Stingy landlord?

[Doglover321]

Hi everyone, I’m sharing a flat with my boyfriend and we have huge mold and drainage issues. Mold covers the exterior and interior of the property, and the toilet and shower are both thoroughly blocked. The landlord visited following a hole in the ground floor flat’s ceiling (due to our shower flooding), and has told us a plumber will be visiting today - two days after the event!! He says we will have to pay rather than him. Surely this is something a landlord would usually pay for? He also told us that in the meantime we would have to use the swimming pool showers if we needed to shower. TIA for any thoughts.

It's a myth about airing the house especially on a chilly day. I spoke to mold specialist who said the air condenses on the walls and that causes condensation which turns to mold.

The solution is to keep the windows closed and keep the temperature inside the house constant and around 16-20 degrees.

I can thoroughly recommend the Luigi's Toilet plunger from Amazon by the way. It's absolutely brilliant for those times when the loo just won't flush properly and keeps filling up the bowl with water every time you try. Really clean, unmessy and easy to use, and extremely efficient. I wish I'd discovered it years ago.

It certainly beats fiddling around with an old school rubber plunger or an unravelled metal coat hanger. (boak)

The landlord has a legal responsibility to provide adequate heating and maintain the structure of the building. If a property doesn’t have the legally required appropriate heating so the tenant can adequately heat the property to prevent mould, the mould is the landlord’s responsibility. If there are structural issues contributing to high levels of humidity in the house causing mould, that is also the landlord’s responsibility eg no damp course, leaky pipes or drainpipes, no trickle vents, bathrooms or kitchens without opening windows, vents or extractor fans.

OP has said there is only 1 storage heater and the bathroom has no window or heating. It is likely the landlord would be held responsible for the mould. You can’t hold a tenant responsible for not heating or ventilating a property adequately if the property doesn’t have the facilities to do that!

Comnents like “if there is black mould in a property it is lifestyle. NO EXCEPTIONS.” make you look silly, not me 🙄

OP just get environmental health to inspect the property. They will tell the landlord what needs to be done to prevent the mould issues and provide adequate heating. If the landlord won’t make the improvements, the council will do the work and charge the landlord.

No, not really. If there is a blockage rather than a leak then it will be pretty obvious because the water won't be draining away quickly enough from the shower tray. The water will be spilling over the edge, pooling on the bathroom floor and eventually over time will be finding cracks in the flooring and making the joists and the ceiling below it damp.

Whereas a leak in the pipework will not be under the shower tray and not evident from the surface at all.

Not irrelevant at all. If she moved in two weeks ago and the shower has been blocked and slow draining the whole time then it is probably a pre-existing issue. Ideally the LL should have checked that sort of thing before taking new tenants. But if she's lived there for 2 years and there has only been an issue on the last couple of weeks then the hair/poo/loo roll or whatever else is causing a blockage is the OP's.

I'm sure if they'd only been there a few weeks this would be mentioned. But she says they've always opened the window etc. This implies they've been there a while.

There you go again. An emoji. Instant authority.
I would not want to start on that post.
OP. Seek advice. Rentokil. Shelter. Seek advice.

You can’t “start on that post” because you know it is correct.

OP, contacting Shelter is not bad advice but they are overwhelmed at the moment so it is unlikely they will be able to help you as they are prioritising people facing homelessness. It is worth reading their advice on mould and damp, heating etc, which reflects what I and other PPs have told you. Don’t waste your money on Rentokil 🙄

Ask the environmental health team to asses the property. If you only have 1 storage heater to heat the entire property and a bathroom with no window or heating, it is likely the landlord isn’t fulfilling the legal requirements for heating and likely that the lack of appropriate ventilation in the bathroom is contributing to the mould issues. It’s free and if the mould is purely down to lifestyle (ie your fault), they will give you advice, if it is down to the property not having adequate heating or ventilation, they will make the landlord do the work. Ditto if the landlord is in breach of laws about providing adequate heating (even if it isn’t a contributing factor to the mould).

Another authoritative emoji. They get better.
And another post not reading legislation correctly.
contact rentokil and shelter.
And with that I am out.

OP have you recently started to live independently? The shower and toilet ate common sense to be honest, it will start to cost you a significant amount if you don't learn basic maintenance within a home such as cleaning properly.

The mold you will be making worse with washing up liquid. Mold isn't what people think it to be, it's alive, it spreads through air and disturbing it but not killing it will move it to new areas. The way to kill it is via either vinegar or a proprietary mold remover rproduct. Vinegar really works, use plenty of it over all of tbe mold. Leave it on and then redo it a few times I would. Then once its dead you can clean it all away. Get rid of anything you have wiped it with. Once the wall looks clean 100% I would resoak it in vinegar again. And then done. Make sure you treat anywhere that it is found, even if a small amount.

You do need proper heat though.

What, poo caused the blockage?

Do you eat only cement?

I don't doubt that there was a blockage of poo, but I do doubt that the poo caused it, poo is meant to go down toilets!

