AIBU to expect the tenants to turn the heating up?

[LadyMaine]

I've owned my 3 bed Victorian house for 7 years. There was a little bit of damp in the downstairs bay window but nothing serious.

I moved for work at end of August this year and rented it out. Within a few weeks the tenants (3 adults & dog) started complaining of damp and mould. When I went to inspect the house was very cold.
They said they are worried about high heating bills. I do understand this but have told them they really need to turn the heating up.

The boiler is in full working order as are the extractor fans in the kitchen and bathroom.
I installed new double glazed windows throughout when I bought the house. It also has a damp course installed.

Now they are complaining that there is black mould and that one of the tenants' asthma is getting worse.
What can I do to get them to turn the heating up?

DP and I moved into a 2 bed Victorian terraced in August 21. The place was humid from the outset and our first investment was a dehumidifier for £150. It run constantly the first 3-4 days and we emptied bucket loads of water. Then we used it when it rained and when we had to dry the laundry inside. We also heated more than normal but mainly due to bf a newborn every 1.5 hours.
You could provide a dehumidifier and pay for them to run it 6 hrs a day. They can be set on a timer so that it runs at night.

Yay!!! I am glad there are more people out there refusing to put the heating on.
Also no dump problems here but the dehumidifier has been in use. 1965 built with a bad cavity wall insulation and 2 broken windows.

It's only going to get colder once it's on you want it on all the time. I've seen people saying it's cost £5 for a couple of hours. I think I'll wait until we have freezing temperatures to avoid pipes freezing up and burst water pipes.

Well mould is a new one for us😂
Usually it's lack of jobs and stealing benefits and stuff😂

"Let a house out with mould?!"
To the indignant (dim) crowd: those black mould spores are all around us, everywhere. Every single home will have them. Many other spores too - like dry rot ones for example.

They don't germinate and don't become dangerous until they land in moisture and on that particular surface they enjoy.

The black mould, for example, is only ever thriving on surface moisture - it won't grow inside materials. Within houses (particularly double glazed insulated ones) that surface moisture is down to condensation. When the evaporation from the lifestyle (breathing, excess house plants, drying washing indoors, showering, using gas heaters and hobs, etc) meets a cold, unheated wall, it settles on that cold surface and forms condensation - a film of moisture or even droplets. The black mould loves that stuff!

Heating the home evenly to prevent cold surfaces is one way of combating mould. The other one is to open the windows - the warm (warmer than outside! ) , damp air will leave and if you're lucky that stuffy moist air from drying your husband's budgie smugglers won't form clouds above us.

SUMMARY:

OPEN THE WINDOWS (a lot)
TURN THE HEATING ON (on low but consistently )
KEEP THE WINDOWS SHUT IF YOU'RE DRYING PANTS

To the indignant (dim) crowd: those black mould spores are all around us, everywhere. Every single home will have them. Many other spores too - like dry rot ones for example.. Not every single home. There has to be a growth of these moulds in a small radius for any spores to be detectable. I know, I’ve tested homes for mould spores and they don’t all come back positive.

The black mould, for example, is only ever thriving on surface moisture - it won't grow inside materials.. Bullshit. Mould can grow inside walls, window frames, cupboards, carpets, soft furnishings, aircon air ducts, even inside the fibreglass of loft and wall cavity insulation. It can grow behind wallpaper, & behind wooden panelling (ir your kitchen cabinets). This includes “black mould” (which isn’t a scientific term, it’s just the media term for stacybotrys which is the most toxic of black appearing moulds.

Misinformation like this is dangerous. It’s 100% why Awaab Ishak’s father was told repeatedly to just wipe mould off the walls put on a fresh coat of paint. That does no good when the mould is inside the walls and simply grows back out. And if you have a continuously damp wall, like the OP has had for almost a decade, mould will grow on the inside long before it works it’s way out.

Now who is “dim” ?

Black mould growing in loft insulation

Mould under a carpet

The bet thing would be to know what you're talking about before insulting people, wouldn't it?

Typical amateur landlord. Everything's the tenants' fault. They can't even wipe a surface with a clean cloth, you know?

Why should I be ashamed of saying we have a housing crisis and having 500k extra people a year might add to that? It is not a lie or fake news that we do not have enough homes and one reason is more people surely? I don't think it's racist. My own London borough has more "beds in sheds" than any other and that is definitely partly due to immigration.

Here’s a more obvious photo of mould INSIDE a wall. The first is interior wood frame wall, the second is mould that had started behind textured wall paper and grown into the plaster put on a solid brick wall.

