Can I fix it myself?

[BusySquid]

Hi all, just a quick post (hopefully in the right area!).

My house is literally falling apart around me - its a long story. I cant afford to move so i am doing the best i can with what i have. Today however I noticed a smallish hole and a new crack in the upstairs ceiling close to the loft hatch. Little bits of black soot? I'm assuming, keep dropping out of it. I'm wondering if there is anyway I can fix this myself?

I have attached pictures - please don't judge my dirty loft hatch, it's at the bottom of my to do list. TIA 😊

You can, but will need some prep to do it so the crack doesn't keep coming back (speaking from experience). Decorating centre online on Instagram has some really good tutorial videos for this sort of thing, with advice on what products they would recommend. Obviously they want you to buy from them but could get it from any DIY store.

Brill, thank you for the reply. I will check them out!

You should be able to use some decorators caulk to fill that. Then you can paint it

and you will end up with tramlines (2 cracks) instead of one as it pulls away from the sides unless you do proper preparation as explained in many videos

You need to rake it out before filling. Try and cut into each side of the crack at an angle, like a v (with the middle of the crack being the point) then fill with decent filler... I use Toupret.

It feels counter productive to make it worse... but if you just fill it as it is it will almost certainly reappear.