Comments by "TJ Marx" (@tjmarx) on "Tenants still ill from conditions in Rochdale estate where mould caused two year old’s death" video.

Genuine question, do these tenants not have access to bleach or other mould killing agents? It's all good and well to be up on a high horse about whose responsibility it should be, but who sits around damaging their health for 2 years in order to make a point about whose responsibility it is? At a certain point you have to climb down off that high horse and put your safety and the safety of your family first. If they're not going to solve the problem, you have to solve the problem yourself as best you can and that means using a mould killing product like bleach. A 2L bottle is less than £3... Should RBH have their board sacked? Of course they should, it goes without saying. Should RBH be making repairs? Absolutely, without question. But the board haven't been sacked and they aren't making repairs. It's been like this for more than 2 years.
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@sinceresong9907 If you use a mould retardant then it in fact will not quickly grow back. Again, I agree that RBH should be repairing their properties but they aren't and haven't. I saw an interview with a woman on iTV who said she'd lived there 8 years and the mould had always been an issue. A little boy died because nothing was done about the mould, but the parents who failed to take matters into their own hands bear some of that responsibility. Your safety is ultimately always your responsibility. No one else cares about you as much as you do. No one outside of your immediate family cares as much about your immediate family as the members of your immediate family, not even extended family. That doesn't absolve RBH of their responsibility, it's merely a reminder you aren't absolved of your own responsibilities to self. I don't think this is a materials issue. I think this is a location issue. If you build housing in a bog, you should probably expect mould. Mould retardant coatings and paints need to be applied. The mould retardant product needs to be reapplied to such paints every 6-12 months depending on the specific product used. Bleach can be a good stop gap in between coatings if they lose effectiveness early. Bleach lasts 4-6 weeks, and should just be considered part of general cleaning if you care at all about your health.
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@sinceresong9907 The spores are in the air and dangerous regardless. Cleaning them and placing a retardant down (£20) won't be done daily. I gave pretty accurate estimates on length of time in my previous comment. One hopes though that you're cleaning your home daily anyway. When a tenant chooses to live in a house built on a bog they should be of the expectation cleaning up mould will be part of their regular cleaning routine. Listen, if they haven't fixed it in 2 months, let alone 2-8 years!; evidence is the least of your worries. Take photos like that one tenant in the video did because she had the good sense to clean up and sort it out instead of living in squalor. If it's the kind of problem that's likely to reoccur then there will be other symptoms that can be shown such as damp or water condensated walls. They're not complaining of water flowing through the building, they're complaining of mould growing from damp. Damp is caused by high humidity, low ventilation environments. If your housing agency isn't fixing the problem after 2 months, they're probably not going to fix it. So in that situation you've got 3 choices but no matter which one one chooses it's ones own choice. 1. Move 2. Sort it out yourself 3. Cause injury to yourself and others by just doing nothing. They're all choosing option 3, when options 1 & 2 are on the table and much better options. There are valid reasons why option 1 may not be on the table for everyone, I understand that. But option 2 always is in the table. If you can smell mould when you walk into your flat, it's killing you being in there. Is saving £20 to fix it yourself really worth a disability?
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