Tweet
Rental flat ventilation and general neglect
Me and my girlfriend have moved into a ground floor rental flat which consists of 2 floors, the ground floor and the basement.
As Wales wasn't allowing viewings during the pandemic we took the house based on a video but now we've been here for a week we've realised there are a lot of issues with general upkeep but our main concerns are the windows and ventilation.
The whole property is single glazed and the wood is very old and falling apart in places. Our biggest concern is the basement.
The basement level is where the main bathroom is with the shower and the second bedroom of the property which is the biggest nicer looking room so we've moved down there. As soon as you walk down the steps you can feel there is an obvious drop in temperature and whenever we use the shower the whole basement level steams up and there's only a tiny window in the bathroom. There is an extractor fan but it doesn't work but I'm guessing this was installed because there were previous damp issues. You can tell that damp and mould have grown before from all the marks on the walls.
In the bedroom there is a single-window too which we do usually keep slightly open but general ventilation down there is really bad. Both me and my girlfriend woke up absolutely soaked and dripping a few nights ago because of the condensation build-up. Being cold down there anyway we don't want to keep the small windows open all the time especially in the winter and we have concerns with how damp and cold it's going to get down there in the winter months.
We met the landlord on our move in day when he gave us our keys and he told us that he wouldn't use the downstairs bedroom himself because it's cold down there but if the bedroom is not suitable to be lived in then the flat should have never been advertised as a 2 bedroom house.
We've contacted the landlord but I'm not holding my breath at the moment. He's obviously aware of the issues and has never bothered to fix them. The extractor fan in the bathroom must have been added to help with the ventilation but he has never bothered to fix it when it broke.
Any help or advice would be really appreciated. We currently feel we've been bit hard done by as we were never made aware of any of these issues and the video tour we had to go on never highlighted just how rundown the property is.
As Wales wasn't allowing viewings during the pandemic we took the house based on a video but now we've been here for a week we've realised there are a lot of issues with general upkeep but our main concerns are the windows and ventilation.
The whole property is single glazed and the wood is very old and falling apart in places. Our biggest concern is the basement.
The basement level is where the main bathroom is with the shower and the second bedroom of the property which is the biggest nicer looking room so we've moved down there. As soon as you walk down the steps you can feel there is an obvious drop in temperature and whenever we use the shower the whole basement level steams up and there's only a tiny window in the bathroom. There is an extractor fan but it doesn't work but I'm guessing this was installed because there were previous damp issues. You can tell that damp and mould have grown before from all the marks on the walls.
In the bedroom there is a single-window too which we do usually keep slightly open but general ventilation down there is really bad. Both me and my girlfriend woke up absolutely soaked and dripping a few nights ago because of the condensation build-up. Being cold down there anyway we don't want to keep the small windows open all the time especially in the winter and we have concerns with how damp and cold it's going to get down there in the winter months.
We met the landlord on our move in day when he gave us our keys and he told us that he wouldn't use the downstairs bedroom himself because it's cold down there but if the bedroom is not suitable to be lived in then the flat should have never been advertised as a 2 bedroom house.
We've contacted the landlord but I'm not holding my breath at the moment. He's obviously aware of the issues and has never bothered to fix them. The extractor fan in the bathroom must have been added to help with the ventilation but he has never bothered to fix it when it broke.
Any help or advice would be really appreciated. We currently feel we've been bit hard done by as we were never made aware of any of these issues and the video tour we had to go on never highlighted just how rundown the property is.
