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Damp Rental

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  • 07-09-2010 12:45am
    #1
    taxignorant
    Registered Users Posts: 125 ✭✭


    Renting a house, realised shortly after moving in that there are some damp problems. It had a musty smell due to being unoccupied for a number of months previous to our moving in. Thought (naively) that this would go away once we had the heating on regularly and had the windows open.

    However, there has been some water coming up through the tiles on the kitchen floor, almost like it is sweating. The smells have persisted in the presses even after being repeatedly washed with dettol and aired out. On top of this two radiators are leaky and the bath has leaked through the ceiling. (The plaster is visibly wet downstairs).

    The smells in the presses are turning me off my food and kind of concerned about inhaling spores etc. Can deal with the rads by just turning those two off. Any suggestions on negotiating with the landlord in order to get stuff investigated? I get the impression they don't want to go opening a can of worms because were subletting, and I do understand this stuff can be hugely expensive.

    I'm not sure there is damp proofing or if the damp proofing has perhaps been bridged (the back of the house is built up against a hill). Or is it just normal to have damp in an old house? We also have no washing line or space for a dryer so I think that is compounding the problem because we're using a clothes horse. Can you get rid of damp like this with a dehumidifer or will the walls end up wrecked?


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    #2
    convert
    Registered Users Posts: 9,338 ✭✭✭convert


    A dehumidifier is great, but only as a short term solution. The fact that the whole place smells damp and musty suggests that there's a serious problem that really needs to be sorted out ASAP.

    As a tenant you are entitled to a 'habitable' property that won't cause health problems.

    Mention it to your landlord, and see if you can come to an arrangment. It shouldn't matter if you're subletting or not. If they don't want to rectify it, then tell them you'll get onto the council about having a health officer (I think that's the title, not 100% sure, though) come out and inspect the house.


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    #3
    convert
    Registered Users Posts: 9,338 ✭✭✭convert


    There's also been a few previous threads on the issue. A quick search threw up this result:

    http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055926369&highlight=mould

    Might be of some help


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