How do you know the difference?
We have a huge mould problem in our house and hubby says some of it is condensation which is our fault and I say it is general damp.
The landlord says it is condensation but most of the mould forms on outside walls and I think any condensation on windows etc is from the the damp that is already in the house. Even the clothes in my chest of drawers is getting mouldy and surely THAT isn't condensate?
We have a tumble dryer and apart from a week or so when it was not working we do not dry clothes on the radiators.

After answering an advert I place looking for accommodation that allows dogs (and I did tell him I had 4) he now says we only told him we had one and he wants the others away or us to move. We have been looking for another house but worry he will try to take our deposit over the what I think is damp. He has been told about broken windows electrics and a leak in the bay window and one of the bedrooms. Some of the things he was supposed to fix BEFORE we moved in! he now says we did the damage. Hubby and I photograph the house before we moved in and he records all conversations with the landlord for this exact reason. The last landlord did the same. Said we could have dogs then said we lied about how many we had (which I did not). We always place an advert so they know in advance we had dogs.

What do you think...about it damp or condensation?

Cheers
Julie

Oh no what a situation :(

I don't know much about the differences between damp & condensation mould but I don't have problems with mould on my clothes.

I use the tumble dryer a lot (in the winter) that is not vented through a wall, I just pull the hose into the middle of the kitchen and open a window. I usually have at least several t-towels drying over radiators and pairs of jeans or 'heavy' laundry itmes hanging over doors to dry (or partly dry before going in the tumble-dryer). I must do at least 20 washing loads a week - thats a lot of washing dried in the house.

We do get some mould on upstairs window frames. They get covered in condensation, but the mould is not as bad since I have been openeing the windows upstairs more often (used to keep them shut constantly due to my fear of spiders, but I've now got insect nets over the windows so I can open them 'safely').

My porch has no heating and gets VERY cold, the coats hanging out there always feel freezing, but even they have never had mould starting to grow on them - not even my 'dog walking' coat which is covered in slobber and always has a pocket full of cheese.

I lived in a house years ago where the clothes went moldy, turned out there was no cavity insulation. That was sorted and no mold after that.

Cavity wall insulation can cause mould.

Possible remedies.

Even just being in a house causes pints of water to be absorbed into the atmosphere and from there it will condense on any cold surface, windows and wall so the people and pets in a home are causing no end of water and that is without that produced by cooking and washing.

So really your question is difficult to answer, all houses have moisture being produced within but some do not suffer from mould because the walls are not too cold and the windows are opened because there is enough heating in the home to allow this. Think the days of open fires did help in this regards because the fire draws in air and then expels it into the chimney along with the damp produced by the occupants, sadly radiators don't do this.

You have damp hun, not condensation. Though I guess you could have both?

If your clothes are beginning to smell that is a sure sign of damp.

I had a poor friend who once bought a bungalow it was lovely but built over an underground stream, you could smell the damp but not always see it and unfortunately it infects everything, everything begins to smell. She had even had her clothes dry cleaned but the smell just would not go.

I would move out quick and fast before you have to trash everything because it smells, so pleased you have taken photo's and kept all communications, well done! :-) See if in the letting terms the insurance will cover your items as wood and materials will all soon smell of damp.

Hope you find somewhere soon, you don't want to stay there.

I am inclined to think as Nova does that this is most likely to be condensation.  When we bought our cottage 10 years ago there was mould everwhere and particularly on the walls above the beds clearly indicating that moisture from bodies and their breathings was playing a big part.  A chap and his two teenage sons and two dogs lived there and I don't think they ever opened a window.

We only use it at weekends, we don't have a tumble drier and we fitted an extractor over the cooker.  When we are there we heat it adequately and have windows open and following the initial redecorating have never seen even a scrap of mould not even in the bath and shower rooms that do not have any extractors.

I think you cannot really be sure, though, unless you try heating and ventilating differently and seeing if it has any effect or perhaps have an expert survey done but that is likely to cost more than a lost deposit.

Freewayz - although I understand it will be tricky finding new accomodation that will allow your 4 dogs personally I think all that damp (be it mould or condensation) is very bad for your health. If it was me I would want out of there pronto. So if the landlord wants you out, it may be a blessing in disguise. Is you tumble drier vented?

Alternatively you could speak to the landlord about improving the way the property is ventilated.
It costs money to maintain the fabric of a house and it is a fact of life that tenants will never pay that premium, why should they?  Therefore it is the interest of anyone that lets a property to do whatever they can in terms of supplying vents for appliances and in kitchen and bathrooms, trickle vents in bedrooms etc.
Properties that will take dogs are not that plentiful but neither will the landlord find another tenant anymore willing to pay over the ends to ensure the upkeep of his property so it may be possible to persuade him it could be in both your interests to sort out whatever it needs to improve these living conditions.  If he won't then the other poster is right, for the good of your health, you need to look for alternative accomodation.

