To want to complain in a petty manner (but can’t and won’t)

[PookieDo]

I just moved into a lovely lovely HA property. I’m really lucky. The decor is rubbish but I can make it my own (lovely purple and orange walls anyone?)

I don’t know the previous tenants and in your rental agreement obviously only the more major elements of the property (heating, structural) are covered/maintained by the HA and the rest by the tenant - which I knew and expected.

1. So it had no carpets. Which I expected.
   

1. People who lived here before me took the TV aerial which is annoying and too expensive for me to replace - I’ve tried an indoor one but it doesn’t work and all the other neighbours have roof ones. There is a sky dish which seems to have been disconnected so I can’t get freeview or freesat. Fine I will have to watch catch up only
   

1. They also took nearly all the light bulbs - and they are all expensive energy saving ones I could only find online so I’ve had to pay over £20 to replace them.
   

1. They (or someone) also took the black wheely bin but the council did replace that this week
   

BUT onto the finale of the pettiest of the pettiest even more petty than any of the other gripes I have, when I went to put up ceiling lampshades they have taken/removed all of the screw on lampshade rings! This is my final straw of annoyance. The fuckers

Why do people do this? I don’t get it

[Justmuddlingalong]

I'm sorry, but maybe they took the things that they can't afford to replace.

[BiddyPop]

Is there an old fashioned hardware shop anywhere near you? If so, they will often have things like those rings for a few pence (ok, maybe not 5p - but probably considerably cheaper than elsewhere).

It is annoying though when things you DON'T expect have been messed with as well as those you DO!

[QuirkyQuark]

I would've thought that the HA would have to provide those because the lights are completely unusable and useless without them. I'd call them and request that they are replaced.

[PookieDo]

They are plastic screw rings, online I just can’t be sure they are the right fit. Not sure of any hardware shops near me

The lights work, so it’s not a HA issue. The aerial was fitted when the house was built - I have the paperwork and they were the first and only tenants. So if they took it they did not buy it in the first place

Totally understand taking most of the above.... except the rings! They wouldn’t be useful to anyone unless they were missing the same exact ones from their new lights

[snowball28]

HA should replace rings and aerial, get on to them today about it cause they take forever to sort anything.

You can buy the rings from amazon or B&Q though if you don’t want to wait.

[ShartGoblin]

Many years ago I did a flat swap with the housing association. All looked great until we came to moving day. They took the carpets with them! Who does that? They weren't anything special and the flats were totally different shapes. We had obviously left our carpets behind which fit the rooms and weren't much different.

I might understand it if they had bought nice carpets in colours they liked but they clearly hadn't, they were just basic HA carpets ripped up.

[PookieDo]

My mum did a swap and when she moved in she realised every internal door had a hole punched through it. She hadn’t noticed due to strategic posters and furniture when she viewed it

She swapped with someone who lived nearby. They lived in her old house for about 3 years and when they left it was so bad they had to fumigate it!

[SmashedMug]

Ah I remember the happy days of getting my first HA home. I was more focused on finally having an affordable rent and somewhere with a secure tenancy then moaning about every tiny little problem. The lack of light bulbs wasn't on my radar. 😂😂😂

[whyhaveidonethis]

I realise you probably just need to vent but to be honest I do think YABUto moan. It's annoying but at least you have a house. Plenty of others wouldn't care as long as they had a roof over their heads.

Obviously the previous tenants were BVU taking it with them, but given its probably cheaper to rent from a social landlord than privately, plus the HA will probably replace the aerial in the scheme of it it's really not important.

BTW I own my own heavily mortgaged home and can't afford an aerial, have terrible Internet signal due to living in a village and don't have/can't afford Sky or Virgin. People live without TV all the time.

[Iamgoingtobehonestwithyou]

I would complain about the aerial and the light fittings as technically they didn't own those items in the first place if it was a new build when they moved in.

[Dyrne]

Bit unfair whingeing at the OP. Surely there will always be someone worse off than any OP posting on mumsnet?

The purpose of mumsnet is to have a little moan about life’s little problems, surely?

Like, I had a shit day at work today. Obviously i’m Fortunate to have a job in the first place, but I still want to moan about having a shit day?

[Houseonahill]

Does sound annoying OP . There is an Ariel people by me who will put up an Ariel for £45 could you save a couple months for one? I have just moved house but private rental and loads of stuff didn't work or wasn't what it seemed when viewing so I feel your pain. It's not that they are big things it's just moving house is stressful enough without an extra million things to sort.

[Dyrne]

Anyway to answer your query OP, that level of pettiness would annoy the shit out of me.

Keep having a look online as i’m fairly sure energy saving lightbulbs should be much cheaper than that nowadays.

