Wednesday 26 February 2014

If we owned our flat

I kind of forgot about these! Last one was in November.

Anyway, I still have things I'd do if this flat was ours. Number one at the moment would be ventilation. We are getting mould again, I wrote this post in March last year when we had a small amount and this year it has come back with a vengeance despite us running the dehumidifier and opening the window whenever we can. Condensation damp mostly, as there isn't any ventilation other than the extractor in the bathroom.
This was what it was like a month or so ago (sometime in January), I cleaned it all off the walls and off our furniture and ottoman from Toms wardrobe.
That is meant to be dark brown. Nice.

It is coming up again already though, and the bedroom gets very damp. We had our inspection last weekend and Landlord has some people coming out to look into ventilation this week. Actually he was very good about it, no blaming us for it or trying to get out of it (I was ready to make my case but he just said he'd sort it) which can be the case with damp and landlords...not all of course but I've had issues in the past and have heard similar form other tenants. Things like them saying it's not a problem and we should just live with it or clean the walls more often, or it's our fault for not opening windows (Although we do I'm obsessed with fresh air) or there's nothing they can do. Most of them are bull really, unless you never open the windows and dry washing inside all the time it is unlikely to be your fault and the ventilation needs to be looked at or some damp proofing needs to be done.

In my opinion we need a new window, as the current set up of old window then secondary glazing isn't keeping out the cold and it's always covered in condensation. A modern double gazed window with ventilation would be better. Also an extractor in the kitchen would help to keep the moisture at bay as when we are cooking it gets very moist in here, even with windows open. Apparently the people coming are looking at some ventilation system that goes in the wall, it lets air out and heats it on the way back in so it will help keep the bedroom warmer too. Whatever it is as long as it gets rid of this I'm happy!



This was really hard to get in a photo but you might be able to see in one of these, most of the bad stuff was on the wall with the window but it went onto the other walls in a fine mist.
Apologies for the rubbish photos I was too busy moving furniture out, scrubbing with bleach and trying not to breath in too many mould spores to really sort out lighting and photo quality. Hopefully this will be sorted before next winter (It's better in the summer as we leave the windows open constantly and we dry all our washing outside and there is less damp in the air generally) and I'll just have to clean it one more time...

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