Interview 04
Transcript from interview with survey respondent, John. The interview took place via Zoom, as John no longer lived in London. Text has been redacted in cases of personally identifying information (of the interviewee or others they know), irrelevance, and the interviewees asking for certain topics not to be recorded.
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| Me | So what I’ve been doing is to kind of help contextualise, especially, if the person I’m interviewing say doesn’t live in the house that had dam anymore is ask if you could start by telling me a bit about where you were living that had damp, like who you lived with, where whereabouts was it? That sort of thing. |
| John | Yeah, so it was – I was living alone. I was very, very lucky. It seemed implausible, an implausible thing to happen. But I got this place that was a studio essentially, a studio flat. It was quite a large, I mean, for that kind of situation, it was quite a large living space. So I was, I was very lucky with it and lots of ways. Although I mean, the kitchenette and the shower room were absolutely tiny. And, you know, it’s very shabby. I mean, I guess that’s, you know, most places anyway, really isn’t it rent in terms of renting in London. But very shabby and lots of flaws, which I knew when I took it on. But, yeah. Yeah. So it was like, yeah, I was very lucky in that situation anyway. It was in West Hampstead, so part of the borough of Camden, the comparatively posh bit of it. But if you – I mean, I think some people think when I say West Hampstead, they think Hamstead – it’s not Hampstead, it’s West Hampstead. I mean, it’s, you know, it’s closer to Kilburn than Hampstead. But it is nevertheless, fairly well to do likes, relatively speaking. And it’s not as pricey. INAUDIBLE. |
| Me | That was super useful. You said you were renting privately. Was it through an estate agents? Like, were there property managers or was it kind of more direct to the landlord? In terms of like who you contacted or things like that? |
| John | Yes, that’s a good question. It was direct to the landlords, but they kind of had – the landlords were a company, seemingly. They had an office, a very small office in Chalk Farm, but then quite often, the landlord would be sort of referred to by name, by correspondence. And the impression I had at the beginning was that it’s through a company – well, it, it’s not just an impression it was through a company – but it’s obviously an extremely small company being run very directly by the landlord if that makes sense. Like the landlord obviously had a portfolio of properties, and he made enough to actually keep an office and employ a couple of members of staff. But it was directed to the landlord essentially. I guess there was an error of an air of professionalism like you get with an agency, um, which is maybe relevant to my decision making but I can’t really remember. I think I’m not too taken in by that kinda thing. |
| Me | And how long ago did you live there again? Just for my memory. I have down that you had the damp problem for 5 years. |
| John | Yeah. Um, I think I moved out in 2018, so, and I think I moved in, in, I think it was 2012 to 2018. Ish. Is that right? Yeah. The main, yeah. Yeah. I can check exactly. |
| Me | No, no, the exactness isn’t – it’s more, it’s interesting to get a sense of context. So if you lived there from 2012 to 2018, and I think you said to me you had the problem with damp for five years – so was that the majority of the time then that you were living at the flat? |
| John | Yeah, it was the whole time really. It never went away. I can’t remember if I was aware of it when I looked at the place. Probably not. Although I don’t – I can imagine, I might still have decided to take it on, even if I was aware of it. But yeah, I remember I raised it with the landlord quite early on. And I guess we’ll get onto this maybe, but I basically ultimately decided to live with it essentially for a long while. Yeah. And I mean, they refused to resolve it essentially. And, in the end there were things I did to sort of help it, to help the issue. But essentially it was the whole. |
| Me | And was there like, once you moved in, was there a kind of point where you noticed – where you became aware of it as a problem? Or was it something that kind of gradually you became more aware, or it rained once and it got a lot worse or winter came and it got a lot worse? |
| John | I think, uh, so I think probably fairly soon after I moved. I moved some furniture and realised it was an issue – it was quite visible in the walls in certain places. Probably been hidden to a degree. So I think that was quite evident then. And that’s the point where I raised it. I think – I don’t think I’d lived anywhere with damp before, lived in a place of other issues, and I don’t – so at that point I didn’t appreciate how much of an issue it was. So for one thing, like I heard later, like how it can affect your health in long term ways, which you may not be aware of. And that’s something I don’t think I was aware of then at all. I didn’t know that. But also later much later on, I realised it was damaging lots of my belongings. But early on at that stage, I didn’t realise that was an issue. I sort of recognized… I mean, I thought of it as more of an aesthetic issue than anything else. You know, there’s mould there and I thought, you know, it wasn’t good. Like it implies other potentially other pests and vermin, I guess, maybe. And it’s obviously something you don’t want, but I didn’t fully appreciate how much of an issue it was. So that’s sort of a bit of context, but basically, yeah, I think more or less, as soon as I moved in, I realised there was an issue. |
