What we live with...

It's amazing what we let ourselves live with.

My flat is quite damp, it always has been. I've owned this place for 8 years now and over the years we've tried many things to fix it. But it's an old ground floor tenement building, with no heating, poor air circulation and condensation. Only one of my bedroom walls is an internal wall so this room is the worst. There's mould in my room.

A while ago I noticed there was mould on my mattress. I aired it and turned it and got the dehumidifier out. A couple of months ago I noticed mould on my pillows. Of course, I ignored it.

I was at a poverty conference recently and someone was talking about poor housing conditions, damp and mould and the impact this has on people's health. It was only when I developed a chesty cough and could smell mould when I went to bed that I started thinking about it. Now I'm not living in poverty, so why am I allowing myself to live in these conditions?

Admittedly I can't afford to do much. I will buy a new mattress at some point soon (when I've saved a bit for it) and I'll look into what I can do to tackle the damp. But this week I decided I had to do something - so I've got the dehumidifier on and today I went to Argos after work and bought some new pillows. Hopefully at the very least, this will help!