But lampshade rings - who would even think to do that?!?!?

[Lwmommy]

Do you have wifi?

If so you should be able to get freeview and things like bbc iplayer if you have a smart TV. If you dont have a smart TV then you can get an adapter like below that you plug into your tv hdmi slot.

www.google.co.uk/search?dcr=0&ei=NqRtXOikAobMaNPCh6gB&q=freeview+through+wifi&oq=freeview+throug&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-serp.1.1.0l5.1391463.1397576..1398925...1.0..3.239.5464.0j20j9......0....1.......5..0i71j35i39j0i67.5T6JTzGi2QQ

[ShakeYourTailFeathers]

We moved into a house as kids where they had taken all the sockets, light switches and ceiling roses. Dad had to go round the house with a roll of electrical tape making it safe while we sat on the stairs

Private sale - they only moved over the road. Weird couple.

[PookieDo]

Obviously as I am in social housing I have circumstances that has led me there and I qualify to be allocated one. I work many hours but am a single parent and privately rented for over 10 years have no chance of ever owning a house - which I would love to, do not everything is always as it seems! I’ve waited a long time for a suitable property that has central heating. And it’s not council housing rent prices and FYI.. I have no cooker or oven!

The lack of aerial I can live with in all honesty - need a cooker more.

I am completely fucked off with the pettiness of the light shade rings arghhhhh its just such a tiny thing - why take them? It was the level of pettiness I was annoyed about!

Light bulbs were about £2.50 each but I needed so many and some I bought didn’t fit etc as they are square with multiple pins etc

[PookieDo]

@Lwmommy

Ohh thanks will look!
I have WiFi on now!

[Greyhound22]

It's really annoying. I wouldn't be happy either OP.

But this is Mumsnet so you should just be grateful for having a HA property 🙄

[Brilliantidiot]

But this is Mumsnet so you should just be grateful for having a HA property 🙄

Same people also fail to understand you pay rent, and shock horror, a lot of people work to pay that rent! And that although rent can be lower than the market price for a similar size of private rent, you don't get the things included in social/council housing that you do in private rent, like carpets or indeed any flooring except bare floor boards, any white goods at all, they're not redecorated before a new tenant, and an oven, gas/electric fire etc. Private rent typically comes with most of those things. I'd expect to pay less in private rent if I was getting less.

And OP - I understand your frustration - last tenant here took, among other things, bath and sink plugs 🤨 very cheap to replace but I didn't notice the day I viewed or moved in, first bath with a jam jar in the plug hole and a flannel round it was quick 😂

[PookieDo]

Thanks
Yes I think it’s not as easy as people think. I’ve no carpets no cooker and actually having all the other little petty things like discovering there is no TV aerial is just frustrating. I have had to spend ages doing things like getting power meters replaced (debt and water damage) so I had no heating for a week. It’s been a bumpy ride! You only get to view it on the day you sign up so it’s not like you get much time to find out what it does or doesn’t have

I never said I wasn’t grateful for somewhere to live, and I don’t think I am being spoilt by just being peeved my bin got nicked and I had to pile up bin bags in the garden for a week (sure new neighbours thought I was a tramp) and 865 trips to Homebase for another set of wrong lightbulbs

[SmashedMug]

But this is Mumsnet so you should just be grateful for having a HA property

God forbid mumsnet ever speak sense! 😂😂😂

[Butterymuffin]

maybe they took the things that they can't afford to replace

Taking the screw in rings from lights is arsehole behaviour, however much you 'can't afford' something.

[WarpedGalaxy]

Oh pack it in with the ‘be grateful you have a home’. Bunch of sanctimonious, patronizing crap,

Of course you’re entitled to moan, OP, HA or house you just bought, it is petty and annoying to find basic fixtures removed and things damaged when you move into a new home whether you can afford to replace them or not. Have your gripe, ignore the ‘count your blessings’ crowd, get it all out of your system and then - move on. People in one house we bought took all the bloody door handles, every bloody door, as well as the lightbulbs and all the bathroom fixtures like the towel rails and the toilet roll holder. You bet I bitched loud and long about it.

Apart from all that though, congrats on your new home!

[StopMakingAFoolOutofMe]

When we moved out of our HA property, we had to remove the small chandelier style light fittings we'd put in and replace them with the dangly standard council ones we'd taken off ten years ago. They didn't have rings on because they hadn't when we'd moved in. We didn't take the rings to be spiteful.

Also, it's standard for councils/HAs to remove all carpets between tenants.

[HennyPennyHorror]

When I moved into a HA property years ago, there was blood all up the front door and the inside of the hall walls. Apparently there'd been "an incident" and it was that which caused the property to be empty.



I had to clean it with bleach.