Managing and resolving reports of damp and mould

27 September 2023

Damp and mould is caused by excess moisture in your home and in the autumn and winter, when the days are darker and the temperature cooler, there tends to be more moisture in the air. Mould can look unsightly and can cause damage to walls, decorations, and furnishings. It can also affect some people’s health. It’s therefore important for us to work together to manage excess moisture in your home, and to act early to avoid the situation getting worse.

We have a dedicated page on our website which explains what causes damp and various tips on how to reduce moisture that can lead to mould. Click here to check out this information.

How we’ve resolved reports of damp and mould

We’ve made several improvements to how we manage reports of damp and mould to ensure that we effectively resolve these issues for residents experiencing this.

Since the start of this financial year in April 2023, we have received on average 17 reports of damp and mould a week. A total of 333 new cases were reported from April until the end of August 2023. 14% were related to high levels of humidity, which we resolved by advising residents on how to reduce moisture in their homes. 61% of cases required repairs and 65% of those repairs were for mould washes, which is when we use a specialist treatment to remove mould from surfaces and stop any more mould growing. The remaining 35% repairs were to resolve issues with the building or ground which were causing the damp and mould present. We've also identified homes which will have any moisture issues addressed and resolved through the work we’re doing to make homes warmer, healthier and more environmentally friendly using the £9.8million in funding we secured from the Government to complete this work. We have notified these residents about our plans to address moisture issues through these improvements their homes.

How to report excess moisture, damp or mould in your home

If you have a damp or mould issue in your home that is caused by water penetration, or if you follow our condensation tips and the situation does not improve, please contact our Customer Service Centre. We can then look into this and work with you to resolve the issue. To make sure we can identify the problem and take the necessary measures to resolve any issues you’re experiencing, it’s important that you give us as much detail as possible when you report damp and mould to us. This includes telling us what rooms are affected and confirming whether the walls or ceilings wet to touch, if there is an active leak you can see and if the damp is visible or mould present on an external wall.

When you report damp and mould to us, we will:

contact you within two working days and arrange to visit your home within 14 days. Please update us if the appointment date or time is no longer convenient. We understand that things happen and your availability may change, but it’s important that you update us if this happens as a missed appointment costs us an average of £30 each time
when we visit, we will inspect the damp and mould and take damp readings and photos. It’s also important that we’re aware of any vulnerabilities or health conditions in your household so we can take the right measures to support you, so on our visit we will ask about you, your family and their needs
the findings from the visit are then reviewed by our surveyors and follow on repairs are arranged where needed
we then contact you following the visit to update you on the next stage
we also contact you after any work is complete to see if you are happy with the work and to check if it has solved the issue.

Ensuring damp and mould advice is available to all residents

It’s important that all residents can access the information they need from us, whether that’s guidance on damp and mould, or any other information about their home. This includes when there are language barriers or if residents have visual or audio impairments, learning difficulties and so on. We have extensive accessibility tools and services available to make sure this information is available for all.

On our website, we have a wide range of ReciteMe tools which you can access by selecting the 'Me Accessibility' button at the top of every page which looks like this:

This tool ensures that residents can adapt the content on our website to suit their needs. You can use ReciteMe to:

Translate text to over 100 languages
Read text aloud and download the audio
Change the font, line height, spacing or colour contrast of the text
Convert the website to text only
Use a ruler to guide you as you read through pages
Use a magnifier to zoom into sections, and much more!

As well as these tools on our website, we can also provide large-print versions of our letters to you upon request. Please just contact our Customer Service Centre to request large-print letters. We also have a service on our phonelines which allows colleagues to use a telephone interpreter to speak to residents who need translation services on phone-calls. We can also use this when meeting residents in person, so please don’t hesitate to contact us to report damp and mould or any concerns you have. We will do everything we can to help with your queries in a way that best suits your needs.