Is this mould ? Mildew ? Is it hazardous to health specially when living with a child ?
The grout is mould, kill with a spray. The first is a leak.
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A historic leak that is… not a current leak. Is it on a ground floor ceiling or first floor?
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Hello - a Landlord here. I’m always surprised when tenants make an offer on a property without viewings and will always discourage the practice.
Sometimes it is impossible because people are living abroad or in a distant city and travel costs are phohibitive - but if that is the case I would always encourage them to do the following in or der of preference
a) get a friend or family member to do the viewing on your behalf - they can bring a phone and take photos videos
b) I will always offer a video viewing and point my camera wherever anyone asks - under the sink - behind a wardrobe etc so they can as much as is possible see what they could see in person… I wil also honesty answr any uestions like “are there smells etc”
To be honest I wil usually prefer a tenant who has viewed a property over one who hasn’t because it isa pain if tenant findsa flat not what they expected and I like to have happy content tenants and work hard to make it so .
In today’s climate a get lots of requests for viewing for the properties I offer - so usually someone who has not viewed and I have not met is less likely to be offered the property.
Be especially cautious accepting a property from a Landlord who does not have those scruples - it could be a red flag that the property is unnattractive to those who do view. or the landlord is less than acceptable.
Its nearly always worth the long journey to view a property or even paying someone to do it on your behalf .
OKay I get its a bit late for that advice for you … so what to do.
First is to inform your landlord “In writing” - always put something in writing to your landlord and give them a reasonable time to respond before making formal complaints etc. Try to clearly identify the problem . I am a bit of handyman so can often do a quick visit to my tenants.and at least do some sort of fix.
But their can be a delay for a landlord getting a professional plumber to come and properly rectify a property.as they are often booked up. Emergency plumbers often come out identify the problem report to the landlord and may be disconnect gas or water if needed to stop a leek but depending on area it can often be a struggle to find someone to come out to complete the job especially in August when many are on holiday.
For the last time a tenant contacted me I got and expensive emergency plumber who was useless - then waited over a weekend for office hours to open and phoned round lots of plumbers - it took me at least 5 hours of phoning round til I found one that could come out and sort the work reasonably promptly (but they had limited availability and I was lucky my tenant agreed to to give them access from 7.,00 am in the morning (their only free available time) - If a tenant limits access hours it can sometimes take weeks to get a plumber to attend when it is convenient for them .
I got out of bed at 5.00am to drive to meet them there so i could authorise what ever work was needed right away and give assurance to my tenants - and act as a runner and pop to the shop for parts)
NOt many landlords and and agents are wiling to go this extra mile - but it costs to be a good landlord !
With regard to mould - it is useful to understand there are two main types of mould - the black mould you see in bathrooms/kitchens caused by condensation. You can do a lot to avoid this by heating your property well and opening windows to ventilate. You can also wipe down showers and baths after you use them and you won’t see it. If a tenant or homeowner does not wipe down a shower after use it wil eventually develop mould stain in the silicone seals - this is not harmful like surface mould but it is unsightly and in my experience the only real way t get rid of it is to remove all the seal and reseal it. THis will mean your shower is can’t be used for a couple of days as after removing and cleaning the surface needs to dry before the new seal is applied. Most landlords wil do this to a schedule but it is not urgent work.
The other sort f mould more clearly is the landlords responsibly and is caused by leaks , rising damp or a landlords failure to maintain the property.
With regard to smells and carpets - check you tenancy agreement. Are carpets provided as part of your tenancy? If you property is let unfurnished and carpets are not excluded you can ask your landlord to remove the previous tenats carpets but then you should replace them at your own expense.
If carpets are included in your agreement then you can ask your landlord to replace them if they are unsuitable, and the landlord should do so in a reasonable time provided you provide him/her or his contractors access to do so.
But be aware ths can be a bit subjective - so smelly carpets might need a clean or replacing - often they smell of dogs and cats where a previous tenant as kept a pet or pets animals and does not realise how bad the smell is because they are used to it. Smells can also be down to drain problems.
But a friend of mine had a medical issue where they smelled bad smells but it was actually down to an infection in their sinuses - so ask a friend to check out the smells too .
You don’t seem happy in your new property . I personally would accept a made a big mistake and give notice that you will be moving out at the end of your fixed agreed period and start searching for alternate properties… but in the end it is your decision
Hi! Thank you for explaining everything in details . I appreciate it . I agree it’s totally our mistake to accept the property without viewing in person. A friend showed us the property over a video call though but it wasn’t clear over the video and I’m not sure why they didn’t bring these points in our notice. We physically viewed several properties on different dates and the travel costs for different viewings plus duration of travel from one city to another is quite a lot and we were also getting short of time with our previous contract so decided to finalize without viewing in person. Now that we have finalized it, we are not really bothering the landlord . But also we think that we should have at-least been given a walkthrough when we first checked in . We just emailed them about the leak down the sink which we sorted with the help of this thread without getting their response. We have tried getting rid of smell , drain flies and all by using some cleaning products on our own. But we also reconciled the inventory list that we were given upon 4-5 days of moving in.
The reason I’ve started this thread is I am looking for suggestions from this forum as we have previously lived in newly constructed apartments and this is our first time at a house . Have no idea how to deal with mold and all. Still not able to figure out if this mold / mildew / damp is dangerous to health specially of a child or is it quite normal in the houses ? Although the viewings I’ve done before in person didn’t have any.
Another thing I am concerned about is , there seems to be a loft / attic which we never opened as it’s not even mentioned in the inventory . Not sure if it’s supposed to be an attic or just an opening to some kind of work panel or something .
It’s the first floor.
Right well keep an eye on that. It’s possible that there’s a leak in the roof which hasn’t been repaired and will reappear when it next rains heavily. You mentioned that there’s a loft. If you’re able to look into the loft hatch during the daytime, inspect the roof and see if you can see any light coming through, especially over the area where that stain is on the ceiling. Alternatively, if you can shine a light into the loft, look for water stains on brickwork and wooden roof timbers. They are telltale signs that there’s an issue with the roof. I would advise you not to actually go into the loft though. Just look into it, and if you do spot something which looks like an issue, write to the LL informing them of what you think the issue might be.
Another thing that’s worth doing is going outside and looking at the guttering all around the house. Look for plants growing in the guttering or water stains under the guttering on the walls/brickwork or patches of green behind downpipes. This is a sign that gutters, hoppers and downpipes are blocked and need cleaning. If you can do this when it’s been pouring with rain for a while, blockages will be more obvious as you’ll see rain pouring down the building rather than the downpipes. Issues with guttering can come through brickwork into the house and cause mould/damp patches to appear, particularly on the inside of exterior walls near the ceiling.
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put on some rubber gloves and soak clumps of cotton wool in bleach. Place them along the sealant. Ventilate the room well and leave overnight. The next day, put the gloves on again and remove the cotton wool and rinse down with water. The sealant should be good as new.
i have tried that many times and it never worked for me - might depend on the type of sealant or how deep the mould penetrated into the silcone - but never had any luck with it !
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