Selfsufficientish.com

baldowrie wrote:

Ina

So, all you out there - next time you get an invitation from me, don't you think that's because I want to see you in particular - it's just that the place has got so bad I can't stand living in it any more myself!

Ah but has the bathroom door been fixed and the light now work

YES!!

Townie's bloke fixed the light and David fixed the door - and Ina.... see you Sunday LOL.

Ooops, I'd better get the hoover out!

phweeeeeeeeeee, no more piddling in the dark and whistling dixie

Andy that's horrific - she has no right to do that!! We are gob smacked by her behaviour - it's really invasive and demeaning - how dare she!!! I'd get in touch with the CAB if I was you and check over your lease. Sorry but I'm really cross on your behalf!

As to the state of our house I'm a firm believer in clean enough to be healthy and mucky enough to be happy and that only really boring people have immaculate houses - says she who has just spent the morning frantically cleaning and ordering the rest of the house hold to join in!! But hey we are hving a party - we have to make it look nice before we trash it!! Chris just says - what the heck - it's gona be trashed anyway so why not get in first!

My house is now spotless because my mum is arriving tomorrow. That's not why I cleaned the house of course.......

Milims wrote:Andy that's horrific - she has no right to do that!! We are gob smacked by her behaviour - it's really invasive and demeaning - how dare she!!! I'd get in touch with the CAB if I was you and check over your lease. Sorry but I'm really cross on your behalf!

As to the state of our house I'm a firm believer in clean enough to be healthy and mucky enough to be happy and that only really boring people have immaculate houses - says she who has just spent the morning frantically cleaning and ordering the rest of the house hold to join in!! But hey we are hving a party - we have to make it look nice before we trash it!! Chris just says - what the heck - it's gona be trashed anyway so why not get in first!

Thank you. - I have to be in agreement with you there on the tidy house thing. Have you ever been to a house that still has plastic on the carpets.

As it is a letting agent I was thinking of getting in touch with the landlord and having a chat with him about what has happened. Although still a bit angry about it all. The short of it is that we want to stay here. It is near enough to our allotment, we get on with the people in the local shops and some of our neighbors and the rent is pretty cheap for what we have. It is a difficult one as I would not want to do anything that jepodises the tenancy.

Seems like there has been a rush of house cleaning since I did mine, must be something in the air.

Yes, currently having a spring clean myself.

It might be worth checking your contract and then having a polite word with the agency, something along the lines of while you understand that they have the best interests of the landlord in mind they were in breach of the contract and current legislation. As it is you are happy with the property and are happy to fulfill the requirements of your contract but as their customer you would appreciate it if they would show more consideration in future.

Aww now folks, it's all well and good having a go at the landlord. I appreciate she shouldn't have done what she did, but if that was my house I was renting out, I too would be very worried about the condition of it.

If your are living in someones else's house, paying rent or not, then you really should be looking after it.

I'm not the tidiest of people and I loathe housework, but I also do not like living in a dirty house.

Andy if you had cleaned it occasionally it would never have gotten to the point it did. Yer mucky pup!!

Millymollymandy wrote:Andy it is worth cleaning your property before you leave it because the landlord can withhold your deposit to pay for the cleaning, which is fair enough.

I on the other hand have always had to spend hours scrubbing almost every house/flat I have rented because they were always so disgustingly filthy when I moved in.

Yet I leave everything spotless, including one house in France where 3 of us worked 25 hours on an already well kept clean house.

The landlady said it was not good enough and employed professional cleaners and took about £200 out of our deposit to cover this. This being France there is not a damned thing you can do about it.

I HATE landlords.

There's nothing you can do about it here aither really. I've lost a deposit even after the landlord saw me cleaning the room - i made sure that it was cleaner when i left than when i moved in, yet he still produced a 'cleaning bill' so he didn't have to pay me. I had friends who moved into the same house the next day, but he still managed to bet this 'bill produced saying that he'd had it cleaned. Bit of a coincidence that he owned a cleaning company as well...

