To be annoyed at council waiting times

Yep, a business has the automatic right to renew a lease, but not person who just needs a home to live in.

Good. This is someone's house you're living in, and they may need it back at anytime. Maybe they've fallen on hard times and need to move in themselves, maybe they need to sell for the money.

There are thousands of reasons. Nobody should be automatically entitled to someone else's home.

(And yes, I am a renter too.)

Alfieisnoisy

you seem to think that all property owners live in detached house. Owners of flats have many restrictions too (and rightly so, the leases are there to protect everybody). (pets, windows, flooring, gatherings etc.)

You might prefer to be a home owner, no problem with that. There is a freedom in renting that you don't have when you own your home (or part of your home when you pay a mortgage). The repairs have nothing to do with you, you don't have to budget to fix urgent roof, leaks, windows, plumbing issues. You don't care about the property market in times of uncertainty, if it crashes, you are safe. Nuisance neighbours are merely an inconvenience, you can always move, it doesn't matter if they are hellish or devalue your property. You have no risk of being stuck in a property which does not sell. You don't have to budget a fortune in stamp duty when you do move. Until you pay off your mortgage, the house belongs to the bank, too many people seem to forget that.

There's positives and negatives in every situation, I just don't think that being a tenant is that bad or that being a homeowner is trouble free if you have a limited budget. I am in the South East, so of course I admit that it's much cheaper to buy a home around here at the moment! That might change.

Oh yes and the really big ridiculous one of not being allowed to be self-employed or work from home because of clauses in the tenancy agreement and the LL being horrified at the mere thought,

Even though there are now legally protected and defined Home business tenancy agreements that allow home working without risk that the residential tenancy will turn into a business tenancy where the tenant would gain the automatic right to renew the tenancy. Yep, a business has the automatic right to renew a lease, but not person who just needs a home to live in.

So yeah, I hate being a tenant

thanks for the good wishes lostinasea

We have tried freecycle etc and used and given a lot on the past.

Unfortunately now due to worse health issues preventing us from being able to collect and things and also with getting them up the stairs, we aren't able to use freecycle or ebay as we'd have to pay for a man with a van to get things for us and it works out very expensive for items that may not even last very long. I cant risk £70 on delivery for an appliance that might not even survive the transportation (like a fridge) - have had that before. Also there isn't a big scene of either freecycle or ebay where we live so there isn't much on offer and it tends to be far away. We dont have family we could ask and are isolated from friends because of having to move and health problems.

Having been both a home owner and a tenant I can say that however poor I might be, I would always choose being a home owner as you have so much choice and autonomy and dont have to ask (beg) for permission for simple everyday things;-
the choice not to have contract that regulates almost every detail of how you live,
choice over which contractor you use,
choice over when to move
choice not to have people come to inspect (and judge us) our home every 3 months,
choice not to pay contract renewal fees 6 or 12 monthly,
choice not to pay £400 in agent fees every time you move (often not through your own choice) and often every 6 or 12 months,
choice of whether I can use candles instead of them being prohibited,
choice of how often I wash my windows,
choice of whether to hang a hanging basket or a picture on the wall without asking permission (and it being denied),
choice of whether to use an oil filled radiator instead of it being prohibited,
choice of how to decorate,
choice of which appliances to have instead of having to use what ever (not very good ones) might be supplied
choice of whether to have pet,
choice of whether or not I have a social gathering instead of them being prohibited,
choice to make repairs if you can afford it rather than being in the situation where you could afford repairs but the LL won't allow it and it would be madness to pour money into someone else's property that you could be given notice on at any time or that you know you have to leave becuase the LL is a pain in the arse or is selling up.
the fear of what on earth you will do as a pensioners.
no fear that if you try to enforce your rights such as stopping a LL entering your home or repairs that you will not be revenge evicted

It doesnt matter of some clauses are legally unenforecable because some LLs will threaten and try anyway and it just costs money and stress to defend yourself and it is awful to live under threat and constant insecurity, particularly if unwell and disabled.

I have yet to experience one single thing as a private rented tenant that outweighs even the smallest of advantages of owning your own home - even with struggling to afford a mortgage or to fix a boiler.

At least with home-owning, everything you do is an investment in your own life and an exercise in being an independent, autonomous adult.

But yes...if you have a phone with a torch then that will solve the darkness issue. My bathroom has no windows so is very dark without a light
And definitely candles out of reach make a bathroom pretty....and very exciting for kids at bath time

Love the fact that the very first response the OP had was to tell where to be grateful she had a council house

Some of you seriously need to get a life if you are envious of someone too poor to pay private rents or mortgages.....people like ME and the OP.

I am also pretty certain you'd be moaning at her if she was a private tenant and did a repair her landlord didn't want her to do. It's the same thing here....a social landlord instead of a private one but landlord with rules and regulations about what tenants can and cannot do with regard to repairs.

