Any builders? What could be happening.

[Mummy289]

Ok, before I start it’s a council house, we both work and pay our rent not that should matter but do feel some people think you deserve a home like this 🤦🏼‍♀️.

Also our house is very clean…

We have been here for 9 years.
Over a year ago, we started seeing some slug marks. We thought slugs had come in on a toy that had been out side. We found a slug and thought that was that. However a few weeks later it got worse. We couldn’t work out where they were coming from. We lifted the carpet and the concrete floor had wide cracks near the out side wall (reaching about 6mm), loads and loads of slugs, the carpet was very wet (under sofa where cracks are) the concrete floor also very wet. Sadly the council ignored us for months.

A few months ago they put a French drain in to help, and de humidifier.
the floor dried, the de humidifier went and within a week it was wet again.
House is a pre fab and the foundations are very shallow.
We also have these issues
-brickwork which was put on after as pre fab, is cracking through the bricks on one corner and bits of brick are falling off. The cracks go from the top to the bottom and the cracks in the brick works are 2-3 mm.
-inside lots of cracks
-they have plastered up a whole in the wall before we got here and it’s pushing out, I mean I have a kallax unit there and it’s pushed the screws out (screws were not in that part this is lower down but where it’s now so big it’s pushed it).the wall paper seems to been keeping it there.
-where the cracks are in the living room, there is a uneven lump where the concrete is a different colour going right through the room, this is sticking up more and now and now it’s 5 cms higher than the floor. The council don’t know what repair this was or if it was. However it goes right accross and def sticks out more.
-to top it off we have mice in the living room walls now.
-the out side brick work has no wholes.
Council are coming out again however each issue is looked at separately and it concerned its one whole issue.
it’s pre fab and none of the walls are concrete think would built? All walls are just plaster board.
Worried the mice are coming from the floor under the walls as the cracks get bigger towards the wall. I don’t know 🤦🏼‍♀️
Maybe subsidence?

Collapsing drain, perhaps?

I would keep on at the council to make sure everything is logged. Can you get a friend or contact in construction who could give you their opinion. I’d be looking maybe for some kind of surveyor or construction inspector and seeing if I can get their opinion and a report of sorts that I could send to the council. Maybe talk to shelter and see if there are any legal implications if the council don’t act or what the legal timelines are.. also I’d start keeping a diary of any changes and with photos and damage to furniture etc. Best of luck! Hopefully it’s one issue that will be resolved quickly for you. x

Any trees close? Could be tree root damage if so.
Bulging concrete and wet floor sounds like the damp proof course, if there was one, has failed and the ground has shifted.
The cracks can indicate, do they go in a zig zag pattern or up and down? Zig zag sometimes indicates a more serious problem.
Any idea of the age of the property? You say prefab, so maybe postwar?

Haunted?

Ha ha haunted you know it could be 🤣. One couple had this since new, and the only reason they left was because they passed away.
Its early 1960s house.
There is a tree out the front that we have kept trimming, however it’s not massive.
Council will be coming next week.
cracks a not straight but kinda diagonal but not straight.
It’s like the floor is crumblings.
The budge is a lot higher up to floor.
the cracks in the brick work although not structural is straight down. There is only a few bricks like that but lots of mortar cracked and at the bottom it’s like a brick is trying to come out and lot flush with the wall. Lots of mortar seems to have fallen out.

Could you pay for a structural survey?

@Blink282 how much would we be looking at for that? I think it’s what the property needs 🤦🏼‍♀️