Turnover Paint Without Hiding Damp

Fresh paint photographs well. It also photographs well over a live leak. ManjeProp would rather show a stained ceiling on a delayed listing than hand a parent a sweet-smelling room that bubbles in March. Paint is the last coat on a dry wall, not a treatment for water.

This is the rule for Durban turnovers in humid months.

Diagnose before you open the tin

After the outgoing inspection, look at every mark in daylight. Ask whether it is scuff, old colour, or moisture.

Stop and ticket, do not paint, if you have:

A soft or cold patch
A tide mark or a growing brown stain
Paint already blistering
A smell of mould in a cupboard against an outside wall
A ceiling under a bathroom or a geyser
Salt or crumbly plaster

Open Report a fault or log it in /manage/ if you are staff. Get the water stopped. Take the “before” photos for the deposit file and for the repair. Then wait until the surface is actually dry — not merely wiped.

Painting a wet stain is how you pay for paint, then a plumber, then paint again, then a deduction argument you will lose.

Incoming photos are your conscience

If the incoming set showed a clean ceiling and the outgoing set shows a stain, you have a change. If both sets show the same corner, you do not create a deduction by painting over history and calling it tenant damage.

Never paint before the outgoing photographs are filed. The paint will destroy the evidence you need.

How to paint when the wall is truly only dirty

Match the product and sheen already used in that house. Cut in the damaged wall. Ventilate a small student room. Keep paint off switches, stays and damp-looking silicone.

Do not use dark “feature” colours to hide a patch. Do not paint a ceiling from the door inward and leave the wet middle for last “because we ran out of time.”

A viewer with a headache from a closed room will remember the headache.

Hardware and moisture travel together

A failed window stay that lets rain in is not a paint problem. Fix the stay. A blocked shower that steams a room with a dead extractor is not a paint problem. Fix the extractor and the waste. Then look at the surface.

The repair log should show that sequence. “Painted Room 3” with no leak history is how the next stain looks like magic.

Staff sequence

Inspection photos, including the ugly corner.
Leak or moisture ticket, contractor, evidence of the stop.
Dry time that a person believes, not a calendar wish.
Paint and ordinary hardware.
New listing photos that match the room.
Publish.

A booking overlap does not dry a wall. Do not confirm a new person into a room that still smells like a river.

Tenants

You are not asked to repaint in June because of posters. You are asked not to hide a leak the week you leave. Toothpaste and a cheap emulsion over a stain will show in daylight photographs. Report the stain when it appears.

If a painter arrives while you still occupy, you should have been told. Access rules still apply. Put documents away. They should photograph the stain, not your ID.

Parents and viewers

If a room smells of fresh paint and also of damp, say so on the walk and on the enquiry form. Ask whether there was a leak ticket. We would rather delay a let.

Paint is cosmetic. Water is structural enough to ruin a term. Do them in the right order.

Stains, blisters and drips: report-a-fault · +27 60 313 6961.