The Decent Home Standards are the rules set by government that social landlords (housing associations and councils) have to meet. These include things like fire and electrical safety, being comfortably warm, being free of dangerous levels of damp and mould as well as being in good repair. 

But they don’t currently apply to homes let by private landlords, meaning 1 in 5 privately rented homes in England currently fail the standards, putting health at risk. 

The new Renters’ Rights Act will eventually apply updated Decent Home Standards to private rented homes, starting with energy efficiency standards. But the full Decent Home Standards won’t be enforced for private rented homes until 2035 or 2037, according to the current government consultation. 

Health Equals and our member organisations like Shelter and Independent Age are calling for these standards to apply and be enforced properly well before then. Similarly, Awaab’s Law was recently brought into force, requiring social landlords to respond to complaints about damp and mould within a set timeframe. But the government hasn’t said when it will be enforce Awaab’s Law for private tenants.  

Cold homes don’t just make life uncomfortable — they can make people seriously ill. During the winter of 2022/23, they were linked to around 5,000 excess deaths. Every year, cold and damp homes are estimated to cost the NHS over £1 billion, as they contribute to conditions like asthma, respiratory illness and heart problems, and can also take a toll on mental health. 

In 2024, more than 8 million households spent over 10% of their income on energy. We also know from The Health Foundation that problem debt can harm both physical and mental wellbeing. The government’s £13.2 billion Warm Homes Plan is a golden opportunity to change this: to help people struggling the most with fuel poverty and make homes warmer, healthier places to live. 

Health Equals, along with our member organisations like National Energy Action, is calling for this funding to focus on those most in need, ensuring they’re among the first to benefit from the shift to net zero. Citizens UK‘s campaign groups are also urging the government to “Fix it First”, making essential social housing repairs part of the retrofit agenda. 

Non-decent homes affect people across all four nations of the UK, and in all types and tenure of housing. The vast majority of non-decent homes that are headed by older people are owner-occupied. Over 2.3 million people aged 55 and over live in homes that are cold, damp, or unsafe. Within this, evidence shows that ethnically minoritised communities are disproportionately affected.   

All four UK governments need a joined-up plan to cut the number of non-decent homes that will prevent health issues caused by damp, cold and mould. This would include a national network of Good Home Hubs to provide a one-stop shop for home improvement information and advice, as proposed by Centre for Ageing Better.  

Many people are living in housing with issues like damp, cold and mould and yet the public aren’t always aware of the serious health risks associated with these conditions. We wanted to visualise these health hazards by imagining what kind of clothing you might need to protect yourself from these health harms — to make people pause and reflect on what can be done to ensure people have access to warm, safe and stable housing.

Our goal was to make a complex issue visible, personal, and impossible to ignore. We chose to be deliberately shocking because the reality itself is shocking. For those living in comfortable homes, it can be hard to imagine what life is like for families in unhealthy housing. That’s why we created a disruptive campaign and public stunt: to dramatise the devastating health impacts of poor housing and spark a national conversation about how everyone can help campaign for better quality homes for all.

The suits aren’t meant to be appealing. They symbolise an absurd “solution” to a very real and serious problem.

Throughout the process, we consulted our members, supporters, and campaign advisory group; people from the very communities most affected by these issues — and tested the campaign with the public to ensure it resonated both powerfully and respectfully.

No, they were just created to raise the issue of the impact on health of damp, cold and mould in our homes. 

We worked with Censuswide to poll 3,892 people across the UK. What we found paints an alarming picture of the scale of the issue: 

• More than 15 million people in the UK live in homes with issues like damp, mould or cold. 

• People from the lowest income households are almost twice as likely to live in homes with issues like damp or mould (21% vs 12%), and four times as likely to live in a cold home (25% vs 6%). 

• Those from low-income households, renters and the West Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber are particularly affected.  

• 21% of renters have issues like damp or mould, rising to 23% for those in rented social housing. And almost half (47%) of households with issues like damp or mould had children living in them.  

The survey was conducted online by Censuswide between 24 September and 3 October 2025, using a nationally representative sample. To ensure the experiences of those most affected by poor housing were captured, the research included boosted samples from key groups and regions: 

• At least 500 respondents each from the West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber, North West, and East Midlands — areas with some of the highest reported rates of damp, cold, and mould. 

• Private and social renters, people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds (social grades C2, D, and E), ethnically diverse communities, parents, and individuals living in homes with damp, mould, or condensation. 

Additional boosts were applied across key subgroups such as housing tenures, social grades, and other demographic characteristics to enable more detailed analysis of these populations. Where boosted samples were used, weights were applied to ensure the results accurately reflect the national population’s demographics, preventing overrepresentation.

Censuswide is a member of the Market Research Society (MRS) and adheres to the MRS Code of Conduct and ESOMAR principles. It is also a member of the British Polling Council, ensuring transparency and high standards in polling practices.

Explore the data in full here.

We’re calling for a cross-government health inequalities strategy that puts health at the heart of government — from setting realistic but ambitious targets to reduce health inequalities to establishing clear roles for all departments to prioritise and restore the building blocks of health. 

Through this campaign, we’re also making specific policy asks on housing: 

• Enforcing the Decent Home Standard across all private rented homes before 2035 and applying Awaab’s Law so landlords must act quickly on life-threatening hazards; 

• Introducing a Warm Homes Plan to cut fuel poverty, improve warmth, and repair homes for those most in need; 

• And setting a clear, cross-government target to halve the number of ‘non-decent’ homes across all tenures and regions of the UK over the next decade. 

We wanted to take our campaign to the streets and educate as many people people about the building blocks to good health, and that some determinants of good health don’t rely solely on personal action and behaviours. Our goal was to get the public to support us in calling on government to deliver a cross-government strategy to tackle health inequalities, starting with housing. 

We understand that this is a sensitive matter and could impact people in different ways. If you’ve been affected, please visit our support page.