Because you peddle shit like this (your 15.27 post, yesterday):

we are apparenlty happy as tax payers to pay £7m a day to house asylum seekers in luxury hotels many of us could never afford

Which you know, I know, most sensible people know, is a lie, intended to stir up racial hatred.

You've form for this kind of crap across the site. I'm sick of hearing it.

Are the immigrants in luxury homes, or beds in sheds? Come on, which is it? Either they are living the life of luxury at taxpayers' expense, or living in squalid conditions, dragging our neighbourhoods down, etc?

You could at least be consistent with your dog-whistle nonsense.

It’s not racist to talk about the lack of quantity of housing due to population pressures. But it does kind of deflect from the fact that the quality of housing in the social sector and the private rental sector is really bad and the high rents paid for these homes is flat out extortion.

Just because there is a housing shortage, this doesn’t excuse substandard housing quality. It’s an excuse really. The rents paid are more than enough for landlords to keep the homes in a decent condition. But they often don’t.

This excuse can be used to feed the narrative that tenants should be grateful for any roof over their head, even a leaky one that creates mould and destroys their health and meagre possessions. We’ve seen that in this thread in comments about landlords providing a valuable service, and where will people live if their housing must actually be decent? The callous comments of if the OPs tenant doesn’t like it they can go find another rental. The advice to evict the tenant for complaining about the mould with the lie that they cannot afford the property. The housing shortage has tenants over a barrel and landlords are blatantly exploiting them.

The number of substandard homes in these sectors is indirectly racist because it disproportionately affects minorities, especially immigrant minorities. Yes, in absolute terms more white British families are struggling with substandard housing but, a higher % are minority or immigrants compared to the general population.

This disparity in living conditions then feeds into racist and classist assumptions about tenants in general. That tenants are dirty, lazy, lack common sense- in short a long list of excuses trying to blame tenants for the disrepair of their homes.

we are apparenlty happy as tax payers to pay £7m a day to house asylum seekers in luxury hotels many of us could never afford

This ring any bells?

I think you should just stop now, frankly.

Especially given the fact it's recently been front page news about asylum seekers being held in poor, extremely overcrowded, conditions, and then the diphtheria outbreak.

Beds in sheds is not immigrants fault by locals'. "Greedy bastards doing shite landlording. Ah! It's the immigrants' fault!"

Aren't most asylum seekers in Brittania hotels?
Quite concerned about anyone calling that a luxury

@BosaNova you're quite right, they're not luxury, however they are a big step up from the street.

There is a growing sense of concern that rough sleepers who have not recently arrived in the UK are not afforded the same option. I see a backlash over this in the future.

Dear God, this thread went down the rabbit hole!

Those pictures are surface damp by the way. Interstitial condensation that happens between two non-breathable materials that might also have temperature differences. Many, many homes will have that situation created unwittingly.
In my Victorian terrace I had just the situation : mdf panelling, stud work, then a plastic membrane and then the old brick. There were tiny water droplets on that plastic with nowhere to go.
I opened up the panelling, took down the plastic and there's no more water, mould or anything! Just dry, clean old bricks.

Currently I'm sitting in a room with actually wet walls waiting for a roof fix. Windows open, heating on (on low). The only black mould was a patch behind loose Anaglypta (non-breathable) . The wallpaper removed and there literally is Zero mould on the walls! Cause... Ventilation!

Nevermind. This information is more suited for the DIY section anyway. Seems too inaccessible for some on here.
There are some great blogs and books available on the topic of Period properties and damp.

I'm not a landlord. And not a tenant. Hence I'm doing the right things to protect my property from decay.

What do you mean future? That's already been happening. 😐

Anyway, we are derailing now! Because iImmigrants have nothing to do with the fact half the houses are shite and not built to local weather🙈

I suggest you, and others, read the newspapers and educate yourselves as to where immigrants and asylum are being held and it is not luxury hotels. Hostels and asylum centres are more typical.

amp.theguardian.com/politics/2022/nov/02/home-office-leaves-asylum-seekers-from-manston-stranded-in-central-london

@angharadsgoat I do read and listen to news. I’m aware of Manston, and the overcrowding, and health issues. But no one can dispute that the HO are leasing hotels in a variety of towns and cities to house the migrants who travel across the English Channel to claim asylum. Its the government’s responsibility to house them whilst the claims are processed, very slowly and inefficiently according to the news,

I’m aware there are crap rented homes, with crap landlords, but having worked in social housing I’m also aware that there are crap tenants, who don’t put an ounce of energy into caring for their homes or gardens. Lets not kid ourselves that everyone lives at a generally acceptable standard.

I think you've rather missed the point @Seymour5

So anyway ladies, is OP being unreasonable expecting the tenants to turn the heating up?