Restoration & Refurbishment

Cracks appearing and getting bigger in room above dodgy conservatory and water logged garden.

Anonymous user 28/02/2024 - 3.11 PM

Hi, I hope this is in the correct category?!... I live in a rented property and have been trying for well over a year now to get the landlord to have cracks in the house looked at.....they worry me as they are mostly in my daughter's bedroom and they are getting bigger and new ones are appearing. The room is also above (in my opinion anyway!) a very poorly constructed conservatory, which rests on constantly water logged mud and has a water butt that constantly leaks attached to it (the result is a swamp like area around the entire back corner of the house- where the cracks are!) The wall attached to the conservatory has also been removed almost entirely to fit a sliding glass door - this is wall to wall. The internal wooden floor next to the conservatory is warped by water damage. The gutters along the back of the house are blocked and constantly leaking as well. I can see a crack in the outside corner of the house zig-zagging from the roof to the window, but cannot really see the side of the conservatory due to it being built right next to my neighbours fencing. The cracks inside zig-zag across the back corner of the bedroom, down the corner edge to the floor. This crack also goes off into cracks all along the edge where the wall meets the ceiling, along the middle of the ceiling and past the door frame into the landing area. There is also a massive crack around most of the window frame. These are all definitely getting bigger and new ones are appearing all over the house now. With a massive one on the landing down from the ceiling to just below the window sill - this now has a new crack coming off of it. All the bedrooms now have pretty large cracks where the wall meets the ceiling. The agency/landlord have sent round 2 maintenance men who have both said it looks worrying and a structural engineer is needed. But they are yet to send one. In the meantime the cracks are getting bigger and bigger and giving me many a sleepless night :( Is this something I really need to worry about and should I get an engineer in myself? I am not prepared to wait until significant damage occurs, but from reading reviews of our rubbish agency, that is exactly what they do!