As for the hair, that shouldn't be there, you should clean the trap often BUT.. can you clean the trap. I once lived in a property where they'd made it impossible to get at. You had to lift the cover over the shower drain and someone had sealed/glued it on... As proven when the plumber rather condescendly tried to show me how to take it off (in all the ways I had already tried) and ended up breaking it off with a screwdriver, revealing the gluey mess of old sealant inside...

Anyway, the landlord hired the plumber, landlord thus pays the plumber. Landlord needs to provide actual proof you caused the damage, not simply 'plumber says poo caused the blockage'... however he can also evict you if he follows the proper procedure... and if you don't pay, probably will... so I'd start looking for somewhere less awful to live.

And report him to the local authority for the mould and lack of proper heating whilst you're at it.

You need to use the storage heater each night and ventilate daily. Mould can't be cleared with soapy water,it needs a proper spray. Any condensation on windows to be wiped daily. Does the bathroom have an extractor?!

OP how do you do your laundry? Do you have wet clothes hanging in the flat? Do you open windows when you cook ?
We had a problem with mould in the bedroom and used to run a small silent dehumidifier in the bedroom overnight.
Either the landlord needs to pay a plumber to sort the toilet flush or you need to pour additional water down the toilet each time you poo.
You can’t continue to live in a flat with mould that you don’t heat.

It's not just the poo though, it's usually a case of far too much loo roll being used in one 'sitting' as it were, without an interim flush. Especially if there is a weak flush, it's just going to compound the problem.

But if it were the loo roll then surely the plumber would say 'too much paper being flushed down'... and if its a weak flush then that is the landlords problem too.

A flush only needs to be strong enough to send waste around the U bend, if you're upstairs.. then it drops down and gravity does the work until it gets to the pipework in the ground. Then it depends on the gradient and the amount of water (but not force generated by the flush) as to how far each flush carries each 'load'... if the gradient is poor, pipework cracked/broken/obstructed in some way... then that will slow things and likely cause a blockage, but again... landlords problem!

Have you tried sticking an emoji over it?

You need a proper fungicide spray for the mould, not just soapy water. Be careful not to breath it in as you spray though, and move pets into another room when you apply it. Keep them away from the treated area for a couple of hours afterwards.

LL is responsible for toilet and you'd be responsible for hair in the shower. If the shower caused flooding do you have insurance to cover it. I've had tenants who blocked shower with long black hair. I got my maintenance man to sort it out but I did warn tenants (2 females with long black hair) if they blocked it again they'd have to pay themselves. Do you have an extractor fan in the bathroom? If not ask for one because it helps with damp and mold.

Little sympathy for toilet and shower, obviously your fault. If he refuses to deal with the damp, contact the ombudsman.

Landlord's financial, legal, and moral responsibility without a doubt. You have your local council's Environmental Health Department to call upon for help. They will check out your accomodation and, if they find the property to be below standard, they will order the landlord to address the problem. Mould causes health problems. The council will require the landlord to remedy the situation at his or her own expense. You can't rent out unhealthy property, that is a statutory requirement .The landlord should have sorted the mould before letting the place.

If you don't have one already you need to get a bell plunger for the next time it happens. We keep ours behind the toilet. We also have a small plumbers snake for the sink and tub drains to keep them clean.

Wow tell us you're a scummy landlord without telling us you're a scummy landlord!

The mould is coming from an inadequately heated property. OP has explained that they ventilate well but have no heating (1 storage heater just doesn't count). I'm betting the mould is concentrating on external walls..... Because they're cold and damp. In the bathroom because.... No ventilation and cold.

The scummy landlord (are you two chums?) will have painted over the old mould before OP moved in. Mould is incredibly difficult to eradicate. It will just keep coming back and back. The spores are incredibly resilient. I've got two fucking masters degrees that cover this, and I know what mould is and how to treat it (or more like, how it can't really be treated without attacking it from many angles).

OP, I've been in your position. Tbh the only thing that started even addressing the problem was to bleach the walls (black mould remover - but this won't kill the mould, it's pretty much a cosmetic thing) and getting a blow heater. Fire it at the mould and dry it out as much as you can.

Then move out to somewhere with radiators.

If the landlord wants to protect their property and have it heated then they should install some fucking radiators!

One storage heater for a whole flat, FFS there are going to be problems.

YABU if you blocked the toilet and the shower and then asked your Landlord to fix it. Poo can block a toilet if you've got issues with your diet and combine it with too much loo roll as well. A toilet plunger or even a toilet brush is usually enough to unblock it. Or putting in a load of bleach overnight often works too.

Buy a cheap sink plunger for your shower or a hair trap! It will frequently block and you will need to unblock it. You can also use a wire coat hanger. You shouldn't be calling your Landlord out for that.

When cleaning mould, try to avoid anything wet. Use a regular detergent but as dry as possible. You can use bleach to whiten away the black but make sure you keep it as dry as possible. Try a dry cloth on it first and dry with kitchen roll after cleaning it. Warm water will just encourage mould to grow.

And you won't break down poo with what you've been trying. You need bleach to help with breakdown. Sometimes you just need to use chemicals!