5 June (Part 2) - L&Q in the gutter
A return visit to
the L&Q house at first suggested things were better. The
disabled lady occupier tries to keep it clean and tidy and is not afraid to go
around with a paint brush. She is no longer able to look after the garden but
apart from that first impressions are not at all bad but the detail tells a different story.
As noted following the first visit too much of the house looks as though it has
been subjected to the attention of a mad and incompetent DIYer anxious to get
away and back to the pub.
Thanks to fresh paint the signs of damp are much diminished but closer
inspection shows it bubbling through. Damp in the external walls has caused
frost damage and the occasional brick has burst open and surface efflorescence
can be seen here and there.
Nothing is done right. A new mortice lock has been put in crooked and the wooden
frame has been splintered. Probably vulnerable to anyone with a malevolent shoulder.
Five unearthed power sockets have been taken out of use and replaced with
surface fed units. Plastic trunking, some of it already falling off the wall, is
a major feature of the decor. Would you willing accept one bodge job on top of another?
The floor tiles remain broken,
The lady’s main concern is damp. She puts down salt to
deter the slugs and snails and employed a surveyor; his test meter detected 51 places where damp was a problem. The tenant bought her own. (Photo 1.)
She says that when it rains the gutter overflows. It is an ordinary plastic
gutter which serves four adjacent houses. At the end of last year L&Q were
persuaded to replace it with one of larger capacity. They erected
scaffolding - that is how the fence came to be broken - but on the appointed day
the maintenance team failed to show up. Then someone else got involved
and said the existing gutter was perfectly adequate.
The scaffold was taken away unused.
This video suggests there is something very wrong with the gutter. A possible
cause of damp walls may not need a surveyor with a fancy meter, someone from
L&Q with some sense and a ladder might be enough.