UK renters can’t afford their mouldy, exorbitant homes – now they can’t afford to complain either | Elle Hunt

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The flat was always going to be damp; they’d come to terms with that. But water dripping from the ceiling and fur growing on the walls seemed like a problem for the landlord to fix. Caroline and Kyle had already raised the issue of mould in their flat four months ago, when it suddenly got worse.

I’ve seen pictures. There’s a fine black dusting along the skirting boards and where walls meet, and what might reasonably be called a crust in the hard-to-reach high corners. A bedside table is half-covered with a thick, fuzzy layer of grey, steadily inching towards the height of sleeping heads.

You can picture it all too easily, settling in your lungs. Kyle has asthma, too. He and Caroline have been renting their one-bedroom London bungalow for nearly two years. For this they pay £1,350 per month – more than enough, you’d think, to make addressing persistent mould a fair exchange.

But – despite near-daily reminders by text, and frequent bumping-intos in person – their landlord’s response has been indifference. Caroline tells me: “We’ve raised it again and again. She blames delays on tradesmen, and difficulties getting the right person, but she just doesn’t seem that bothered.

“It feels like if it was a problem in her own home, she would have sorted it out quickly, but because it’s her tenants’, it’s been allowed to just fester – literally.”

Caroline and Kyle’s experience is a grim illustration of just how one-sided renting has become: how much tenants must rely on their landlords’ individual sense of decency and urgency, and how vulnerable we are to any change of heart they may have.

It has become particularly apparent over the past year how much the game is rigged. Last summer, a shortage of housing and increased demand saw cut-throat competition for properties and soaring rents – not just in London, but across the UK. Since then, landlords and letting agencies have seemed confident that for every prospective tenant who refuses their terms, there are more who will be grateful to accept. In the year to January 2023, private rents across the UK have risen by 4.4%, the largest increase since official record-keeping began in 2016.

This winter, alongside rising household costs and stagnant wages, the crisis is biting even harder. Renters’ advocacy groups report that individual rent increases of 20% and even more are common. And no-fault evictions under section 21 are still not outlawed – although the government has committed to doing do so in this parliament – so any tenant who refuses to pay is at real risk. Most people are already paying as much as they can afford, says Liam Miller of the London Renters Union (LRU): “A 20% increase is effectively being handed an eviction notice.”

At such a tense time – when market rates are increasingly unaffordable, and even responsible landlords might be led astray by greed – renters may count themselves lucky to have a roof over their head, no matter how leaky it is.

Caroline says she and Kyle weighed up every text to their landlord, pitching the day-to-day unpleasantness (and long-term danger) of the mould against the risk of testing her goodwill. “It’s very tricky to keep chasing it up while also keeping things cordial.”

This paranoia isn’t unfounded, says Al Mcclenahan of the non-profit organisation Justice for Tenants (JFT). He has noticed a “nefarious” upward trend of landlords hiking rent in response to requests for maintenance or even necessary repairs. “It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: tenants know this is a risk, so they often don’t report issues because they are concerned their landlord will retaliate,” he says.

This can have serious consequences, especially in winter. Recent government figures show that nearly a quarter (24.1%) of private renters are in fuel poverty, compared to just 8.8% of owner-occupiers. Often, the problem is exacerbated by inadequate insulation – but pushing for the property to be ungraded, or even to meet minimum standards, again risks provoking a rent increase. Indeed, in the face of mounting calls for a national rent freeze and for section 21 to finally be abolished, landlords may be looking to strike while they can.

Without security of tenure, even those fortunate enough to have landed a fair-minded landlord may think twice before calling attention to themselves. The two are effectively at cross-purposes, says Mcclenahan, with rental properties a “vehicle of wealth expansion for one, and a home for another” – and one side favoured by the law. Often, in my own experience of renting, I have got the sense that it is not just greed fuelling the current crisis, but a failure of understanding: an inability, or refusal, to imagine what it might be like to live under the threat of eviction or for a week without heat.

But any course of action begins with the recognition that safe, secure and affordable housing is a human right, to be protected above landlords’ profit motives – and that renters are just as entitled as homeowners.

The LRU, JFT and other members of the Renters Reform Coalition are lobbying for immediate relief for private renters, with a national day of action planned for next week.

For Kyle and Caroline, however, it’s already too late. Six weeks ago, their lease came up for renewal. They had hoped to renew, despite the mould; instead, they were handed a 30% rent increase. When they told their landlord they could not afford to pay £1,800 a month, she issued them with a section 21 notice and two months to find a new home. “I don’t think she thinks of herself as the bad guy,” says Caroline. “She thinks of it as a business decision, whereas for us it’s actually our home, and we can’t magic up an extra 30%.” Now they are planning a move out of London, to the south-west. After 12 years in the city, it is a bitter note to leave on, says Caroline. “At this stage in our lives, we should be able to afford to rent a one-bedroom flat.”

The mould in their flat, however, persists. They did their best to warn prospective tenants. “Someone still rented it,” she says with a shrug – and for 30% more. Caroline is just hoping to get their deposit back. That’s not her real name, by the way, nor Kyle’s. Though they have already been evicted, and they have just a few more weeks in their flat, they still need to keep on good terms with their landlord.