see if there is anything under HHSRS guidance

[MrsPelligrinoPetrichor]

We have this in a late 60's house but most of them have been blocked off now but we also had a mouse issue as they have free run of all the lofts! We very aggressively treated the infestation with poison and snappy traps,took six weeks but it worked and haven't had anything since.

[Tessabelle74]

Illegal 😂 😂 😂 this is how terraced houses were built. Most have been separated over the years but I suspect there are still many about like this. My Mum's terraced house had a lock on the hatch for this reason before she put up the wall, as did mine before we did ours. Definitely contact your landlord, it's an easy remedy to build the wall, it just extends what is already there but stops at loft floor level currently