Think it's just sod's law that when you're a tenant, you have horrible landlords, and when you're a landlord, you get awful tenants!

In all walks of life, there are good and bad. Landlords are not excluded, not are their Agents.

The agent definitely needs to give notice, as stipulated in the lease, usually 24/48 hours or 'reasonable'. As a former (commercial) agent, I rarely needed to give formal notice. I always made the best of efforts to get on with my (client's) tenants. A happy tenant and a happy landlord = a happy agent. I popped in regularly and was invariably offered tea!

I think there is little to be gained by having a word with the agent. I think even less will be achieved by going direct to the landlord - that's why he employs an agent. By having a good relationship with (most) of my tenants, it was easy to see the normal, hard working sorts who might not be strictly adhering to the letter of their lease, from the corner cutting, happy go lucky ones. The word 'reasonable' comes into play again! By going behind the agent's back, you are likely to antagonise her and annoy the landlord into the bargain. That's when the agent gets the magnifying glass and has a thorough look at your lease. They always find something that you have/have not done that you should not/have done.

Forearmed is forewarned though - just don't let her in next time! She HAS to leave.

Millymollymandy wrote:Think it's just sod's law that when you're a tenant, you have horrible landlords, and when you're a landlord, you get awful tenants!

Agent speak for Awful Tenants (especially those who gang up on the agent): The tenants are Revolting! hehe

I've had good landlords...

Like the genuinely upper middle class lady in her 70s who'd been in SOE in WW2 and been a radio operator with the Resistance in France. She still drove a sportscar (fast!), had younger boyfriends, and came to all my parties where she was a total hit. I did some work on the flat and when I left, she gave me the bond back plus refunded some rent for doing the repairs.

I've had bad landlords...

The one who who'd told the agent in writing that we could have a six-month lease and then stay for up to six months more, but after seven months gave us four weeks notice so he could sell the place as someone had made him a huge offer for the house (posh part of town, huge house but rundown, vast garden, stunning views). The OH was two weeks off giving birth to our second boy. Then, to add insult to injury, he tried to keep the bond for repairs to the place - things like the stairs that had collapsed as the OH walked up them (rot and woodworm), the burst 1930s radiator (rusted through at the bottom), the kicked in back door (two burglars who I chased off with a P O K E R) and so on.

I tend to think there should be some sort of independent, binding arbitration service with whom bonds (and possibly photos of the hous/flat on entry) should be deposited. If there's a disagreement, then the service looks into it and makes a binding decision.

Oh, and as for tenants from hell. I once went to look at a flat in London that had been occupied by four male students for three years. You could smell the place before the door was opened, most of the lights were out, they'd pissed and vomited throughout the place after nights out, the bathroom and kitchen were so vile you wouldn't be allowed to show it on How Clean is Your House, and there were rats (and flies and maggots) running around.

I was gobsmacked that the agent was even showing my then GF and I the place, but he just shrugged and said "this is London, if you want a place you can afford this is what you can expect".

Fortunately, on the Tube back to our existing flat, we found an open copy of the Evening Standard with a couple of flats circled in the "Too Let" section. One of them turned out to be the one I first mentioned - the lady who'd been in SOE - so it all turned out well.

PS I know spammers are a nuisance but I also get tired of having to go back and either space out the letters to get a word in, or completely rewrite sentences to avoid words that are now deemed as offensive. It seems to happen more and more. Mutter, mutter.

Stonehead wrote:told the agent in writing that we could have a six-month lease and then stay for up to six months more, but after seven months gave us four weeks notice

That's the nature of a modern tenancy. Tenants are no longer expected to be able to make a home for themselves. After the initial contract period, it is only temporary accommodation.

I tend to think there should be some sort of independent, binding arbitration service with whom bonds (and possibly photos of the hous/flat on entry) should be deposited. If there's a disagreement, then the service looks into it and makes a binding decision.

That's pretty well what has just been introduced here. Only for new tenancies, though - can't be applied retrospectively.