I am not allowed to touch the plumbing in anyway except to turn water off and in again during repairs. This means my shower which has broken needed the landlords repair people put who condemned it. They are putting in a brand new shower this weekend. Do enjoy your moan about my temerity in wanting a working shower. I mean....how utterly entitled can one person be? A working shower...the horror of it!

why is there lighting that requires an electrician to change the lamp? that's ridiculous

I imagine it's to do with fire regulations because we live in high rises. If we did pay someone to do it and they made an arse of it, hundreds of flats are at risk.

I'm not allowed to change mine either. It's in my tenancy agreement.

People are entitled to have a moan about minor annoyances.

I whinged yesterday because I got a hole in my favourite shoes, but I guess I should be grateful to have shoes at all and I'm in a council house so I guess everyone here has subsidised my shoes

Do people seriously never gripe about anything because others have it worse?

Hope you get sorted soon op

The fitting is impossible to get in to unless you're a local authority qualified light wizard.

why is there lighting that requires an electrician to change the lamp? that's ridiculous.

I'm not envious of council houses; I value the area I live in too much. And if you think Labour would build more then you're seriously naive.

Labour and conservatives have done nothing to deal with the cost of housing.

YABU
Get the free torch app for your phone in the app store.

Similar shit in Salford.

www.salfordstar.com/article.asp?id=2560

Yeah ok, I'll wave shall I?

Helena:
An absolute disgrace. I expect a few of the fascists on this thread (Grilledaubergines I'm looking at you) are quite happy about it though.

Oswin i hope it gets sorted soon

Hodkinson carried out a qualitative survey of 14 homes refurbished by Rydon that had been the subject of a huge number of complaints. Showers were fitted next to electric fans. A toilet was installed so close to a wall that you could only sit on it sideways. Some households went for days without electricity and weeks without cooking facilities. Cupboards were fitted with wrongly size doors. Tenants who complained reported that they were treated dismissively. One remembered the site supervisor saying to him, “It ain’t Chelsea, mate.” Regenter’s out-of-hours emergency line linked to the wrong database, so callout engineers weren’t available. The striking thing was how long problems could drag out: one family’s flat was flooded in January 2014, and repairs weren’t even scheduled till September. Two years later, their flat still hadn’t been fully repaired and redecorated. Even at the most straightforward level, the work wasn’t done to a decent standard.

When approached for comment, Rydon said that since the complaints were made, three years ago, attempts have been made to remedy the problems. They said the comments were not reflective of most of the residents, and that there was a good level of satisfaction among the residents now.

For tenants with more complicated requirements, the situation was worse. The Cifuentes family, one of whom used a wheelchair, was left without ramps, hoists or any means of escape in a fire, and without a lock on the front door. Repairs were so slow and haphazard that, at one point, the family had to move out for over a month, and the disabled member could only have his needs met by going into a respite unit – whereupon they were threatened with losing their carer’s allowance, their disability allowance and their car."

Light bulbs, no matter how spectacularly intricate and complex yours may be, are part of the costs of running a home

I'd be delighted to change my bathroom lightbulb, the same way i change all of the lightbulbs in the rest of the house, but we're not allowed to. I've said that 632 times now. The fitting is impossible to get in to unless you're a local authority qualified light wizard.

www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jul/21/the-real-cost-of-regeneration-social-housing-private-developers-pfi?CMP=share_btn_fb

Residents were told to remove their pets, but no compensation was offered to cover the
costs involved.
 No consideration was given to residents who worked night shifts.
 Workers used electricity paid for by of residents, without offering compensation.
 Doors were left open and residents were able to wander in unchallenged by workers
who did not know them.
 Quality alterations that residents had already made to their homes were ripped out to
make way for inferior alternatives.
 Supposedly completed electrical rewiring was found to be substandard and occasionally
dangerous.
 Supposedly completed pipe works and its housing were found to be substandard.
 In some homes, odd sized radiators and kitchen unit doors had been fitted.
 Flooding in one home had been caused by an unsupervised apprentice.
 Households were left overnight without running water or a toilet.
 At least one resident was left without electricity for a whole weekend.
 Some workers were found to be abusive, bullying and inconsiderate, especially towards
elderly or otherwise vulnerable residents.

www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/research/pfisocialhousing/MFN_PFI_Refurb_Experiences_Report.pdf

Grilled:
The government is very happy to subsidise the private sector by allowing tax relief on buy to let mortgages. Perhaps it would be better if those reliefs were removed and the savings put into building affordable housing for our fellow citizens.

Why not get a couple of cheap candles in glass jars or similar and bath the children by candlelight. Make it an adventure for them! Three weeks will soon go and you know, a dead light bulb is pretty minor in the scheme of things, even if it is inconvenient.

It's not entitled to comply with the council rules if you are not allowed to replace the bulbs yourself.

We don't all live on the south.

I don't live in the south, either.