unhealthy home???

hi everyone im just looking for sum advice,
im renting at the moment and the last 5days in the bedroom i have noticed that the walls are dripping wet (like what u would see when u have had a really how shower and your walls get wet in the bathroom) and the blankets are damp and pillows and its only 9 degrees in there, i calld the landlord and she said its condinsation??? i have no idea if shes going to fix it or what shes going to do.... its a fixt term contract and doesint finish untill jan!!!! is this unhealthy for me and mila??? and what can i do???

If it gets mouldy then it can be harmful... we had the same issue... we were told to get a dehum... stupid because landlords need to look at their properties and assets and anything that could potentially go wrong, stuffs it up.

Good luck hun. I managed to escape our wet / mouldy rental last year... had to clean it up best I could and get other tenants in to finish the last 6 months on our lease (and even then I felt bad for doing so).

Running a dehumidifier will help with the warm by getting rid of the damp so theoritically you shouldn't need so much heating hopfully meaning your power bill doesn't change much.

can you maybe try and get out of the lease? even if it's a fixed term, if you make up a decent excuse your landlord might take pity on you...    or try and find someone else to take over the lease?

If I were you I would contact Tenancy Tribunal to see what your rights are.

The last house we rented had a fixed lease. We had leaks in the sitting room, damp/mould in the bedroom along with some unlawful access instances. We were awarded compensation (which we've yet to get ) and got out of our lease.

The landlord had told us that if we found someone else to take over the lease then we could leave. However morally we couldn't do that as the house was so sh*tty.

There are forms you can fill out online which you can use to give notice to the landlord to either 'fix the problems or we're leaving the lease'. It's just $20 to apply.

And yes it is unhealthy for you and Mila. It irritates me so much the sub-standard rentals that are out there.

ETA: We got a building inspection done on the house and the moisture content in our bedroom was up at 40%. Anything over 18% is considered a health risk.

Edited by tishy

Your heating costs will definitely lower with a dehumidifier as they tend to take the wetness and cold out of the air and re circulate it dryer which is easier to heat so you don't need to have your heater on so much.
A typical dehumidifier is about 50c to run for 10hrs which is a lot less than the 40c an hour that a oil column heater can use.
I used to find that in my last place I would run the dehumidifier in Olivia's room during the day when she was asleep and the heater at night, that definitely saves money and it really looks like you need it. A $500 power bill is completely unacceptable.

DH just said a pretty obvious one, if there's lots of trees and bush around have the landlord cut them back or down to allow in natural light. Also leaving the windows "cracked" open, there's window latches that are designed to do this without being a security risk. Your landlord should be happy to pay for these kind of things as it's protecting their investment from damage caused by the damp and mold.

Edited by 2bmumof3

Yeah, we found running our dehum was like having a heater after it took out alot of the wetness out of the air... hard to dry a whole house up though... We use a dehum every day and dont find it expensive to run. I would follow the advice of people above, maybe look into getting a report done on rental with some health hazard people and if you can prove it's disgustingly wet and cold, you may have a leg to stand on with getting out of your lease. Or tell the landlord that the Dr has recommended you move due to your kids health issue and then hopefully she releases you from contract. Good luck!