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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

"Housing associations" Are you having problems?

161 replies

HelenaDove · 11/04/2017 23:19

Being covered in The Guardian,

www.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/11/no-one-calls-the-housing-association-repairs-line-theres-no-point#comment-96476391

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Hidingtonothing · 15/04/2017 01:04

Ours aren't the best, we've been awaiting a (admittedly complicated) repair for months now and are stuck in a frustrating cycle of unreturned calls and being passed from pillar to post because no one seems to know how to resolve the issue.

We began going through the complaints procedure last year but fell at the first hurdle because they rejected our initial complaint (as expected) and then lied about receiving our notification of intent to appeal but until that process is complete the Ombudsman won't look at our case.

We've just started on a new cycle of phone calls and being passed through the various departments and they're already failing to return calls at all within the specified timeframe and I doubt we will get any further this time than we have before.

It's frustrating but we're not as badly off as some, the issue in question results in inconvenience rather than real hardship but we pay our rent and it's been going on for a ridiculous amount of time now.

SilverDragonfly1 · 15/04/2017 14:32

Regarding the anti-social stuff, I would really like to see all landlords, not just HA, made responsible for the behaviour of their tenants with the right to evict them very quickly if complaints are made and proven to be true. Near neighbours would all be informed of the name and address of the landlord of any rented properties so that they can make a complaint easily. If the landlord failed to evict despite evidence (eg. photos of piled up rubbish, video and audio of noise and disturbance) he would be heavily fined and possibly lose the property. I think a whole lot of people would suddenly find themselves able to behave like civilised human beings in that case.

The problem of course would be deciding how much nuisance is grounds for eviction. The need for evidence would largely circumvent the issue of malicious calls, but the level would still need to be set to allow for people with mental health problems, ASD, LD and so on, who make noise because of their condition as the last thing we want is families whose children have ASD being put on the streets because of meltdowns etc.

Because the level would need to be quite high, bad neighbours could still make peoples lives pretty unpleasant without falling foul of the law.

I've noticed you post quite often about social housing Helena. Do you belong to some kind of pressure group (and can I join??)?

HelenaDove · 15/04/2017 14:44

Silver i dont no. What started me down this road is an incident that i saw unfold on twitter two and a half years ago. A tenant was live tweeting what she was going through. Her HA was using a company called Liberty Gas and the tenants boiler was broken. LG messed her around, talked to her like shit, flooded her bedroom then denied it was them saying it must have been wet already then threatened to walk off the job. They left work unfinished with her floorboards ripped up for WEEKS. They took 18 appointments and 4 and a half months to put in a boiler and six rads. There were also several no shows from them and one time an engineer showed up just to take bloody photos.

Absolute cowboys.

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HelenaDove · 15/04/2017 14:46

More about them here. They have contracts with over 32 housing associations.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2595702-To-wonder-how-this-company-is-still-in-business

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HelenaDove · 15/04/2017 15:04

Re. my post of 14.44 All of that happened between early Dec and April. Tenant was left without over the winter.

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HunterofStars · 15/04/2017 15:51

My dbro when he lived in a HA had LG and they kept cancelling appointments and messed around with the boiler so it kept breaking down. He kicked off and they fixed it eventually.

My HA used a different company for gas checks at my old place and gave me an appointment for a Wednesday but I had regular appointments on that day so cancelled it in advance. They turned up anyway and I found a note saying that the gas had been capped. I called HA, they sent someone out and it turned out that the gas had not been capped at all but a very convenient way to get someone to have a gas safety check.

HelenaDove · 18/04/2017 18:49

bump

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HelenaDove · 24/04/2017 18:46

Update...................

www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2017/apr/24/housing-associations-crisis-commercialisation?CMP=share_btn_tw

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SilverDragonfly1 · 27/04/2017 14:41

The updates are appreciated Helena :)

DissonantInterval · 27/04/2017 15:01

Mine are exactly like SilverDragonflys. They come out pretty quickly but do the bare minimum to sort something out. exteriors of the flats get virtually no attention. Paint chipping badly off concrete at bottom of front doors, paint chipped off between floors at the points where scaffolding was once put up. My interior walls are in dreadful condition as most of them don't seem to have been properly plastered at any point. The HA won't deal with all the cracks as they are 'cosmetic' and we are responsible to decorating. The thing is it's NOT cosmetic. The walls are literally crumbling away. If you try hang a curtain rail or put a picture up, a nail will just lead to a plaster tsunami and a large hole in the wall!

