Disagreeing with the home the council have deemed appropriate...

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I’ve been waiting to be housed by the council for over 3 years. I have an 8yo and a 16mo. Went to see a flat on Wednesday which looked nice from the outside in the picture, and the only reason I put the bid in is because it had an exclusive garden. The flat is awful. No flooring obviously but spikes in the doorways, mould in the corners of and around the windows, cracks in the ceiling etc etc. It’s completely filthy and the whole place needs painting and tidying up. I wasn’t shown the garden when I viewed it. But anyway I turned it down. I was called the next day to say if I don’t take it they will reduce my banding. So obviously I very reluctantly took it. Paid the rent and picked up the keys and went round to see it. The garden is top to bottom front to back covered in 7ft high brambles. No exaggeration what so ever. Can not get a toe in there. Surely this is not right. A very close friend of mine is a builder and he said I’m gonna have to spend about £2k on the inside to make it suitable. Surely this is not right. I have never felt so low before, the thought of having to live there I cannot stop crying as obviously I don’t have £2k to sort the place out. Who can I complain to??

I have zilch decorating skills and no time. When on earth am I supposed to be able to do it all when I’ve got 2 kids to look after and going to work as well. My parents still work full time so can’t really ask them to do much.

But this is the same for everyone.

You will probably leave the garden until the end - most people do. However you could start saving cardboard boxes now as this will help later. I have allotments and if I get one with brambles I do the following: cut thick stems with shears, use a cordless strimmer and strim the lot to the ground. Cover the area in flattened boxes held down with bricks. Eventually all growth below gets killed off / weakened.

Seems pretty standard tbh. Mine was a state when I moved in yrs ago. The HA repairs are also often bodged where I am.

As others have said, try to focus on one room at a time, try and get friends or family to help/help with childcare so you can get stuff done. Wipe down walls with sugar soap then Paint everywhere white. Measure rooms and keep measurements on you so you can check sizes with offcuts and roll ends when you go in carpet shops.

For now, I wouldn’t worry about the garden, in some ways it’s not worth it in this weather as your unlikely to be using it and brambles need a lot of digging to get the roots up, without doing that and just cutting back they’ll be back before spring, cutting them Is all the HA is likely to do anyway. Think about the garden again nearer spring.

Scour eBay And fb marketplace for stuff for your home, it’s amazing some of the bargains that can be found.

Try and think long term You have your own safe and secure home.

There are lots of good suggestions on here on how to deal with it. Mine would be to add ask for help with garden, painting etc as gifts.

Over the Christmas break I’m sure you Can get a couple of rooms liveable.

Make a plan for Easter to try and get more done then

Good luck

See if you have a volunteer bureau near you. They might have someone who's willing to help with DIY or decorating.
YouTube videos for learning decorating skills. Cheap equipment and materials from B&M or Wilko are good.
Mould and Mildew remover from discount or pound shops. Open all windows and get some of those cheap disposable dehumidifiers, that should help keep things under control.
As others have said it will take time but you can do it.

It seems extremely dodgy that you were expected to accept or decline the property unseen! I've never known that to be the case, you should have been offered a viewing before being asked to make the decision.

The actual condition sounds typical though. When my DM moved into a new housing association house 15 years ago it was much the same, except instead of brambles the garden was littered with used nappies. boak.

Do what you can yourself and pester the council about what you can't.

Mine was the same. Very disgusting. daunting. I got the keys a couple of wks before I moved in and concentrated on the kids bedrooms and deep cleaned, used mould spray etc and painted. Decorating isn't too difficult if you just stick to magnolia and white gloss. Can you book a wk off and get friends to help with kids so you can get as much done as possible? Before you sign for keys do a walk round and get them to make notes of what need fixing and They should send a surveyor round. We got decorating vouchers and painted and carpeted as we could afford it. 10 months in my kitchen is nearly done and next is the bathroom which is still horrendous. They should provide flooring although can be discusting in kitchen and toilet areas. Use disinfectant on everything.
If it's clean and you can tackle the mould everything else can wait.
If you get housing benefit you can apply for duel payments on both houses for a wk to help you get some stuff done.
I always think if the kids rooms are nice the other rooms can be done gradually.
You now have security in a property that you don't have in private rental. Any money you spend isn't wasted as you can't just be evicted and lose all that effort .
Try to look at the positives and get as much help as you can.
I had borrowed old curtains up until I could afford them and got all my furniture from Facebook marketplace or charity shops.
Good luck this is great news it's just gonna be bloody hard work. X

Also to stop mould growing- open every window for 10 minutes first thing and last thing. Get into the habit of wiping down windows and sills each morning. Don't put things on windowsills-keep them clear.
Put the feelers out now for free old curtains rugs etc.
Hoover and scrub all floors with soapy water so if you don't get carpeted soon you know they're clean.

