Paphos People

I have been reading recently and hearing from individuals that they have purchased and rented houses with damp problems from a very early stage. So can I ask.

For purchasers, what methods did you use to have the problems sorted?
What type of damp occurred?
How helpful were the builder/agents/professionals in the chain?
Did you involve mortgage company/stop payments etc?
Did you withhold funds for such an eventuality?

For renters.
How soon did you notice/experience damp?
What type?
Was it sorted?
If so how?
Is it ongoing, how well was it sorted?
Did you resort to stopping rent etc?

Cheers, you may or may not name names, but just make sure its experiences and not hear say you print.

_________________
Straight talking, no Gimmicks.

Live your dreams.

At the back of our house is an extension we use it for the drinks fridge, water machine, dog food and odd and sods, after the christmas storms we noticed we had an ingress of water which in turn turned the wall black. This extension was built by a previous tenant of this property, it has gradually got blacker and blacker. We have to permanently have towels there to soak up the water and as the rain has continued you can imagine how it looks.

We brought this to the attention of our landlord when he visited in January, his reaction was to tell us to paint it which we have refused to do. Or take down the extension!!

We handed in our notice we are not prepared to live in these conditions. I guess another case of a local landlord who will do nothing, despite our tenancy agreement stipulating that the landlord must repair storm damage.

As renters we are more than happy to put our hands in our pockets, we decorated this 3 bedroomed house before we moved in, and have spent more doing things in the 12months we have lived here, but in return we expected the landlord to do his bit, not so!!

Good reply Yorkshire lady,

Do you think now with rental rates dropping that you'll get a better rental elsewhere now?

_________________
Straight talking, no Gimmicks.

Live your dreams.

We were very careful when choosing a place to rent that there wasn't a problem with damp- either rising from the ground or coming through the roof. All the places we looked at in Universal that were ground floor had rising damp- literally heads poked through front door, smell and sight or damp and we didn't bother viewing the flat. One flat was furry half way up the wall and the agent didn't even seem too bothered by it- no offer made to sort it out so we didn't go for anything that agent had on offer!
Friends of ours rented a place in Chloraka and the first winter they were there, one of the walls turned black- the biggest wall in the flat too! I went round to see them, was there for less than 5 minutes and then ended up spending 3 hours in the hospital on a nebuliser as it affected my asthma that badly. They complained to the landlord but he did nothing so they moved shortly afterwards. All their clothes in one wardrobe went mouldy the first time it rained- but they could never figure out where the rain was coming in from or the water to make everything so yeuch.
I haven't heard of anyone in rented accomodation thats had any luck getting damp problems fixed! Most of the time, most landlords don't seem to care about it, thinking that if one tenant leaves, there will soon be another mug (sorry tenant) to take their place.

Tanny, we have a problem with this at the moment.

High ceilings where we cannot reach to wipe off the mould, upstairs, (by the way the mould upstairs is green whereas downstairs it is black).
Downstairs bathroom is black mould and the lounge mould is green. Wardrobes stink like something has just died in there and mould forming on clothes.

Having asked the landlord to do other minor repairs (still waiting) we knew how he would treat this problem. (Sweet FA). Next door have a similar problem and after we handed in our notice, next door got their damp treated. The mould was rubbed off, as was the paint and it was repainted with no other remedial works.

When 'discussed' with landlord, his charming son said we were lying, it was a new house and it couldn't have damp etc. It is actually about 4 years old.
So with that and a few other things that have never been sorted we are leaving.

It has actually affected both mine and Andrew's health and for the rent we pay we are not prepared to put up with it.

Cypriot landlords don't seem to be bothered and from experience it is a case of easy come easy go. But they will soon have to remove their heads from their nether regions and appreciate rents MUST fall and repairs MUST be carried out or they will have no tennants.


Tiggy

_________________
Life is what you make it.

Helen

To keep 'on top' of the damp problems get yourself's a 'dehumidifier'. You will be amazed how much water they take out of the atmosphere. I had one in UK for over 15 years in a 'north facing' conservatory. (ie didn't get any winter sun) and it kept it snuff dry, don't use much electric either about same has a light bulb.
I bought one here in Paphos last Nov and it keeps our roof level utility room snuff dry.
The 'EBAC' ones are available from a company in the east of the island but they will deliver COD to Paphos
http://www.dehumidifiersincyprus.com/Ho ... fault.aspx

PS. I got the cheapest 'Amazon' model and it works fine.

