To pay for new flooring in a rented house that we aren't staying long term in?

[D0oinMeCleanin]

We're planning on staying here roughly another year.

The landlord doesn't want to pay out for laminate flooring because he says he usually has to change the carpets after every other tenant, sometimes a carpet will only last one tenant. He doesn't want to shell out for laminate only to have to change it after I leave/the next tenant leaves. He usually just looks for joblots on cheap carpets. This year he found a rather fetching dog shit brown one, which he did the entire house with, with the exception of the kitchen/bathroom which has a really cheap, stained lino in. He changed the carpet after the tenant before me but not the lino.

I've priced it up and for a low to mid range laminate, plus accessories and fitting it myself it would be a maximum of £350 to do the front and back room in laminate. For midrange vinyl flooring for the kitchen/bathroom it would be in the region of £80.

He's promised not to put the rent up for 2 years if I re carpet/lay laminate, but he doesn't want to pay for it himself, when he's only just put this carpet down (badly I might add, it's not stuck down properly and keeps getting sucked up the hoover, so is tatty and fraying around the edges)

I hate the carpet. I hate having to vacuum three times a day. I hate the colour of it. I spend roughly £7 a week on shake and vac to stop the carpet smelling 'doggy'. It needs washing constantly due to the dogs tracking in mud or the kids spilling things and the shade of dog shit brown it is shows up everything. The carpet shampoo I go through amounts to about £10 per month. I worry about germs, we have a cat who uses a litter box and then walks across the carpet and pet rats who free range in the living room. The kids then sit on the carpet and eat (not off the carpet, but they're still touching the carpet and then their popcorn/crisps etc)

I feel silly paying out £400 on a house that is not mine and that I'm not staying in but it would make my life so much easier.

We are hoping to move so the children can have their rooms. Dd1 is coming 11. If we still didn't have a bigger place by the time she was 13 I'd start looking at another private rented, which is another benefit of laying laminate in this house. For the kind of house I'm hoping for, in the areas I'm looking at, to get private rented with pets and children I'd need a fucking spectacular reference from this LL.

But yeah, the wait is likely to longer rather than shorter than a year. The 1 year was just an estimate.

O/T but I thought you had two girls?

I've never known a council that would give same sex children a bedroom each. I am in the SE tho.

How depressing that this is what our housing system has come to. You have to pay through the nose for something that the landlord should be paying for. I am sorry but the fact that the landlord has used the cheapest furniture and fitting just shows that he doesn't care about his tenants, just about making money.

And what a cheek of him to say he is shocked about how badly tenants treat other peoples properties. Well, firstly if you are paying rent then it is your home as well as his "investment". He obviously expects his tenants to pay for the upkeep of his investment as well as the rent. I really hate the fact that so many landlords have no thought to putting in some nice furniture and fittings that, gasp, might cost a bit more but might make renting a better experience for the tenant and them more likely to stay on.

You do also realise that he can still evict you if there is a break clause after 6 months with no reason and that he will probably take some money off your deposit for fictional damage even though he has used the cheapest of everything but will charge you far more than he paid.

I would just not pay the last month's rent as someone else has advised and he can use your deposit rather than risk him keeping your deposit and claiming you replaced his expensive carpet with cheap lino or something like that.

Our council sold all of it's stock to a privately owned housing association, afaik, it's run by a housing association, as opposed to the council, so I'm assuming they own the properties.

It works similar to private lettings as far as I can tell as in anyone, in any situation can apply for any house, as long as they can afford the rent. The more vulnerable your situation the more points you get to bid. Each house is worth a set number of points, but you can bid over it's points value, as most people do, or even below the points value but only bedsits in rough areas ever go for less than their points value. I'd only be given initial points for the value of 2 bed properties, as a non vulnerably housed person (so even my initial points wouldn't be enough points for an actual 2 bed house, because people with more points than me would be bidding on them too, iyswim? Every week I am on the waiting list earns me more points. It's all very complicated)

I could bid on three bed properties, but the housing benefit would only pay up to the average rent of a two bed property until dd1 turned 16. I have to pay a top up anyway because I work, but obviously I'd need to take into account whether I could afford the extra 'bedroom tax' on top of my usual top up.