| Me | And you say later on you kind of became aware, so it was damaging your belongings and the impact it could have on your health. Was there like a turning point for you when you kind of became more aware of this? Or was it just more cumulative? |
| John | Yean. Um, in terms of the health thing, I think it was just something I read somewhere or somebody said, I think it might have been something that, something I heard other people talk about. Possibly I’ve got one particular friend who’s got, who’s chronically ill with
asthma. And they talked to me about their experiences of living in a property. And they had something, which then later happened with me. And I think this is separate to the damp issue as such, but where the bathroom had bare wood work and the mushroom cropped up, they had that. So it was a bit less of a shock for me when it happened, because it happened to them before I’d heard about this issue. Byt yeah, they talked a lot about the chronic health issues, so I think it was probably particularly through them that I was aware of that as a notion. That it sort of can have long term effects and things that you may not, you know, there’s never any acute health issue that I was aware of. But the notion that it can have invisible effects. And in terms of property, I can’t… I’m straining my memory a bit, but there was definitely a point where I realised various things, particularly paper and leather items, I suddenly realised they were mouldy. And I think for a long time I didn’t realise, just a lot of stuff, which was, you know, paper things, so lots of like notebooks and, and scrapbooks and things. I just had stacks up, which I never looked at really, they were just there. And some leather things were in there as well. And there was – I had like a leather bag, I think. And again, I wasn’t really using it. It was just on a hook. And there’s just this point where I suddenly realised, oh, no, like a significant portion of my things are mouldy, but all on the backside, especially if they’re resting against the wall or what have you. And I hadn’t appreciated – I mean, I guess it seems naive – but I don’t think I appreciated how much it would transfer to things before that. And yeah, there was definitely a point where I had a bit of a panicked situation of recognising a very large part of things I own have been affected by it. |
| Me | I feel like it always shocks me when that happens. Cause it’s like something about it being on a wall feels kind of separate to like your stuff and things. |
| John | That’s yeah, exactly. Yeah. It feels like an issue with the property and, and of course the nature of rental property is that you’re a bit nomadic, you’re moving around and everything, and you kind of think… It’s the one, like there’s a lot of bad things about it, but it’s the one thing which almost, I mean, it’s not in itself a good thing in itself, but you can feel, at least, at least you’ve got mobility in that situation. At least you feel like you can just move on and just leave a place behind. Um, and there’s an, an emotional sense of that as well as the literal physical aspect of that. And yeah, you sort of think of you and your belongings as being free of the property, I guess. |
| Me | No. Yeah, for sure. I was wondering, so you obviously have moved out of the property now. Was the damp issues a motivating factor in doing so, or was it unrelated? |
| John | It was, yeah, it was a moving factor. Though I was quite sick of the place and it took extra work. Cause I say like, I just got into this routine of like, routinely I’d scrub down the walls with soap and water, which did make a difference actually. But, and various bits of property, I would just make sure I, I started buying loads of silica gel and putting it in all my like drawers and boxes and things. Bought a dehumidifier all these sorts of things, these extra things I had to do – I got a bit sick of that and just the unpleasantness of it. But I would say that the main factor for me moving was other things really was, it was primarily – I mean, basically just struggling in life in general. And I managed to move to a place that was 10 minutes walk away from where I worked. Which meant a lot of sacrifices in various ways. I mean the place was literally – I never actually got otot measuring it, but the entire place was dramatically smaller than most bedrooms I think, absolutely tiny. And the walls – people talk about paper thin walls, but it was literally a partition between me and the next flat. It wasn’t so much them disturbing me, but anything I did, the slightest thing I did disturbed them and they would bang on the walls. Lots of sacrifices to that place, but it allowed me to be 10 minutes walk from work. But that didn’t have a particular issue with damp. Although my friend with asthma refused, after being in there once they refused to go there again, cause they felt like it wasn’t a healthy place. |
| Me | And in terms of when you are looking then – I guess since – for somewhere to live, do you feel like you’re more aware of like, oh, this wall looks like it could get a bit damp or like, oh, I don’t know, this bathroom might get a mushroom when you’re on viewings? |