_________________
Mal

We had a problem with rising damp where the external patio had been given a compacted sand base which then held moisture collecting on it due to patio fall not allowing all water to run away. This base was then a little too high and bridged the damp proof membrane so the moisture then travelled to the nearest dry & porous material which was the wall. Result was peeling paint, loose render and 'fur' upto 50cm from the floor surface. Remedied reasonably quickly by the developer who removed 1m (from house) of tiles and sand base and replaced with concrete base. Removed internal and external render to brickwork then 'tanked' and made good back over the top. That was nearly 3 years ago and since then has been ok. My understanding was the problem was caused by water not being able to run away sufficiently on the property and thus sitting on the tiles and slowly saturating the base layer which travelled into the walls until gravity stops it going higher. Even the remedy just masks the original problem rather than fix entirely. All caused by shoddy design & method.

We do get the odd spot of condensation causing 'damp patches' during the cooler winter months around the windows and in the bathroom but its easily remedied by opening windows to allow the vapour loaded warm air to leave the house so that it doesn't condense on the cold surfaces and then saturate them. Aluminium window frames and no insulation void in the external walls are probably contributing to this problem.

_________________
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My opinion; worth price charged.

I would have no hesitation in buying a humidifier if I owned the property. But I rather think that the landlord should (???) be slightly more concerned about the condition of his properties than he is.
If he couldn't give a toss why the hell should I. I'd rather move. His loss.

IMHO the locals are happy to take the money and do sod all in return. If I was a local, bet something would have been done.

Tiggy

_________________
Life is what you make it.

Helen

yet another example of Brit companies in Cyprus ripping everybody off,,,,,,,
UK retail price (delivered) £130
Same model from these rip off merchants......€299

Jokers

I can get one couriered out for £75

Brian

_________________
Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want....

Just checked the Ebac website, given that the weight of the machines is only 13 Kg, get someone to bring one out, the prices in the UK are way cheaper, follow the link.

http://www.ebacdirect.com/index.php

_________________
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs..............you obviously don't have a clue as to how serious things are.

The de-humidifiers are portable, so I thought if it would save black mould from bedding and clothes and be beneficial to your health it would be a "good buy" (To mould!!)

_________________
Mal

_________________
Mal

OK, what about in new builds, any problems. There must be at least one...

_________________
Straight talking, no Gimmicks.

Live your dreams.

Tanny - ours was a new build delivered in November 2004 but we didn't move in until 18+ months later. as described above
as described above
Once on the case very good but took a while to get them up and running.
no as was only found to be a problem once we moved in after 12-month guarantee period.
no, wish we had the combined experience of the forums when we signed up in early 2003 and would have done !!

_________________
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My opinion; worth price charged.

Malsue, I don't disagree, but you can keep spending on a rented property till the cows come home and the more you do the less the landlord does.
We have already carried out enough maintainance and the upshot is I won't spend a single penny more. Rather put it towards the deposit on our new rental (that has central heating I might add )
If the landlord was trying to sort out the problem then I would go half way and get one.

Tiggy

_________________
Life is what you make it.

Helen

I agree with you in not spending for maintenance in a rented property. Unless you can get a 'insulated' property, having central heating doesn't get rid of the moisture that develops here in Cyprus when the temp at night drops below 15C or so,(and this week they are forecasting night temps of 8-10C) and you want to keep comfortable at 22-23C indoors. There is no "thermal break" exterior to interior and so you get condensation!!! Having a de-humidifier 'whisks' the water out of the atmosphere and drops it into a bucket which you physically empty daily!!

(Air conditioners will do the same job if the controls are set "Dry mode operation")

_________________
Mal

I may get one Malsue, but having been here 8 years this is the first time I have ever encountered this as a problem.

Tiggy

_________________
Life is what you make it.

Helen

We are moving to a property that is english owned so we hope if anything does go wrong it will be dealt with in an appropriate manner.

We were not prepared to live in these conditions which could affect our health.

Our landlord now has my house and the one next door to rent, I have put an advert in a couple of places for him, we have had people to look but they want assurance that the damp will be dealt with. He even sent a local agent to look at putting them on their website, they told me if he didn't address the problems they wouldn't entertain having them!!

When I told him we were leaving he asked what rent I was going to pay and if lower we could have discussed!

We had no experience of renting until we arrived here, but I find their attitude to problems unbelievable.

