To think mould issues are one of the biggest triggers for retaliatory evictions?

[TheNavyAnt]

I keep seeing situations where tenants report damp or mould and suddenly the landlord/agent becomes hostile - inspections ramp up, nitpicking begins or a Section 21 magically appears soon after.

AIBU to think mould is one of the most common things that leads to landlords trying to push tenants out, simply because fixing it costs money?

So if i came and did something to your home without your say so you would just happily deal with it right?

Calm down. No one will do anything to my home without my say because I own it and maintain it myself.
If it is a SH tenant, then I guess they have three choices - find a home they prefer, sort out the mould, or whinge about it not being done to their satisfaction.

The house I rent gets bad mould. We run several dehumidifiers 24/, spend a few hours with all the doors and windows open to air it out (at different times of course) yet I still find black mould behind mine and my middle son's bed. The pantry wall literally oozes water when I rains. The landlord won't fix the damp course because it's too expensive. I have to periodically use shit loads of mould remover spray

Most people I know that are evicted is because they break their lease- don’t pay rent, are a noise nuisance, that sort of thing. Then again I don’t know any landlords that don’t maintain their property (I am a landlord so do know a few).

Rather be rude than a gaslighter blaming someone for the result of something that was forced on them.

I live in a City with lots of expensive housing in bad repair with lots of mould. I manage a lot of people and this is the sort of rubbish they are told all the time, that it’s their fault. It’s criminal.

The last two rented houses I lived in had mould - one just in the bathrooms, one on loads of the walls. I did scrub at it but the paint started coming off the walls! In both cases the LL said it must be our fault.

no issue in our own home (been here 10+ years) and we haven’t changed our behaviour. Something tells me it was the houses…

Yes, which is very often condensation and the solution is opening a window.

One of my rentals has a mould issue. Previous tenants never reported mould. Current tenants dry laundry on radiators dispite clause in contract stating not to do this. I have had damp and mould specialist in who say there are no structural issues. I supplied tenant with a dehumidifier but she says it uses too much electric so won't use it. The house is always cold. Now she has told me it is affecting her health. Bathroom has a fan I don't think she uses. Kitchen has extraction fan above cooker. Bathroom painted in anti mould paint. I don't know what else I can do. 🤷 If house had a structural issue I could get it fixed but I can't change her refusal to heat house properly or open windows. I have told her when she dries washing on radiator it can release up to 2 litres of water into atmosphere. I don't think she believes me.

How can you completely redo the ventilation to a house you don't own?

Same with the house i grew up in owned by my parents DM dried washing indoors No mould and no dehumidfiers either

Ventilation means opening windows. What else are you expecting?

I had this, I rented a terrace that suffered damp after a bad storm damaged the roof, the landlord ‘fixed’ the roof by cementing some tarp over the hole where the missing tiles were. The wooden cladding became damp very very quickly, you cannot remove mold from wood or prevent wet wood becoming moldy. It took above 8-10 weeks for a door frame to be so damp that it was swollen enough that the door wouldn’t shut.

I was evicted, a while later I saw the property on homes under the hammer! The ceiling had caved in from the water and even the carpets were black with mold.

The problem is that many if not most mould issues are caused by how people are living. I’ve seen properties without any mould be covered within weeks because tenants don’t ventilate, push things against walls (especially cardboard), dry washing indoors etc. With the property i managed for work, we ridded the place from mould then within a month of the tenants moving back in, was covered, eventually they moved out, rectified the mould (as before) didn’t return as we checked they didn’t pile up huge amounts of boxes and not overcrowded

Sounds like you have gone above and beyond for her already. I’d cut my losses and get a new tenant in who can stick to the terms of the contract

I had to live in a mouldy house as a teen growing up and agree that it’s often tenant’s fault.

M and her husband had mould in first rental house, and the next.

They cooked in massive pots and hung washing out. No dehumidifier. Windows shut for warmth. Windows were dripping with water inside.

When I got to 16, I learnt to manage it myself. Every single room was mouldy and stank of damp - except mine where the window was coincidentally left open.

I don’t love landlords but it’s not really surprising that many are unhappy with their properties being wrecked (and being blamed for it on top!)

We had new windows put in in two thousand and four. Unlike the old slidey up windows which were great for ventilation these have window restrictors and only open a couple of inches, Health and safety eh. MAKE YOUR FUCKING MINDS UP

Isn’t a couple of inches of ventilation enough?

Plenty of other causes mentioned on here. Cavity wall insulation. Lack of extractor fans (or fans broken). Damp course bridged. Windows too well sealed so can never be shut (we had this in our old house - open meant the rain got in, shut meant damp accumulated, we had a trickle vent fitted).
None of these are within the tenants' control.

You can over ride the restrictor on these types of windows. A couple of inches is fine for ventilation but for future reference, the safety mechanism can be overridden.

Hang on a min Tenants are often told on here that they are not ventilating ENOUGH or PROPERLY. Now all of a sudden a couple of inches is enough
I rest my case

We had more than mold in one house we lived in, when it rained heavily water ran down my daughter's bedroom wall. It improved when they fixed the ridge tiles but didn't help the mold. When they came round one said it was likely that the rendering had gone (it had, bits were crumbling) but that would be a fortune to fix. So it didn't get done. The guttering let the water run down the wall and we found put that the loft was just the tiles, no felt or membrane and no insulation either. We spent a fortune heating that house, running dehumidifiers, using a window vac on the tiles every day. We could ventilate all we liked, nothing would mitigate the fact that it was let in a condition where rain came in.

I am clearly still bitter about it!

Not really much of a case. 🤣🤣🤣

We had tenants in our house when we lived overseas and they definitely caused damp issues. They only had the heating on for an hour in the evening, they didn’t use the tumble drier but dried their clothes on airers in their rooms, they didn’t open the windows, they stuffed the chimney with newspaper, covered the air vent bricks with duct tape (including the one in the bathroom). It took ages to get rid of it after they left, but we’ve never had the problem since then. One of the tenants wanted us to pay her £2000 for shoes that had gone mouldy in a wardrobe. The agents wrote to them repeatedly, telling them they had to air the house, to use the dryer, but they took no notice. We had no problems with damp before they arrived, and once we had got rid of them (and the mould), no problems since.

So you think its funny and are obviously just goading. Played your hand too soon there