We had something similar when we moved in, main difference is we had carpets in all the rooms, the previous tennant left.

We also needed a large amount of furniture, painting, I have gone through writing down all the stuff we need, put the most important things first and now we save as much as we can and buy it as and when, I also keep an eye on freecycle, gumtree etc to see if we can anything for free.

When I moved into my first flat it was horrendous. Holes in walls, bare floors. I felt so daunted. I was at uni, had a young baby and another on the way and I was only 18.
January sales were my friend.....i got so many decorating materials for next to nothing. I focussed on the living room and my kids bedroom. I leant to paint, hang wallpaper and clean like I had never cleaned before. I used my student loan to put down carpets and bought sticky back vynal tiles for the kitchen and bathroom.....I used to buy these a few packs at a time because I couldn't afford them in 1 go. I also had a paint party one weekend. My mum had my son and all my friends came round and chipped in. It took a lot of hard work but we made it into a home.

You can do this :-)
The city I live in has a paint place where people donate uneeded/left over paint and you can buy it very cheaply. I've also seen people put put requests on local Facebook groups for free or low cost items people might be getting rid of. Youd be surprised at how generous people can be :-) good luck!

Take photos and contact your local councillor, they can be really good at getting action on these type of things.

What does the builder say you need to spend £2K on? If it is structural then it is the councils responsibility but if it is things like decorating and flooring then it is up to you.

It amazes me how LAs vary. I am in a house far too large for me and waiting for a flat/bungalow to be available. My LA have offered me £4k to move plus they will carpet at least two rooms in next property to my choice and pay for removals.

Whilst I obviously appreciate this, it's just so damn unfair when there are people like the OP who are getting nothing. I would happily forgo that £4k if it went to someone who really needed it.

Conversely when I originally moved in here 33 years ago, the bathroom had never been painted since the house was built in 1947 plus the tenant had, for unknown reasons, stored coal in the bath! But there were a couple of not too manky carpets left behind and I was given a B&Q voucher towards paint etc, which went quite a long way in 1987.

It is shit but your options were limited and you now have a home that you could not afford without help. It will take hard work and time. A positive attitude will help you massively.

There is a load of advice for getting access to (again free or low cost) services to help. But it will be you that has to step up and take control.

It is doable. Good luck.

When it comes to doing your garden, get in touch with local scout troops, when I was doing my queens scout award, an element of it was community service. To complete ours, A group of us cleared the garden of a lady in a very similar position to you. It was 5 feet high overgrown and covered in brambles and over a week we dug it all out and cleared out loads of rubbish so she could work with it. So it's worth asking around to see if any local troops are looking for community projects or volunteering options they can get involved in.

In our city there is a charity which provides paint and decorating materials to people in difficult financial situations. Maybe you could see if there is a similar scheme locally to you.
Join freecycle or Facebook "free and wanted" pages and ask around. Plenty of people will have half a tin of paint in the garage, a rug they no longer need etc.

Carpet roll ends can be really cheap, and if you know someone who's generally good at DIY they can be fitted very cheaply, especially if the carpet strips have been left in around all the rooms and doorways.

www.flooringsuperstore.com/remnants/carpet-remnants

www.flooringsuperstore.com/remnants/vinyl-remnants

Go in with a big bucket of hot bleach water and just scrub down all the wall, windows, doors while it's empty. Open up the windows and let it air and dry.

Then I'd just get white emulsion and white gloss and paint all walls, woodwork and doors.

Put carpet down after painting and that will give you a nice fresh, clean shame. You can focus on personalising and adding colour as you like

For the garden, wait till spring then hire or borrow a decent strimmer and take the lot down as short as you can.

With brambles they then need to be dig out, you could use a very strong weed killer but I'd not want to do that with kids using the garden. So it will be a matter of taking it bit by bit to dig out a patch and clear all the roots.

Google the name of your council or social housing provider and "lettable standard" - they will detail on there exactly what condition a property will be passed over to in.

Maybe you could get in touch with this charity: www.besom.com

They have local Besom projects, so will be dependent where you are. But I believe they may be able to help with cleaning it/ clearing it and providing some furnishing supplies.