Landlord threatening to withhold deposit due to damp

WestonDave

I have sympathy with both angles - mainly because knowledge amongst the population in general about humidity and the problems it can cause is pretty limited - landlords and tenants alike.


The bottom line however is that in the long term the tenants will pick up the cost - either via higher rents (to build up a fund for repairs on vacation) or via lost deposits. If landlords can't deduct from deposits they will load rents. At least in the current situation a savvy tenant can benefit from the lower rent, take measures to prevent mould damage and thereby save themselves some money and their health at the same time. If it get loaded into rents they'll have little scope to save money, landlords will have the money up front so will have little incentive to help during a tenancy and tenants who don't manage damp will suffer health problems. If landlords get forced to put in things like MVHR systems to prevent problems that will just put the rent up as well.


What we probably need is a condensation damp version of the EPC system so at least tenants know what they are taking on!

WestonDave

As an aside if you have a new house and are planning renovations its worth considering what you are going to do about this issue! If at any point you might want to consider a ventilation system (e.g. MVHR or PIV system) its best to at least plan for accommodating it before you commit to d!cor etc.

Jabberwk

But does anyone have the answer on what tenants can do to prevent this and how to ensure a complete change of air in winter? I'll get to find out next month whether they're going to try to deduct money from our deposit for the damage to the paintwork caused by having to clean the walls with mould remover over and over again (hoping the landlady remembers telling us not to worry about the paintwork when we raised this issue with her two years ago), but I do genuinely want to know what the solution is in case we have this issue again in the future. All the advice I can find involves moving furniture away from external walls (done, and room is significantly less spacious as a result), wiping condensation off windows in the morning (done. Doesn't seem to help) and leaving windows open, but it simply isn't practical to leave windows open in the depths of winter when people are in, and you can't leave windows open in a ground floor flat when people are out. All the people saying tenants should be preventing mould, I get where you're coming from, but how are you actually doing this?

jjlandlord

If you leave the windows wide open in a way creating a good air flow, there should be no need to leave them open for more than 10 minutes.

The other thing to do is to act at the source and try to limit the amount of water released in the air: closing door and air flow when cooking and using shower, air flow and deshumidifier when drying clothes inside, etc.

It's not just for tenants but for everyone.

WestonDave

The simplest solution and probably the cheapest once you've spent out for the dehumidifier is to buy a good quality one capable of extracting air from a flat that size and run it on a suitable setting. That should extract moisture from the air as fast as living activity puts it in. If the air is relatively dry you are unlikely to get a serious problem other than in very isolated spots. People worry about the cost of running one but they cost around 5p per hour to run, if on a humidistat (most have this built in) will cut out once the required level is reached and will in any event during winter be helping to heat the property so its not "extra" cost.


If you don't want to go that route then you probably need to get hold of a humidity meter (maplins have a fairly cheap one with a temperature etc display) and if the humidity level starts climbing above 60% then start opening windows to change the air.

WestonDave

Also be aware that bathroom extractor fans are usually inadequate for purpose and if you only let it run for the 5 minutes its set for after you turn the light off, its about as useful as a chocolate fireguard. Either run it for much longer with the bathroom door shut to prevent moisture escaping into the rest of the property or open the window (again with the door shut).

Snakey

My new flat apparently had previous problems with black mould, which I am really, really hoping was all the fault of the tenants.

It sounds like it's stealthy stuff and it must be frustrating to one day move a piece of furniture and only at that point realise that there's been a massive problem for several months and now all your stuff's wrecked. I don't want to be in that position! So I'll be watching this thread with interest to collect tips on how to prevent it as far as possible.

I have a dead-end piece of hallway which also happens to be against an outside wall (well, it backs on to the lift shaft and communal stairs, so not technically "outside" but I expect it will be cold). I've got my eye on that as a possible incubation area since there won't be much movement of air there, which is a shame because it would be the perfect place to put a bookcase. And God only knows what I'll find when I rip the built-in wardrobes off this weekend.

I'm going to leave it a winter though, to see whether there's actually going to be a problem, before I start looking into expensive fixes.

Out of interest, I did try showering with the bathroom door closed (and the window open) and the entire bathroom had condensation all over it by the time I'd finished, which I do not notice when I have all the doors open (and all the windows to all the rooms, so hopefully it is not the case that a like amount of condensation is running off to hide elsewhere in the flat and surprise me later). It would seem that I would be avoiding possible condensation in the flat at the price of definite condensation in the bathroom!

Sorry for the mini-hijack. I'm afraid I don't have any advice for you, other than that when I was looking up about this before I exchanged contracts most of the stuff online was landlords complaining that their tenants were drying washing inside, not using extractor fans provided etc. The implication being that they would behave differently if it was their own flat. So you're going to have an uphill struggle to convince yours that it would have happened to him if he'd been living there, because he's primed not to believe that.

PensionTech

Granted that if we manage to get the landlord to bear the cost himself, he might just put the rent up for later tenants. As callous as it sounds though, that's not my concern. My concern is whether we personally should be liable to pay. And I consider a vital part of that question to be whether we have lived in an unreasonable or negligent way that we should have known would cause damage to the property. Have we?

BitterAndTwisted

Yes, the presence of mould on external walls can be used as conclusive evidence that you put an excess load of moisture in the air and didn't ventilate adequately. I expect the landlord will claim that no previous tenants had such an issue. Warm air can hold much more moisture than cold air and as soon as it finds a cold surface it will condense. That's just basic primary-school science.

During the coldest winter for X decades with no double-glazing I could only afford to put the heating on for one hour a day. The only condensation was on a couple of windows which I wiped down and then put the cloths outside. The danger with double-glazing is that in the depths of winter people can be tempted to seal the property up like a drum to conserve heat. Condensation and consequent mould is almost an inevitability then.

PensionTech

Ok. Lesson learned! I still don't agree necessarily that we lived in an unreasonable or negligent way, but if you're saying the consensus will be that we did (and the "primary school science" isn't lost on me - I understand exactly how it occurred - I just never realised that it was occurring, as it had never happened in any previous property and there weren't any signs other than my health problems, the cause of which I had no idea about) then I will have to assume that we won't be seen by anybody to have much of a leg to stand on.