After the last tenant left here and we moved in, after painting and decorating, servicing air cons, replacing the cooker which had a large rusty hole in it, he had never once taken the trouble to come and look at what his last tenant had left. Now he is wittering on to me about taking the curtain poles down and what mess I might leave by doing so, says I should leave them and sell them to the next tenant! I think he will be lucky to get a tenant as any prospective tenant will be seeing this house at its worst, and I have no sympathy for him at all, what he doesn't understand that if he had repaired the damage we would have stayed here. His loss.

not just brit companies brian.
i visited a local store yesterday to make inquiries about an upholstery cleaner here 757 euro,s uk price delivered 259gbp, we are going over in the next couple of weeks so will be bringing one back with us.
also looking to maybe ship a pallet of dehumidifiers (not mickey mouse dehumidifiers) over depending on shipping costs will be real cost (not rrp) plus small profit should be around 35%-40% cheaper than whatever else is available email me if your interested.
paul

_________________
a little knowledge may help someone a lot of knowledge helps many!

we live in a row of three rental villas, identicals in shape, size aspect and construction...
the only difference is ours has central heating.
it is expensive to run; we've used one tonne of oil so far, but as we're in tsada, we get a fuel allowance due to our altitude, which covers about a tonne of oil

we have NO damp problems within the house except on a north facing wall, where the fitted wardrobes have become a no-go zone for the winter. luckily we have free wardrobe space in the other bedrooms.
my own de-humidifier ( homebase's finest!) is presently in it's second location of the winter, sorting out a clients damp in their main bedroom; it's already booked out when that is dealt with...

an ex-pat of nearly 20 years out here suggested that a couple of 25wt lightbulbs in inspection lamp cages, would actually be enough to cure the problem in the wardrobes, by simply keeping the ambient temperature slightly higher.

if it's your own villa, the initial outlay for a decent central heating system is worthwhile... if you're in rental, then if it's not there, don't bother... there's plenty of rentals where it is!

It's worth watching how the Cypriots deal with damp; if it's sunny, 10am, open shutters and windows, 3pm close shutters and windows! it lets the maximum amount of warm(er) air into the property to dry out the walls. also worth noting that Cypriots rarely use the calor gas heaters as the sole form of heating especially in concrete dwellings as they give off water vapour.

and don't forget; if you have aircon, there's a de-humidifier setting on most units out here... you just change the mode

_________________
poolpeople
aka
the golden hi-lux
aka
zeusfc

As a matter of further interest, I contacted Ebac directly, they will not deliver outside the UK although, delivery, anywhere in the UK, is free.

The agent on the Island, has pointed out that the five year warranty offered in the UK, does not apply in Cyprus, although, he will gaurantee the products, for two years..................

I guess you pays your money and make your choice.

_________________
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs..............you obviously don't have a clue as to how serious things are.

You do not need to get Ebac to deliver.
You simply get it delivered to a friend/relative in the UK and arrange for a courier to collect it from there.
http://www.parcelflight.co.uk/ will do this and ship 15kg to Cyprus for £75.
They offer a trackable service and when I have used them before have been very good.

Brian

_________________
Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want....

Hi Brian, yes, I know, I just wanted to let it be known about Ebac's policy and their views on their warranty.

As you say, 15Kg would cover it, they seem to vary between 12-15 Kg, unless you want the ones built in to cabinets.

Personally I'd wait till I went back and just bring one back.

The PowerPac looks like a good buy, on special offer at the moment.

http://www.ebacdirect.com/product.php?productid=30

_________________
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs..............you obviously don't have a clue as to how serious things are.

_________________
Mal

Unfortunately the physics in your "solution" of fitting central heating doesn't stack up.
Central heating can often cause more problems not less.
Warm air can hold more water vapor than cold air. When this water laden warm air hits the cold walls and ceilings it condenses out to form condensation.

There are really only three effective ways of reducing condensation:

1) Increase ventilation. (Windows and chimney and extractor fans) (the cheapest option)

2) Reduce the humidity. (Air con or Dehumidifier)

3) Remove the cold condensing surface. (Insulation or build the bl00dy houses properly in the first place ) The best but very expensive)

Brian.

_________________
Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want....

brian i totally respect your view, but i'm merely stating it how i see;

1) we have less damp problems than our neighbours
2) we have central heating!

Tsada where we live is incredibly damp; we've had rain every day this month, as such, increasing the ventilation may actually cause more problems than it solves.
unless there is condensation on the walls already, turning the heating up WILL reduce humidity; that is why there is a market for radiator humidifiers throughout the world!

in the ideal world we would all have a skirting board heating system using the "coinda" effect of heating the wall and as such creating a thermal curtain (as you detailed in point 3), but as the house was equipped with rads, for us it's not worth the cost of converting.
central heating IS a better form of heating in ANY home whether insulated or not; it merely doesn't work as well in a cypriot house made of concrete as the U rating is so low.

_________________
poolpeople
aka
the golden hi-lux
aka
zeusfc