desperateDan
New Member
Hi everyone. Hope someone can help out with this. Sorry it's a long post for my first one, but we're pretty desperate to find out what is causing our problem and to get a solution that lasts more than a few months.
We have a rental property which I and my dad lived in for over a decade before we rented it. Three bed mid-terrace 1935 with full loft insulation and cavity wall insulation too. While my dad and I lived there, we just stripped walls back to original plaster and lined them and painted them. I say this to let you know that we never had a mould problem in the house historically. Ever.
Prior to private rental, we refurbed the house. This was in October 2015. We hired a reputable building firm to do most of the work, but a separate plasterer to do the plastering. He didn't get on with the builders and it was hard to manage him. He did the entire house and it looked fab. The builders decorated once the plaster had dried out and we let the property shortly after to a young mum and her three young kids. They were delighted with it.
About a year into the tenancy, the tenant complained about dust appearing on the walls particularly in bedrooms although it has subsequently appeared in the rooms under the bedrooms. See attached images. It smeared when they tried to wipe it off and had a musty smell. She was concerned for her kids' health. We couldn't contact original plasterer. He was a one man show and seemed to have vanished. We got in other experienced plasterers and also the original builders. No one knew what it was or had ever seen anything like it.
Landlord forums I was on suggested it was tenant's lifestyle and not ventilating properly. Tenant was known by letting agent to have kept her previous properties with them immaculately and we now know her well enough to know this is true. She ventilates regularly. We even got the council's environmental officer in who confirmed that it wasn't mould. We knew historically that there was no mould in the property.
We tried sugar soap washing it down. A few months later, it was back. We tried washing and then redecorating with silk emulsion. A few months later, it came back. The photos are from last week so that's three years into the problem. We're now considering washing it down with some sort of barrier wash and then lining it and painting with silk emulsion over the top. But we've no guarantee of success with this either. That will also be a really difficult job to perform on the ceilings.
Have any of you ever seen anything this or got any idea what's causing it? Did we get shafted by a disgruntled plasterer who added something to the mix he shouldn't have done? Any suggestions how we tackle this?
Lots of thanks in advance...
We have a rental property which I and my dad lived in for over a decade before we rented it. Three bed mid-terrace 1935 with full loft insulation and cavity wall insulation too. While my dad and I lived there, we just stripped walls back to original plaster and lined them and painted them. I say this to let you know that we never had a mould problem in the house historically. Ever.
Prior to private rental, we refurbed the house. This was in October 2015. We hired a reputable building firm to do most of the work, but a separate plasterer to do the plastering. He didn't get on with the builders and it was hard to manage him. He did the entire house and it looked fab. The builders decorated once the plaster had dried out and we let the property shortly after to a young mum and her three young kids. They were delighted with it.
About a year into the tenancy, the tenant complained about dust appearing on the walls particularly in bedrooms although it has subsequently appeared in the rooms under the bedrooms. See attached images. It smeared when they tried to wipe it off and had a musty smell. She was concerned for her kids' health. We couldn't contact original plasterer. He was a one man show and seemed to have vanished. We got in other experienced plasterers and also the original builders. No one knew what it was or had ever seen anything like it.
Landlord forums I was on suggested it was tenant's lifestyle and not ventilating properly. Tenant was known by letting agent to have kept her previous properties with them immaculately and we now know her well enough to know this is true. She ventilates regularly. We even got the council's environmental officer in who confirmed that it wasn't mould. We knew historically that there was no mould in the property.
We tried sugar soap washing it down. A few months later, it was back. We tried washing and then redecorating with silk emulsion. A few months later, it came back. The photos are from last week so that's three years into the problem. We're now considering washing it down with some sort of barrier wash and then lining it and painting with silk emulsion over the top. But we've no guarantee of success with this either. That will also be a really difficult job to perform on the ceilings.
Have any of you ever seen anything this or got any idea what's causing it? Did we get shafted by a disgruntled plasterer who added something to the mix he shouldn't have done? Any suggestions how we tackle this?
Lots of thanks in advance...