Im sorry for your problems.My daughter is being evicted next month-also a bad landlord who took ages to do-or bodge-any repairs.The environmental health got on to him to damp proof the place,make the electrics safe,etc(theyve 3 small kids),but hes not given a reason for wanting them out, on the letter.Theyve got nowhere,looking for a house, as its always"no pets"and they have both cats and 3 elderly dogs.
Probably,if she does find somewhere else,itll be a blessing in disguise,but its such a worry,as her eldest daughter is deaf,her school gets funding for people to help her,so she needs to stay in the area.So I know Ive not been any help,but I do so sympathise,and wish you well.

Our house is poorly heated. Most of the radiators do not work despite having them bled. Some of them we can't get the knobs to turn to get them on. LL has been asked to fix this. A couple of windows don't close properly. We are using electric radiators and a gas heater for the big room. The chimney where the boiler vent goes up has the flashing off and water leaks into one of the bedrooms. We can't use it. His guy was supposed to have fixed it but obviously did not. And as said before the bay window leaks when it rains heavily...and the downstairs toilet wont flush if it rains.(strange but true)
The first 6 months we had no upstairs lights and he finally sent a guy to sort that..but the other ceiling lights are dodgy.
The decor of the bathrooms is 70's or 80's Cranberry and avocado bathroom fittings. He did put in new kitchen cupboards but still left the original flooring and walls..

Sometimes our house is colder inside than out. We are trying to move but with the dogs it is hard. We do open the windows but when it is really cold we are trying to keep what rooms can be heated warm..the one big room only as a sliding glass door and the windows at the top end of the rooms do not open at all.
Before we moved in we asked was the house warm and he assured us it was..we have since found out he should be providing us with a energy rating certificate...he has none.
I have asthma and mould allergies so it is important we get out..But a lot of our stuff has mould growing out of it. I moved a bedroom table from the wall the other day and realised what I had thought was dust was in fact mould. The set of drawers where my mouldy clothes are was covered top to bottom in the back as well. Now I clean but didn't think to move a heavy old fashioned set of drawers away to check for mould...never had to do it apart from the odd time for dusting. That thing weighs a ton and it is very tall I am 5'10 and it is maybe 2-3 inches shorter than me.
Hubby clean out his room today and everything touching an outside wall was covered in mould.

Our dryer is vented outside and is in the garage so not even in house.

I understand people make a certain amount of moisture and adding the dogs in too..but I've lived in some dumps before and never has mould been such a problem. Hubby is for getting environmental guys out..
We live in Northern Ireland so I'm not sure if the rules are the same..but we are really needing to know if we are at fault or he is...and would contents insurance cover mould damage to our stuff?

He always kept promising to send his guy round...but never did..we asked many times.
We accepted a lower standard of decoration because we have dogs...but state of repairs should be better.:-(

Cheers
I bit long winded sorry..:-)

Julie

Have you moved to our old house??

We had very similar problems and the landlord acted in very similar manner...

We too were told we only told them of one dog and would need to pay non refundable deposit for the one we did not tell them about (£600 in total).
This was after all the issues had started so it was clear the house had serious issues anyways, we had lived there for 6 months by the time they came around (despite me constantly inviting them to view the issues for months).
They were actually at at the house when saying this so could see there was no "doggy damage"(never mind the mould all over the house!).
Luckily I had emails where I clearly state the number to them so they had to drop that one when I forwarded the email on...

We were constantly told it is us causing the mould, condensation from us drying our clothes etc.
We are a two adult family so do very few loads of washing, never had issues in previous houses...
They had builders around who replaced the rendering on one wall as the rendering was cracked and lifted all around the house but only one wall was fixed...
The builder told us he had told them before we moved in the rendering needs re-doing or they will have problems but they told the previous tenants let them down so they have no money (neighbour told they left because of the issues we were having)...

Quite early on I started to communicate via email so I could keep what was said, when it was said, proof of us sending pictures etc.
That was a wise move as multiple times I could refer to emails and what was actually said!

I suffered for months in end with sinus issues etc but it is very hard to find a property that accepts pets(3 giant dogs) so we were stuck there till we could find another house.

We did get environmental health around after fighting with them for nearly a year (constantly looking for another property) and EH confirmed there are issues with the house, it is not us. We had rising damp&moisture coming through the walls.
I think this was the reason we got our deposit back, I don't think without the outside influence we would have got it...
As they still wanted us to do full notice (2 months) etc once we found somewhere else and EH said there is no way problems can be fixed whilst somebody lives in there so really they had no need to keep us paying.
They did tell us we can of course go early and will get a refund if they find somebody else to move in!

I was also promptly told I could be making it all up so I provided them with a doctors note...
This was despite me being in constant contact with them from when the problems started showing through the paint(everything was freshly painted when we moved in)and telling them about my worry of getting ill and then that I was ill with symptoms that are very typical of mould and we had mould growing in all but 1 room! Of course I was making it all up!

I really feel for you :( :(
Last year was the worst year of my life, I kind of slept through the whole year and was constantly ill (and very stressed)!
It really is pretty disgusting how little rights you have as a tenant when things go wrong :( and it does happen a lot when you start asking around, people moving to a dodgy house, fighting it&moving out...
It obviously is worth their while even if people only stay the minimum period... slap paint on and next poor people move in...
Most people who I spoke to had not gone to environmental health etc as once you are out of there you are just happy to be out!