| John | Yeah. So, it so happens I haven’t done too much of that. I mean, I guess I was very lucky with finding this places really, arguably you know, in terms of the very low bar set by renting in London. I guess I was very lucky with the place I found. Also, maybe partly how I looked, how I researched the type of place I looked for, but, yeah, I never actually viewed that many places when I moved. And since then I’ve moved in with family, since COVID I moved in with family, which again, I’m very lucky to be able to do. So I haven’t actually had that much opportunity to do that. But I think I would be, yeah, I think I’ll be a lot me, more acutely aware of the consequences of damp. It’s not necessarily that I would be more likely to spot it. I have to say, I don’t think I know particularly why it happens in certain places and not in others, really. There was no obvious cause actually that I was aware of in that place – nothing visible. I guess I should actually learn about that really. Well, saying that, I guess there was one place I viewed where – it was out of London, it was during COVID where I thought I could go somewhere where the rent is super cheap, and cos I was again very lucky to be working from home during COVID. And suddenly I didn’t have to be in London, and I viewed a place and it really suited me in so many ways. But I remember going in and as always, like, it looked far better in pictures than it did in reality. But I remember walking into a room and the windowsill, there was a hole in the windowsill. And it kind of rotted through and there was this big hole underneath it. And it didn’t actually look, I mean, it looked, I mean, that’s quite terrible and it did look terrible by itself, but it didn’t look besides that as if there was any damp issue. It didn’t look damp. I think I might have even touched it. And there was no evidence of damp as such. But it was really that, that one thing which stuck in my mind and made me decide, no, I’m not gonna take this place, even though it suited me a lot. And I’d kind of got my heart set on it a little bit. So yeah, in that instance definitely did. In a nutshell. |
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| Me | I was interested in something you said about, I guess not knowing the cause and the flat you were living in. I wondered, I presume, because it was a studio flat, that there were other flats in the building around it? |
| John | Uh, yeah. Yeah, that’s right. I mean, so on the ground floor, there were just two flats, mine and one other. I was on the ground floor. Both sort, quite largeish, but yeah, there were loads of flats upstairs. I mean, I didn’t really get to see upstairs. It wasn’t – didn’t feel right to go up. But there were actually an quite astonishing number of them. I think I asked the landlord and, um, I might be confusing it with the place I moved into afterwards, but I think they said 17 flats, which is quite astonishing for a house, essentially a big house. Like it, I mean, it would have been a big house that had been sort of divided. And I think a lot of the flats must have been dramatically smaller than the one I was in. But, as I think about it, I think that might have been the place moved into afterwards. Nevertheless, there were a lot of people there in a house. But behind me, I think there might have been a basement underneath my flat, but I didn’t have access to it, but I heard voices when the maintenance people were in. There was a little room, which was kind of an extension where the washing machine and everything was, nearish my flat, but it wasn’t really connected to it directly. So I don’t think that was a factor. Yeah, I think the main living space. So I guess, in terms of what caused it, part of it maybe was, the shower room and the kitchenette were in the corridor at the back. And they only had a very small window in the kitchen and no ventilation directly in the shower room. And they connected via just an open corridor to the living space, which is really big and which had quite a few windows. And I, you know, I keep windows open all the time pretty much. I don’t, um, this is what the landlord said when I raised it, they said, oh, you just need to keep the windows open when you have a shower, as they do. And that’s all it is, but that wasn’t all it was. I kept the windows open all the time. I like to have air and I struggle with heat. So windows nearly always opened for me except in the very, very depths of winter. So, yeah, so it may have been the way my own flat was organised. Maybe that caused it. But I assume, maybe brick work, or what have you. Because there wasn’t an obvious cause I’d say. |
| Me | I was wondering as well, when I was asking that, did you ever talk to other tenants who lived in the building or like get a sense that other people had similar problems? |
| John | Yeah, the person, I mean, two different people over the course of the time I was there, but the people in the flat next to me, they did have issues as well. I think, uh, yes. People in the upstairs flats, I just tended not to – I mean, we saw each other a little bit – but I didn’t have that many in depth conversations with them. Um, so yeah, I did speak to them about it a bit. And yeah, I think they were probably more proactive than I was with like trying to make things happen with the landlord I just gave up. |
| Me | Was it the same landlord? |
| John | Yes. Yeah. |
| Me | The next thing I was gonna ask was about your landlord and your, I guess, interactions with him about the problem. I know you said, he said to open the windows, and that he didn’t really do much to fix the problem. Would you say you raised it more than once, or was it kind of like a situation where you got the vibe he wasn’t gonna help, so didn’t bother pushing it? |
