Monday, December 4, 2006
Rosie Millard has a go at tenants
Tales of a Landlady: One hell of a mess
Tenants with references may still be Satan’s spawn, says Rosie Millard If you are a tenant, please look away now. It’s nothing personal, it’s just that, according to a new survey, six out of 10 of us landladies have experienced “trouble with tenants”.
Posted by little professor @ 01:51 PM (576 views)
18 thoughts on “Rosie Millard has a go at tenants”
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Douglas says:
I have never heard of her, sounds like a right b***h to me. First against the wall…
Randomkevlar says:
Ok, well I do understand the problem, but landlords and ladies in my experience our just as bad a holding up they end of the agreement, I have been renting in london for 10 years and have had major problems with landlord not making essental repairs to the property even though you get tax breaks to spend on the property. In one case (admitedly in a student house) we continuely told the landlord about a rising damp/damp issue which he ignored for over 9 months until at the begining of the next winter the house was condemned by some health and safety body we had to call cause it was getting soooo bad…
tyrellcorporation says:
Most tennants withhold the last month of rent because they are wise to the ruse that landlords will always try and withhold the deposit using some fabricated accusation that the place isn’t clean or ‘that bit of skirting wasn’t scuffed 2 years ago’.
These shits can’t have their cake and eat it!!!
little professor says:
I’ve never really understood that phrase. What’s the point of having the cake if you aren’t allowed to eat it?????
rich says:
Not all landlords withold the depost. I’ve rented five places in London and never had the deposit witheld. Perhaps there should be a system of references for landlords so that tenants can avoid unscrupulous ones.
Rich says:
LP:
It makes more sense when you use the original form of the saying “eat you cake and have it” rather than the modern “have your cake and eat it”.
little professor says:
Rich – this will probably do away with the need for that:
http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1504444
Leedel20 says:
Excellent.
paul says:
The proverb “have your cake and eat it” has always been a misnomer. The correct proverb (which is less used) is “Have the bun and keep the penny”.
I’ve said it before for every unscrupulous tenant there are ten unsrupulous landlords who spend the deposit as soon as they receive it. This will change soon with the obligatory membership of a bonded tenancy deposit scheme, but not yet.
Sam says:
oh, the craziest thing I’ve had to put up with is, how our landlord put up our rent as the flat itself was now neat tidy and a whole bunch of things which were problems before had been fixed (tempremental Heating system, substandard dining chairs and table etc…). — of course they had. My dad was a Carpenter also did a sideline in Plumbing for a while, I used give him a helping hand in the school holidays.
cannot wait till I leave. so many little problems will come crawling back.
charges me for living in a nice house/area, but fails to see I’m the one making it nice, what a twunt.
millard says:
It’s the same as any business, you have risk, bad debt etc… it is all part of the business and requires handling appropriately.
If these orange 40 year old Boxster driving bints don’t like it, then quit being a property developer / slumlady, guess it’s a little bit more work than they imagined i.e. buy property, spend day in treatment spa while £’s roll in….
Superruss says:
Well said True Millard.
In my experience (and I’ve rented in 5 different locations now) there does seem to be a proliferation of landlords who just aren’t cut out for it.
I recall not so many years ago viewing a place, possibly better described as a sh!t hole.. When I asked if I could see how well the shower worked, I think the penny suddenly dropped with the landlady, who at that point realised that she wasn’t selling a chicken battery.
denzil says:
I’m afraid I’m really going to make tenants look like scum with this tale.
Some friends an me rented a place a few years back, tiny little place, two beds but six of us lived there. It was a scruffy little place. Anyway to cut to the chase the landlady on inspecting the place decided to withold all the deposit as there were dirty handmarks around the light switches in the lounge (Note: we had lived there two years, so IMHO it was fair wear and tear). I live by the rule of treating others how you I wish to be treated, so I politely tried to negotiate. Landlady was having none of and insisted the whole flat be repainted if we wanted our deposit back. We discussed and agreed and landlady returned an hour later with several rollers and huge tubs of “trade” magnolia. We promptly set to work repainting the walls, the windows, the cooker(inside & out), bath, shower, toilet, beds, 3-piece suite ……
If it was static it got painted. To look at the place afterwards was really surreal. It was the closest I’ve got in my adult life to wetting myself.
We gave up on the deposit purely on the grounds that we knew she would not pay us, she was being completely un-reasonable and the deposit / 6 = close to nothing.
I’m prepared to be called tenent scum and have people say that I set a bad example. I don’t really care because it was 16 years ago I did it and I don’t regret it to this day. In actual fact if I’m a bit low it cheers me up just thinking about it.
harold says:
Denzil, excellent story – certainly cheered me up.
Daopig says:
Nice story. The greed of some landlords I have encountered has left me flabbergasted. It seems that after a few years a change comes over them. They start to believe that brick walls shed pound notes all by themselves.
indiablue19 says:
We moved from a place last year on learning that the reason we were all so perpetually “tired” and ill was that carbon monoxide was leaking into the place from a poorly vented flue pipe. On having required an inspection of the place by the gas company we learned that the landlord had known of this for two years and was adamant that he wouldn’t do a thing about the faulty twenty-year-old heating system that had already been failed twice before . And there is evidently no government agency in Scotland who follows on these inspections and would require him to do anything either. So we were being murdered and paying £1600 a month for the privilege, plus £325 per month in council tax. We left this jerk the £1600 deposit to cover the last month’s rent and he didn’t deserve even that. The City Council of Edinburgh told us that it wasn’t their problem and we’d have to work it out with him. We also found out that the people in the flat below the house were freezing to death with inadequate electric heat and rising damp, and the City didn’t know the flat existed, as a result of which no inspections of the installation had ever been done. Those tenants were paying Council tax and utilities to the landlord; we were paying Council tax and utilities for the entire property as there was only one tax bill and one meter. Hey, maybe it’s Scotland, but the gall of the criminal landlord in the UK is astonishing. Almost as bad as JP Morgan/Chase Manhattan Bank in New York. Another vote for Denzil’s story.
tyrellcorporation says:
I rented a place in Chalk Farm (N. London), donkeys years ago. The first night we were in it rained and the walls in the front room had rivulets coming down them. The boiler was cast iron and rusting and did not work, the Landlord said light fittings were going to be put into the place before we moved in – they weren’t, leaving holes in the ceilings and no lighting. The list goes on…
We’d spent well over a grand deposit and by sheer good fortune, had paid this by cheque as we couldn’t organise a bankers draft in time. By the skin of our teeth we cancelled the cheque and moved out the same weekend.
Our parting gesture was throwing mackerel filets into the ceiling cavities where the lights should have been!
It was massively stressful and this gesture still makes me laugh to this day…
inbreda says:
I had an annoying experience with Accord in Leamington Spa years back. Cheeky gits felt the need to write to us at Xmas to say they would have bought us a present but decided instead to give a donation to charity. Self congratulating sh1ts.
When we moved in we had to pay to have the carpets shampooed. When we left we did it ourselves, but Accord charged us to do it again when we left. It’s a pathetic example, but just shows their dishonesty – how can they charge the departing tenant AND the incoming tenant for the same job (which they didn’t even do).