www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk

Hi

I'm not good at explaining things but I'll give it a go and hope that someone can give a bit of info.

First off, I have floating floors and the walls are dry lining.

Moved into my flat 2 years ago and found dry rot in the living room by the kitchen door and also the bathroom floor was totally gone. It's a council flat but this council are famous for not carrying out repairs and leave it to the tenants to do everything. The flat was sign as A1 condition by the council surveyor before I moved in. It took 10 months of fighting to have the bathroom and the living room (which had a hole in the floor) dry rot fixed.

I could smell a musty fusty damp smell in the hall where the bathroom wall is. The council surveyor came out and of course told me nothing was wrong and it was just from the dry rot from the bathroom floor but that the smell would go in time.

When I moved in, at the head end of the bath, there was a space between the bath and the wall where the tiles had been broken over the years and not replaced. Water had been going down that space for probably years which is what caused the bathroom floor to go. The Council refitted everyone in the area's bathrooms and when my bath was taken out the wall was soaking and black. The workers cut part of the wall away and pushed the new bath into the gap and carried on with the refit.

I could still smell the damp musty smell in the hall off and on but last week I had my new carpets laid and now the smell has got a LOT worse. The previous tenant had put down really cheap sticky vinyl tiles which the carpet layer kindly took up for me. As he did it the stink of musty damp was really bad but he thought that it was because of the glue from the tiles. He put down some talc to kill any glue left on the cushion floor which I have been told has been there for years before he laid the carpets.

Now a week later, right by the bathroom wall in my hall, when you step on certain parts of the floor, it feels as though the floor has 'give' in it. There is also a ridge appearing on my new carpet in this same place which is about 10 inches out from the bathroom wall. The stink of musty damp is horrible.

Please has anyone any ideas? The Council will do nothing so we aren't even going down that avenue. We can't take any more fighting with them to carry out repairs, we will get it done ourselves. Could this be more dry rot or something to do with the cushion floor being disturbed?

Sorry for the long post but I had to explain it properly.

kath

Sounds more like wet rot, than dry rot.

You could always have a look in the paper for damp proofing firms that give free quotes and get them to come and diagnose the problem for you (don't say you are renting it from the council). If they confirm it has dry rot or wet rot you can then argue with the council.

I would imagine that you should be able to file a disrepair notice.

I think that sounds like a good idea. I'll go hunting and get someone in to check it out.

ive come across this before....
did a bathroom on a polystyrene floating floor refit and it was like walking on a sponge...
the water had sat on the floor underneath the chipboard in amongst the polystyrene for ages and soaked up into the studwork which had its sole plate on the concrete, not on the chipboard...
floating floor was a pretty accurate description... it was absolutely b'lloxed and the smell was as you describe, stagnant water and rotting timber...
theyre a cheap and easy way of raising and insulating the floor eliminating the need for screed but get a leak and theyre a nightmare...
the solution is to rip the lot out and replace with screed...
easy way to prove its a mess is to cut a square out of the chipboard in an unobtrusive place like under the bath, just 6" square should do, then cut the polystyrene with a padsaw down to concrete and lift it out...
there'll prolly be trapped water...