Ignorance or irresponsibility

How dare our landlord allow us to live in a building with no damp proof course and then blame it on us when the walls grow mould due to rising damp?

Is he ignorant of how buildings work or does he understand them and yet chooses to carry on regardless?

It's hard to tell because he seems convinced that all we need to do is keep the windows open and get the air circulating.

One, it's now winter and two, we wouldn't need to do anything of the sort if he'd taken the responsibility to sort the building out in the first place!

I have a mental disability so my wife is trying to support me as well as deal with the building issues. It's now got to a point where neither the landlord nor the council seem to care and we're out of energy. 

Vulnerable members of society & housing

The council found us a place to live due to my vulnerability as a sufferer of mental illness when we were facing homelessness nearly a year ago. The flat looked good when we first moved in but it’s now clear that all the problems were literally painted over.

It wasn’t long before mould started re-growing so we alerted the landlord and he told us to open the windows in order to get air circulating. This was fair enough in the spring and summer but now that we’re in autumn it isn’t so simple.

As it turns out our building has no damp course and instead of putting one in the landlord has opted to attach six inch fake walls to the existing mouldy walls in what seems like a quick fix.

Unfortunately there is now mould in every room so the house reeks of it; plus to compound the issue both my wife and I have asthma which is especially affected by mould.

The bit that gets me though is that we have informed the council of the mould situation and yet they still want to house people here when we move out, which I think that is deplorable.

It's a struggle for a young, vulnerable couple to deal with a landlord who behaves like this. It causes a lot of stress, which has gone on to exacerbate my condition and prevent me from proceeding any further with my recovery.