UK renters living in mouldy damp homes, Digi Mart USA News (United Kingdom): Ellen Rashbrook’s home in Henry Jackson House, a council-owned mansion block in southwest London’s Putney, was so badly affected by mould that water ran down the walls of the bedrooms where she and her two young sons slept. When she complained, Wandsworth Council told her to open the windows more, saying the problem was related to lifestyle.
Rashbrook, a charity fundraiser and former council officer, said spots of mould began appearing in 2013, two years after she moved in with her sons, then aged 10 and 15. She later began to suffer from skin complaints, itchiness, rashes and brain fog, and in 2017 leaks soaked the wooden flooring beneath her bathroom tiles, causing them to rot.
Repeated complaints led to a partial solution: the visible mould was cleaned away and a new floor was laid on top of the old one. By this point Rashbrook was under the care of doctors from rheumatology, dermatology, neurosurgery and two respiratory teams.
In June 2024, one of her doctors at Barts Health Trust wrote that the mould in her flat was “highly likely” to be a major factor in her poor health.
Now 50, Rashbrook is in a legal dispute with the council. The council’s expert witness says only minor work is required, while an expert appointed by her lawyers disagrees.
The two parties will meet in court next year, where the council is seeking an injunction to force her to carry out the minor works without providing alternative accommodation. Rashbrook said, “It’s exhausting.” A Wandsworth Council spokesperson said it would be inappropriate to comment on the case because of the ongoing legal action, but said: “We take the wellbeing of our residents very seriously.”
Experts and campaigners say the case highlights two problems. First, quick fixes often used by landlords can be ineffective and sometimes dangerous, and some firms carrying out the work are profiting in what one industry expert has called the “mould rush.” Second, exposure to mould can cause a wider and deeper range of health problems than is commonly expected.
Air particle surveys in Rashbrook’s flat found mycotoxins, toxic airborne chemical compounds released by mould. Some particles were as small as 0.3 microns, compared with a single strand of human hair at about 70 microns thick.
Such particles can pass the hairs in the nose and throat and settle at the bottom of the lungs, where they can cause serious damage that is not fully understood.
The cost is widespread. According to analysis by the Building Research Establishment, the NHS spends an estimated £1.4bn per year treating illnesses linked to damp, cold and mouldy housing.
The most recent English Housing Survey estimated that 1.4 million dwellings had a damp problem, the majority of them rented, and 142,000 were considered a Category 1 hazard, the most severe. Damp affects 10 per cent of privately rented homes and 7 per cent of socially rented homes.
Lisa Malyon, founder of the UK Centre for Mould Safety, described mould as “an avoidable national health crisis that is costing the UK billions in physical and mental health illness.” Average private rents have increased 35.8 per cent since January 2020, to an average of £1,387 per month. In London, a two-bedroom home costs on average £2,232 a month to rent, up from £1,643 a decade ago.
Industry experts say recent legal changes meant to protect renters will not necessarily solve the problem. Awaab’s Law, named after two-year-old Awaab Ishak, who died from exposure to serious damp in his family’s home in 2020, applied to social housing from October last year and is expected to extend to private rented homes in 2027 under the Renters’ Rights Act.
It requires landlords to investigate reports of damp and mould within 10 days and fix them within a further five. Carl Reid, a damp and mould surveyor with Swift Maintenance Solutions, said the law had a negative effect on parts of the industry, with cleaners, decorators and roofers presenting themselves as experts.
Such firms often wash mould off with biocides and paint walls, but the air can remain filled with mycotoxins.
The exact health effects of mould are not fully settled in medical science. In the US, Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome is a recognised outcome of mould exposure, with 13 types of symptom included in its definition, but the broad range of symptoms makes diagnosis difficult.
Dr Catrin Moore, a reader in global health and infectious diseases at City St George’s, said more research is needed. She said her own symptoms improved after she left a home where a leak had caused damp and mould.
The World Health Organisation recognises poor indoor air quality as “an important risk factor to human health,” citing the hundreds of species of bacteria and fungi that grow indoors when moisture is available. Yet mould in homes is often treated as a cosmetic problem to be cleaned away, rather than a health risk that is largely unseen in the air.
