How to Get Repairs Done in a Rented Shared House (Damp, Broken Boilers, and the Landlord Who Never Replies)
The shower has run cold for nine days. Everyone in the house knows. Everyone in the house has said, at least once, that someone should message the landlord. Nobody has messaged the landlord — because "someone" is not a person, and the group chat is where repairs go to die.
Broken things have a strange half-life in shared houses. Living alone, you report a dead boiler within the hour. In a house of four, the same boiler can survive a fortnight — not because nobody cares, but because everybody assumed the first person to complain about it was handling it.
A broken boiler in a shared house is a diffusion problem
Responsibility spreads out and thins. Four people each treat reporting it as a quarter of their job, which somehow adds up to nothing. It gets worse with anything outside a bedroom: a leaking radiator in someone's room is reported by Tuesday, while a damp patch on the hallway ceiling belongs to nobody and can sit there until spring.
That delay is expensive in a way that only shows up later. Small leaks become ceilings. A patch of mould becomes a wall. And anything you never reported in writing has a habit of reappearing at the end of the tenancy as a deduction — which is when the house discovers that getting your deposit back is mostly an evidence exercise.
Name a repairs contact before anything breaks
The highest-leverage fix costs nothing: one person is the house's contact with the landlord or agency for a fixed stretch — six months is plenty — and then it rotates.
Their job is not to fix things, or to chase tradespeople single-handedly. It is to be the named human who sends the message. Everyone else has one obligation: tell them within a day of noticing something, in the house chat, with a photo. That is the entire system, and it removes most of the delay on its own.
Most repairs in shared houses don't stall because the landlord refused. They stall because nobody sent the message — and then nobody was home when the plumber came.
How to report repairs in a rented shared house so they actually get fixed
Report in writing. Always, even when you also phone — and if you phone, follow up with a two-line email saying what was agreed and at what time. A call is a memory; an email is a record with a date on it.
A report that gets acted on contains five things:
- What's broken, and since when — specific, not "the heating's being weird". Try "no hot water at any tap since Saturday 22nd".
- Dated photos, or a ten-second video. A video of a dripping joint does more work than three paragraphs.
- Why it's urgent, if it is — no heat, no hot water, water near electrics, a door that won't lock, anything spreading.
- Two or three access windows, plus the number of whoever will be home. This is the step everyone skips, and it's the one that actually moves the date.
- One clear ask with a deadline: "Please can someone attend this week — could you confirm by Friday?"
Vague reports get vague replies. Specific ones get diary entries.
Damp, mould and the repairs that get blamed on you
Report mould and there's a fair chance the first answer is "ventilate more". Sometimes that's honest — four people showering in a small flat with the windows shut and laundry drying on every radiator genuinely does produce condensation. And sometimes it's a way of converting a building fault into a tenant fault.
Evidence settles it. Note where the mould is: a cold external wall, the corner behind a wardrobe, or the ceiling below a bathroom all mean something different from a patch under a leaky window frame. Photograph it with a date, then photograph it again a fortnight later so the spread is visible. Note whether it comes back after you clean it — mould that returns to the same spot is a building trying to tell you something.
Then do your side, visibly. Extractor fans on and left running, windows cracked after showers, laundry dried outside or with a dehumidifier rather than draped over the radiators. Partly because it helps. Mostly because it removes the excuse.
Keep the paper trail where the whole house can reach it
Here's the flaw in most shared houses: the entire repair history lives in one person's inbox and one person's camera roll. When they move out in June, the house loses its memory, and the next tenancy starts from zero.
Keep it somewhere shared — the tenancy agreement and the move-in inventory, every report and reply with its date, contractor visit dates, invoices, and before-and-after photos. This is where an app like Crew earns its place: shared document storage that isn't tied to one phone, the chase-up sitting as a task with a due date rather than as a good intention, and any emergency call-out someone pays for logged as a shared expense, so they aren't quietly a hundred and eighty euros down.
When the landlord goes quiet
Escalate in order, in writing at every step. Chase, quoting the original date. Then a formal request with a deadline. Then the agency's complaints procedure, or whoever manages the property manager. Only then your local authority, tenancy board or tenant union — the routes differ by country, so find out what yours is before you need it.
Two cautions. Don't withhold rent, and don't hire your own contractor on impulse: both exist as legal options in some places, under specific conditions, and both go badly when the process is wrong. And keep the tone flat. "Reported 3 June, chased 10 June, no response, no hot water for 14 days" is more powerful than any adjective you could add to it. Let the chronology do the arguing.
Nothing in a rented house gets fixed because it deserves to. It gets fixed because one person wrote it down, on a date, with a photo attached — and then asked again. Be that person for six months, then hand the folder to somebody else.
Frequently asked questions
Who is responsible for repairs in a rented shared house?
As a general rule the landlord is responsible for the structure and the installations that make the home habitable, such as heating, hot water, plumbing, electrics and the roof, while tenants are responsible for damage they cause and for everyday upkeep like changing light bulbs and unblocking a sink they blocked. The exact line varies by country and is usually set out in your tenancy agreement, so read the repairs clause before you argue about it. If the fault stops the home being usable, report it immediately rather than waiting to establish whose fault it was.
How should I report a repair to my landlord?
Put it in writing, even if you also call. Send an email or use the agency portal with the date the problem started, a clear description, dated photos or a short video, and a note of why it is urgent. Add two or three windows when someone will be home to let a contractor in, because access is the most common reason repairs stall in shared houses. Keep a copy of everything you send.
Is damp and mould the landlord's responsibility or the tenant's?
It depends on the cause, which is exactly why documentation matters. Mould caused by a building fault such as a leak, failed damp proofing or a cold external wall is normally the landlord's problem, while condensation caused purely by lifestyle, like drying laundry indoors with every window shut, is usually treated as the tenants'. In practice most cases are a mixture. Report it early with photos, run the extractor fans and ventilate visibly, and you remove the easy excuse while protecting yourself from a deduction later.
What can I do if my landlord ignores repair requests?
Escalate in order and in writing. Chase quoting the date of the original report, then send a formal request with a clear deadline, then use the letting agency's complaints procedure or ask for a manager, and after that contact your local authority, tenancy board or tenant union depending on where you live. Do not withhold rent or arrange your own contractor on impulse, because both are only allowed under specific conditions in some countries and can put your tenancy at risk if you get the process wrong.
How should housemates keep track of repairs and landlord messages?
Keep one shared record instead of leaving it in one person's inbox. An app like Crew works well for this because the tenancy agreement, the move-in photos, repair reports and invoices can live in shared document storage, the chase-up can sit as a task with a date on it, and any emergency call-out somebody pays for goes straight in as a shared expense. When that housemate moves out, the history stays with the house rather than leaving with them.
