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.

Yeah I would be very VERY suspicious of the plumber friend saying poo caused the blockage - that to me sounds like dodgy piping or a build up of something in the pipes, especially if if had gone far down.

I once had a landlord have a plumber friend claim that the flood in the sitting room was caused by a seal on my relatively new washing machine in the kitchen which he “kindly replaced” before we saw it. He didn’t charged us for it immediately then whacked the rent up £300 a month to cover the £600 insurance excess (maths was not his strong point). The main thing we knew that made it a complete lie was the kitchen floor, all the wood around the machine etc was bone dry and some of the water was running down the wall from the upstairs bathroom. A radiator near the floof had a shiny new part to it afterwards too. My partners dad mentioned to us afterwards that he once had a leak from a radiator and found that you can’t claim for leaks of very old radiators as you should replace them but a valve on a washing machine is covered by insurance. So his plumber friend helped him file a dodgy insurance claim, blaming us and then upped the rent. Lovely guy! He didn’t even do the sensible thing and update the plumbing, several more radiators sprung leaks afterwards.

The hair thing seems like it must be extreme to do that - would you not notice hair in the drain? You should clean them but every few months tip some bathroom drain unblocker down the plughole too as that dissolves hair.

Honestly I would move though - your landlord sounds dodgy and the mould will damage your lungs.

re mould.
It's difficult, even with windows open. You need a dehumidfier and to put paint made for bathrooms and kitchens on trouble spots so that you can wipe them clean (and wipe off damp so it doesn't stay on the plaster). I live in a house with central heating and big windows and we still get mould in the bathroom. Condensation paint will also help.

Actually it is possible to block a toilet with poo. My oldest has done this on occasion, TMI, but coeliac, too much poo and toilet blocked. And using the short flush didn't help. Which is why I have a plunger nearby. And why I rod the drains regularly.

Why should they have to strip wash at a sink when they're paying somebody else's mortgage which includes maintenance?

Yeah I think the OP might have mentioned something like that, if they were producing abnormal amounts of poo regularly.

Why would the short flush be of use, it's a significantly smaller amount of water, used for flushing a wee?

Because they didn't bother to clean their own hair out of the shower trap and it blocked and flooded downstairs.
Not everything is the landlord's responsibility in a rental. You are still expected to keep it clean

My DM used to use diluted bleach. Washing up liquid will remove it superficially, but the spores are still there.

Think of mould like the hairs on your legs. You can shave them as much as you want, but the roots are still there.

Washing up liquid is the equivalent of a razor.

Bleach is the equivalent of a wax.

Proper mould treatment and/or resolving the reason for the mould growing is like an IPL machine!

Because the person concerned is blind and hadn't realised they were only pushing the short flush mechanism.
I mention the short flush as lots of people don't actually realise how to use it believe it or not!

Ohhhhhhh I see... it read like you expected the short flush to help, not 'additionally the cement pooper was using the short flush, which didn't help...' .

I've got very thick hair and I shed it like a labrador in a heat wave. I have never had a problem with it blocking the shower waste in the 31 years l've lived here. And I don't recall it blocking a waste pipe anywhere else I've lived, even when my hair was waist length.

I have very fine hair that's not particularly long, yet I have to de-fuzz the shower drain regularly!

Maybe my drains aren't particularly good either, but I keep a plunger in the bathroom ready for such eventualities and give it a good plunge (what an excellent word) when the water starts backing up.

It's a very satisfying, if not entirely disgusting, job!