SilverDragonfly1 · 27/04/2017 18:44

Know exactly what you mean Dissonant. Most of my decorating involves painting over and over wallpaper left by the last, very long term tenants as pulling it down destroys the plaster. Even the ceilings have been papered, obviously to try and make the place look better 20 years ago, and again pulling it down would lead to a cascade of plaster bits. It's depressing because however much I do the house looks tatty- and like many HA tenants we are on a low fixed income due to disability, which means we can't do much ourselves or afford to hire people.

We are going to get so told off for moaning about our incredible good fortune in having an HA property in a minute!

DissonantInterval · 27/04/2017 19:11

Silver I could have written your last post virtually word for word. My living room for some reason seems to have been better finished than the rest of the flat. I did have a decorator in after I first moved in and when he unwittingly took the wallpaper down behind the bed, the plaster was falling out in lumps. He said he'd never come across walls in such a state the whole time he'd worked (and he was no spring chicken). They are shocking. So yes, whatever you do, the rooms look scruffy. I am finally getting the place re-painted after going without an annual holiday for last 3 years as after 7 years it's looking majorly vile. And due to joint problems I frustratingly can't do it. The HA say it's not their responsibility but the walls are really disgraceful. And I AM really grateful to have this place but would like the HA to take a bit more responsibility for things like this. It so obviously needs re-plastering more or less, throughout.

HelenaDove · 27/04/2017 23:00

No worries Silver. It looks like the Guardian arent letting this go.

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RoseDore · 27/04/2017 23:15

Silver, your HA sounds just like mine and I bet we are tenants of the same one. Shoddy repairs are the norm here and those take months to get completed if they are complicated. There is no accountability, only a call centre whose staff have no authority to do anything. I dread anything going wrong because it generally involves hours of phone calls, missed appointments and repeat visits.

SilverDragonfly1 · 28/04/2017 07:11

Rosedore the problems seem to be so widespread that I wouldn't be at all surprised to find we're not with the same one! Mine's L&Q.

RoseDore · 28/04/2017 11:54

Not the same one then. Why are they all so bad?

DissonantInterval · 28/04/2017 16:18

Nope mine's not L&Q. Seems a lot are rubbish in this regard :(

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PlanIsNoPlan · 30/04/2017 20:25

I don't read the Guardian but was a tenant of an HA that used Robert Heath for many years and I never felt I was being treated as "scum" at all. Just saying....

HelenaDove · 03/05/2017 23:09

Contractors called Timetra.

www.yell.com/biz/timetra-ltd-motherwell-7808668/

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HelenaDove · 03/05/2017 23:10

From the link,

"TWO "WORKERS" SENT TO DO DRAINAGE WORK AT MY HOME HAVE MADE MY LIFE A MISERY!!
Report Review For last 18 months along with caring for my sick child I've been put through hell by two so called workers who were sent to my home unblock a drainage pipe that was causing flooding.
After 7-8 visits where they'd say it was fixed only for it it to happen yet again,and due to
their anger at me that I dared ask them why it still wasn't fixed properly,they must have decided to just blatantly lie! Saying that it's me causing the blockage.
They also told the same lie to a new neighbour who the flooding also affects..
I've been advised to see a lawyer as this could've put my safety at risk.
Thankfully after I explained everything my neighbour believed me.
Due to the stress this has caused me and the fact I've had no support from my landlord of 14 years. I feel I've no option but to move house and when I'm gone and a new tenant moves in I'll be vindicated as the same problem will still be there.
That's when I will go to a lawyer and also to any newspaper who'll listen"

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HelenaDove · 07/05/2017 23:57

Orchard Village.................AGAIN.

www.romfordrecorder.co.uk/news/dangerous-10ft-metal-pole-falls-from-roof-of-orchard-village-rainham-block-again-1-5004569

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HelenaDove · 07/05/2017 23:58

It was stuck to the edge of the building with double sided sticky tape Hmm

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HelenaDove · 26/05/2017 20:38

This is the worst post regarding the "othering" of social housing tenants i have ever seen.

Copied and pasted from the thread "Explosions in Manchester part 3"

Locallylost Fri 26-May-17 17:31:50
"I think we should be building more social housing for many reasons not least to desegregate communities."

I disagree. I believe social housing actually creates ghettos. And promotes idleness.

The housing market should be more like in Europe where private renting is more affordable and a viable long-term option.

Poorer immigrant communities wouldn't be able to isolate themselves form the real world. Instead of women staying at a very low cost home with little English skills, they would have to ensure that men and women work to raise money for their accommodation and lifestyle and thus mix with professional of all backgrounds.

Do we know if this murderer grew up in social housing?

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