Damp - (private) landlord not prepared to do anything - can i involve council?

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Hi,

We rent an old, pretty unmodernised detatched bungalow. We love it and its in a great area. I have a 17 month old DD and am 7 months pregnant.

There is a huge damp patch growing on the ceiling in the main bedroom where DP and i sleep and the fitted wardrobes in that room are unusable as they smell of damp and mould grows on anything you put in there. We contacted the letting agent who informed the landlord who in turn organised for an independant expert to come and have a look, he said the issue was condensation and that the fans and ventilation in the property were inadequate. (It is quite interesting that he sells fans and ventilation equipment for a living).

In our opinion (and we are not experts) this is not the case, it is either the guttering or the damp course. Yes, there is condensation on the windows in the front room in the morning, and yes the fans in the bathroom and kitchen are a bit rubbish but how does this affect a huge damp patch in a completely seperate room??

The 'expert' wrote a report for the landlord stating that it was the fans etc and he says as he cannot pinpoint a reason for the damp he will not be doing anything about it. I am concerned that the damp patch could cause health problems, particularly as the new baby will be in there with us for the early days and i dont want to put it at risk.

We really dont want to move, can we ask the council to have a look, maybe environmental health or is that just for council tenants?? I have trie to ring the council this morning but am having problems getting through.

Thanks

You can contact enviromental health even if you are a private tenant, and they will make your landlord do what is needed.

Have you had your gutters cleaned?

We have the same problem. The gutter cleaning was our responsibility as tennant, so we got that done and then we found out that the gutter was not draining, and so proved that the damp was the LL's responsibility.

Might be worth a try?

SparklyVampire, excellent.
Chopstheduck we havent inspected the gutters, we will do that asap although the damp is on an outside wall where there are no gutters.

We had a similar problem in privately rented student housing - yes, Environmental health can come and visit, although our problem wasn't serious enough to warrant their doing anything, apparently (we had mushrooms growing on the windowsills!)
Maybe it's different as you have a child.

Mushrooms . I havent seen any of those yet, plenty of woodlice and huge spiders though.
Have just spoken to DP who is suggesting we move, our contract ends on december 22nd. Babies due mid jan! I moved last time 5 days before DD was born but dont really want to organise all that again.