Previous tenants rubbish

[CaptainObviousTwo]

Genuine AIBU here as this is a new situation for me.

I moved into a rental property early last week. Due to family and work circumstances, I've barely been here so decided to take the afternoon off to final get things unpacked etc as currently it's like a warehouse.

The property is managed by an agent, to whom I had to pay £400 in "tenants fees".

I'd obviously noticed this last week but now I'm actually getting stuck in its apparenyours that the house was not cleaned prior to me moving in - it's filthy. Really quite disgustingly so.
I've gone into the back to put some rubbish in the black bin only to find that it is RAMMED full. The previous tenants moved out a month ago and from the smell there's a lot of meat in there. I have quite a lot of rubbish and can't use my own bin.
Unfortunately, I think last week was black bin week so the next pick up isn't for a fortnight.

AIBU in thinking that the house should have at least been cleaned before moving in and that the bin shouldn't be full of rotting meat?

The estate agent is only 5 mins away so it wouldn't have taken much to check/leave the bins outhe. Or am I being utterly unreasonable and this is my responsibility?

I emailed agent and they said "Unfortunately not as we were unable to make deductions for cleaning in this instance and unfortunately when tenants vacate properties they often fill the bins when vacating and unfortunately there is nothing we are able to do in regards to this as the council won’t undertake extra collection days."

At least it means you dont have to clean it when you move out.

I agree that theres not much that can be done about full bins if noone was there to put them out

Can you not contact your council and ask them to do a one off collection and explain? They'd do it where I live

Didn't you sign something when you moved in? An agreed inventory with the agent present? Surely the filth would have come to light then. It's a bit late to start complaining now.

Two issues.

1. Fillinf the bins.

Nothing wrong wiht that. What did you expect them to do? You will do the same when you move out probably!

1. House is filthy.

Bit annoying but in a way its a win. Take photos, send a super detailed email to the agents (literally list everything that needs to be cleaned) and make sure everyone is on the same page that you will be doing zero cleaning on move out.

Have you got the inventory inspection report yet?

You'd expect them to put them out for collection before they left, hipster. Not just leave them to rot.

You'd expect them to put them out for collection before they left, hipster. Not just leave them to rot.

And if they move out on a Wednesday but bin day is Monday, for example, are they just supposed to put the bins out 5 days early? Or in this case it appears the OP has a three week bin collection (missed last week's collection so has to wait another 2 weeks now) so what if they moved out in the middle of the three week cycle? I'm not saying the previous tenants weren't unreasonable to leave so much stuff but it's also not as easy as "put it out before you leave".

I do think YABabitU OP - you say you moved in last week, even being busy one of my first things would have been to go through the property asap while it was empty, taking pictures of everything (for inventory purposes) including any outside areas, and I would have been checking the bins too - mostly just to check they were all there as it can take weeks for my council to replace bins if they are stolen and it's not uncommon for people to "borrow" the bins from neighbouring properties if they know the old tenant/owner has moved out but the new one hasn't arrived yet.

If you had put the bins out when you moved in (and I always assume that people moving out will leave some rubbish from last minute cleaning, ready meals/takeaways from the last day or two before they moved and had already packed up the kitchen etc) you would not have this issue now as it would have been collected last week and your bin would now be free for your cleaning.

If you have such infrequent collections I would imagine that if you phone your council and explained the situation they will have an "extra collection service" for circumstances such as this.

You can drive rubbish to the tip. I'd have expected the previous tenants to have done this rather than leaving rotting shite for others. Unfortunately it's pretty standard, my db moved into a rental property with a bin full of rotting stuff. So he had to take it to the tip himself.

When I moved I went back to the old house on bin day to put the bin out as it pissed me off when I moved in and couldn't use the bin for a week.

If it's too far from the bin date to be put out reasonably, it's something that the letting agent or landlord should have sorted as part of checking the previous tenant out of the property. Sounds like they've really slacked on that front if it's dirty too.

Where I live bin collection is every other week, there is a rental house by me where every end of tenancy means a pile of crap out the back gate for several weeks. This time it's a bed and white plastic Christmas tree😑thing is the dump is only 5 minutes away.

Bins are reasonable; what did you expect the previous tenants to do with their rubbish? They can't exactly take it with them.

The cleaning is annoying, but like pp have said it's a bonus. Take pictures of everything, send the agent an email with the pictures and a detailed explanation of the condition, stating that they will not deduct anything from your deposit for cleaning when you move out, nor will you be paying for s professional clean.

Get used to the attitude you're getting from your letting agent. It never changes. Except to speak to you like you are simple or like something they just stepped in.

We moved into our new house last Tuesday. OK the bins were empty just dirty. I mean old leaflets stuck to congealed bin juice. Am I cleaning them ? Nope.

I have cleaned two ceiling lamp shades this morning, those damn uplighters. They were thick with dust. No wonder they weren't letting much light into the room !

The kitchen worktops are sticky and the splash back was dirty. The dvd that the letting agent made the day before we moved in did remark on the splash back being dirty.

The hedge at the front of the garden should have been trimmed as it blocks the view when either of us are reversing the car. This is recorded on the dvd. But nothing will be done about it until my husband and I trim it ourselves.

The back garden is a similar story.

This makes my husband and I a bit miffed as we spent a few hundred pounds having the old house & windows and carpets cleaned and the garden weeded and hard standing jet washed to the requirement of our previous letting agent so we get our deposit back in full. We hand the keys back on 13 August, so we'll see. We even took our rubbish bags to the dump as we missed collection day after we had gone.

The cheeky mare letting agent took a photo of the front of the house after we had paid to have the outside work done and has used it in the marketing photos to remarket the property. So that proves that the front of the house i.e. hardstanding IS in better condition e.g. cleaner (and you can see the decorative diamond pattern) than it was when we moved in.

Prior to that a let that we were vacating we spent 8 hours moving out of and cleaning. My husband swept the carpet. I came back and vacuumed it two days later. The bloody letting agent STILL wanted twenty quid to pay a cleaner to dust and vacuum the place ! We got our deposit back though.

Believe you me we will be leaving the current rental in EXACTLY the condition we found it.

I don't expect the previous tenant to have sorted the bins though the filth in the house is more than a months worth, so I'm pretty sure they just lived like this but I'd expect the Letting Agent to have taken care of it, £400 tenancy fee and all.

Bearing in mind that they're sending someone around to pick up the cardboard dumped in the garden, old appliances in outhouse, fix a broken glass pane in the door - I've been told this rather than asked for it.