Ombudsman Wales issues repairs guidance for public sector and social landlords

In my experience Cardiff Council housing maintenance system is broken. Houses fall unnecessarily into disrepair because many of the jobs needed are left too long, sometimes a year or more, by which time a small job becomes a whole house problem. In addition the standard of maintenance carried out is of such poor quality it's a wasted effort. As an example a friends house was painted on the outside but the painters didn't re secure the guttering properly before leaving. A windy day brought the whole lot down. It took the council months to refit by which time water had entered the house causing damp and mold. She is still waiting 2 years later for that to be fixed. Appauling standards in my opinion

I am fed up of reading almost every day of someone complaining about black mould. People need to be educated into knowing the difference between penetrating damp and black mould. I understand that some properties suffer with penetrating damp but black mould is caused by warm air hitting cold spots on walls or anything cold turning into moisture and if not wiped off will turn into black mould very quickly. Most houses these days are insulated far too much which results in warm moist air within the property unable to escape. Between cavity wall and loft insulation and double or triple glazed windows the problem is not going to improve. They do say that only two of these should ever be installed otherwise moist air inside the property cannot escape. All properties have occasions when black mould develops and most of us know that there is a simple solution of just wiping it off with a cloth and bleach and opening windows a little when cooking, drying clothes on radiators or bathing. Left untreated mould can cause all sorts of health problems that many people then blame on the council or landlord. It's their own fault. WIPE IT OFF!!!! Just look at the state of the skirting in this story. My advice would be to roll up your sleeves and clean it off. It's not a council or landlord issue unless it's penetrating dampness. Some people are of the mind that it is the someone else's job to come around and clean their houses and they themselves are not responsible for anything. Stop watching daytime TV and get cleaning. My comment refers to black mould and not penetrating damp which is completely different.

And where is RentSmart in all this ? They were very loud in their zeal to "sort out" the private landlord sector although they seemed more interested in picking off people with 1 or 2 properties rather than guys with larger estates with HMO's and solo lettings. The lack of awareness was mind blowing. Frank's example which differentiates between black mould ( most commonly caused by occupants) and penetrating damp ( a fabric or structural issue) seems beyond most tenants. More worryingly it was also beyond the RentSmart operatives. So how they propose to address a decaying public sector and housing association estate is very open to doubt. Will yet another defective agency get created led by careerist managers and employing low grade operatives?