Cleaning after plastering cost

lea871

We are having our bedroom wall damp proofed due to a bathroom leak from a neighbouring flat. After they finished the first day of work yesterday, our bedroom is completely covered in dust. It's all over all the soft furnishings apart from the bed which was the only thing covered. Even the inside of our wardrobes have ended up with a layer of dust. As my husband is asthmatic and we have an 8 week old daughter, we've had to move into a hotel for the week which our buildings insurance have covered. 

The plasterers have told us today that in order to clean up the dust it will need professionally cleaned and have given us a quote of £580 to do this. Our buildings insurance are refusing to pay this as they think it's a contents insurance claim. Our contents insurance will not pay out as they believe the responsibility lies with the plasterer, which is what I would have thought. Would anyone be able to tell me who is liable for this? Feel like we're been held to ransom and may end up being the ones to pay the bill as it's not safe for our daughter to stay there and we don't seem to have much choice.

Doozergirl

It's a very simple fact that plaster dust gets everywhere.  It's in the air and it takes weeks to settle .  There's no way to avoid it, really.  

Dust sheets don't actually protect anything from dust, more from splashes.  

I don't see how, if there was no quote for cleaning, why anyone else is responsible for it other than you.  It's not a specialist job.  I can empathise over the asthma and have a daughter with it, and have had clients with it that have lived in old properties while we've done major works and all we can do is the simple stuff like cleaning the immediate areas.   Of course they had to move their belongings out of the immediate areas beforehand(!) but there's no doubt it got through the whole house because it's so fine.   Why would you not at least move soft furnishings out of a room if it was having building work done?  

I'm not even sure why a wall would need damp proofing after a leak, but there you go.   You don't need to damp proof walls that aren't supposed to be wet.  

   

fenwick458

£580 is ridiculous. i see adverts in local papers and on Facebook for "whole house deep cleans" for £100. just get one of them to do it, or do it yourself

Mojisola

Doozergirl said:

It's a very simple fact that plaster dust gets everywhere.  It's in the air and it takes weeks to settle .  There's no way to avoid it, really. 

This is the problem - although a one-off clean will sort out the immediate problem, the dust will keep settling for ages after the work is finished and you'll have to clean, clean and clean again.