I don’t think I have ever seen a house to rent in my area that doesn’t have some kind of mould issue somewhere in the property. Landlords don’t give a fuck about it until it comes to the tennant moving out then suddenly it is an issue worthy of trying to get as much of the deposit money from them as possible.

Ah yes, we had this in a house many moons ago. Literally had mushrooms growing out of the wall in the cellar. My son had breathing issues every time he got a cold, and had blue lips and a 2 day stay in the hospital.

Asked the landlord to sort it and he promised tth earth and delivered fuck all.

So we moved out and got another place. That place didn’t have black mold half as bad but the pipe from my toilet had a massive hole in it, so every time you went for a shit, you found it in the garden.

So we told the landlord about it and he came and wrapped something meant for an exhaust pipe around it. Stupid old cunt.

It lasted a couple of days and then, “oh look, there’s my turds in the garden again!” So we took photos of the turds and the pipe and threatened to report him and he finally had someone come and fix it properly.

Then someone kicked in the door that wouldn’t lock and burgled everything of value 12 days before Xmas and we moved out.

This place is far more expensive, but I’ll tell you what, there’s very few issues with it. We’ve lived here for 8 years now. When there’s a problem we let the letting agent know and a proper company comes out to sort it out.

So my advice is to rent from a letting agency rather than a dude who owns a couple of houses for a bit of side money.

Reported a window in my daughter’s room that had the seal (the black thing that goes between the glass and the plastic) because it’s literally falling out in multiple places.

Absolutely nothing has been done about it. Don’t get me started on the broken radiator in my son’s room. It just doesn’t warm up.

So yeah. They don’t give a shit unless it’s a legal issue for them, and even then they’re just as likely to remove the tenants and find someone more… willing to overlook the issue.

Guess I’ll submit more tickets this morning…

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Government figures suggest that more than 520,000 rented properties in England have hazards that pose “a serious and immediate risk to a person’s health and safety” – a large proportion of these being cold, damp and mould.

He said: “Poor quality housing is having a profound effect on children’s health and leading to significantly raised admission sources for longer periods.” He added that it was costing the economy millions of pounds a year in time taken off work, and contributing to strain on the NHS.

The link between poor quality housing and ill health has become more prominent since the Covid pandemic and the inquest last year into the death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak, who died as a direct result of black mould in the flat he lived in.

Local authorities, which are responsible for overseeing the private rented sector, say their environmental health and housing teams are chronically under-resourced so the majority of complaints do not result in any formal action.

Dr Camilla Kingdon, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said the body was encouraging paediatricians to ask about housing when reviewing children with lung issues, but she called on the government to do more to improve standards.

“The UK has some of the very worst housing stock in Europe and evidence shows a rising number of families are living in poor quality accommodation, with detrimental impacts on children’s health.

The original article contains 947 words, the summary contains 235 words. Saved 75%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

I’m curious, as there is a lot of correlation but not necessarily causation proved here.

This is not to say that landlords aren’t scum, however, is some of this due to the sort of housing that gets picked up and flipped into rentals?

Ultimately, is our problem landlords and banning them would magically fix everything, or have we got problems with people living in extremely cheap 60-70’s era housing that is failing?

I own and live in a former 1970 council house, and I spend a stupid amount of time and money replacing shitty construction work, which included water ingress, poor foundations, inadequate ventilation. The problem is that we aren’t building so I have no better prospects to buy and move to.

I can’t imagine landlords spending the tens of thousands I have, just to keep on top of the poor quality building work, but then I also couldn’t see many people I know who rent spending the sort of money I’ve needed if they actually did own.