Thanks for your insight — it’s really helpful to hear from someone with both plumbing and landlord experience.
Given how severe the rust looks (and the fact it may have gone through the steel), what would you suggest in this situation?
Ventilation has been raised multiple times in writing and in person, and unfortunately, it seems the advice has not been followed.
Yesterday’s in-person visit, where I found the fan not in use and explained the implications directly to him
However you look at it, I can only see replacement as being the viable option. A sand down and repaint with rust killer, and a paint process ,reenameling ect will eventually fail its to far gone.
Remove panel for access. Apply good amount of rust neutraliser, then maybe hammerite smooth paint. The steel would have started rusting due to water running behind path panel. That will attack the steel behind the enamel. Readers would be interested to know the brand of bath. Problem is that a tennent will rarely look after a property if it’s not yours. You will find a large amount of rust inside the bath rim. For tenanted properties from a few install, you can apply mastic around the panels. Not great for maintenance but no water ingress either.
if it has rusted in a part out of sight, clean off, rust inhibitor, paint and then a layer of -petroleum jelly