| John | Yeah, more, more the latter, I guess. I did raise it, I think, I did push it. I raised it and they said the thing about, oh, you just need to keep your windows open. And I did push back on that saying it’s more than that. I can’t… I think they may even have just not responded at that. Which they did. I mean, I felt, again, according to the very low bar of expectations, you know, I felt fairly lucky that you could at least have a conversation with them to a point, and they were never sort of difficult as such more evasive. Sometimes just hard to get hold of, and what have you, but not like difficult or unpleasant. So I felt comparatively lucky and, yeah, I mean, it probably reflects badly on me, but I just guess I just generally took the attitude of I’d rather deal with things myself, then push for things and it maybe not get anywhere. And I, you know, I guess it’s partly just how I dealt with life like partly just in general. I’ve found, and find, it easier just to not have to deal with people in general. But also just always struggled with, yeah, just managing life around working full time. Working full time was enough. Like I couldn’t do much work to make hings work outside of work, basically. I just felt I couldn’t do that. I just had to… and it was easier. And I guess it’s hard to, um, understand decision making retrospectively, but at the time, I guess I was thinking, oh, there are things I can do. So I’ve got a little dehumidifier, it was only a little one, it didn’t actually cost that much money, little dehumidifier and… to just scrub the walls. And as I say now, and again, and you know, mould is very easy to, you know, you can literally just scrub it off. It’s horrible. Cause you get like black water everywhere, but you can just wipe it off. You know, it didn’t even take that much work. Well, it did because there was a lot of wall space. You know, I could and did remove all the visible mould and really make a difference to the place. Just though a bit of work myself one afternoon doing that. So I guess my thinking at the time was, you know, there’s things I can do and they’re fairly easy. And I don’t like the landlords or the agents coming into my home. I’d rather they like – I wanna minimise them coming in. So if I can do things myself, I’d rather do things myself than have them coming in a lot of the time. That’s just a general principle I used. And generally do. Sorry, but I’ve forgotten the question, to be honest, I went off on a little tangent. |
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| John | So they weren’t totally – the landlords weren’t as ridiculously unresponsive as some landlords are. But I could see that they were always going to sort of do things to the minimal level and to the cheapest level possible. You know, for example, the landlord – the council told them they had to put in more electrical sockets. There was some rule about how many sockets they put in and where they came in, they did it within an hour or two, just like plastic ducting along the wall, just extended, took a spur from existing circuits and added in sockets. You know, I could see everything was gonna be done to the absolute basic level. Even if they did something, they weren’t going to, you know, damp proof the house. So it, you know, I think the calculation I made was I’d only be wasting my effort in trying to make something happen that isn’t gonna happen. I should either find somewhere else to live, or stick with it to some degree. |
| Me | I think something you said in your survey, and I think you’ve mentioned it a few times, about your friend not wanting to come over who had her chronic asthma health conditions. Something that I’ve noticed a lot when I talked to people, was people talking about not wanting people to come around or like feeling embarrassed or, yeah, not wanting visitors as much as they normally would. I was wondering, did you ever feel like that was the case for you? I guess not just in terms of your friend not wanting to come around, but also not wanting people around? |
| John | Um, no. I don’t think I did, to be honest. It wasn’t too, I can’t really remember, but I don’t know how visible it was if I kept on top of wiping the walls down, as I say, which I did, it was fairly easy to keep them clean. So I didn’t look too bad. I mean, relatively speaking, the place didn’t look great. It was a bit shabby, you know, sort of laminate flooring. It was all kind of, you know, like fraying at the ends of the boards, that kind of thing. Just everything done really cheaply and simply. But it was an old, like, it was quite a nice looking house. They had these really unusually high ceilings and quite a nice shape. It sort of had, not proper bay windows, but it was a bay shaped window, I think. And, I’m trying to remember, but it sort of looked relatively nice given that, you know renting in London, according to what I’m used to and what people I know are used to. It looked okay and it was very spacious. Yeah, so it looked okay. In terms of a short visit, it didn’t occur to me that it would impact anybody’s health. If I thought it would impact people’s health, then that would be a different matter. But I guess I – or maybe I should have paid more attention to what my friend was saying. I mean, I respected their decision, but it didn’t particularly occur to me that visiting for a few hours would be an issue really for anybody in terms of health and aesthetically, it wasn’t that big of an issue basically. |
| Me | Oh, for sure. I think in terms of everything I was gonna ask, I’ve kind of covered it, but I wanted to give you an opportunity – I don’t know if there’s anything I know that we haven’t particularly touched on that you wanted to talk about or anything that comes to mind basically? |
| John | Yeah. Um, not off the top of my head. |
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