Council tenants complaining about their 'fixtures'

[Delilah21D00LoT]

I know I'm being unreasonable, but I just want to get this off my chest. Please feel free to ignore or have 'your say' too.

I joined a facebook page/forum: www.facebook.com/groups/diyonabudgetofficial/

about 4 weeks ago so that I could follow and get ideas.

There are stacks of people who've been painting their kitchens - as they cannot afford a new one (this includes me) and a heck of a lot of them are Council Tenants complaining about their "shitty, crappy, cheap shit, typical Council Kitchens" when they've posted a picture of these so called "shite kitchens" they look pretty decent - basic - but decent.

One person was complaining that she didn't like the 'beech kitchen' that the council had put in when she moved in the year before and she'd complained to them that she wanted 'white gloss units', but also complained when the council said 'No, we will not change it just because you don't like it"

Others have been complaining of their "shitty, non-flat or wonky walls, wood chipped walls and so on" what do people want? They've got a Council House or Flat - do they expect it to be done up like some brand new property?

We bought our house some 12 years ago - it still requires work. None of our walls are flat, straight or smooth, there are chips and cracks everywhere.

The kitchen is now over 20 years old and has been repaired repeatedly over the years and I painted all the units at the beginning of the year to brighten it up - and it actually looks pretty good.
I come from Council myself and have several friends who are still in Council properties, but they are the older generation (30's, 40's and 50's) and seem incredibly grateful for their home.

I think I'll just leave the group as I can no longer tolerate the selfish people who seem to expect everything to be handed to them.

I need to shut up, I know.

Sorry if I or this has offended anyone.

~ Delilah ~

OMG that page does my nut in. But at the same time I am morbidly agog at what people are doing to their homes.

At least the woman with the gorgeous parquet flooring a while ago knew enough to keep it and not rip it up (seen that too - the bloke that other person got in must have thought Christmas had come early!). The wanton destruction of original features, ripping out fireplaces, tearing up tiled floors etc to pain them sodding grey or cover them in CDs (or pennies as pp says!) makes me want to cry sometimes.

And the Fablon! Oh my.

It's a group for people happy to spend (a not insignificant amount, actually) money on poor quality products from cheap shops that won't last, and then change it again. If you are the sort of person who saves up to invest in longer term decorations, it really isn't the site for you.

The pay weekly carpets thing makes me sad - the Brighthouse of shit flooring.

I've got a thirty year old kitchen including the " tempory shelves" because we gutted the house and could only afford the base units! Looking for ideas. I have had two kitchens drawn up but they look so clinical compared to mine. Not sure if I will like it.

That's a point OP. Why are you even here? Shouldn't you be fully engaged with applying ringpull pebbledash to your stairs or something?

I am in that group too. Have been since it first started, more or less.

You are cherry picking OP. Did you honestly think that no one else on MN would be aware of that MASSIVE group?

There are entitled twits in that group but they are not all council tenants. Not even nearly.
For every one moany thread (and everyone has the right to a moan, even council house scum) there are at least 10 from social housing tenants delighted with their new homes.

That group is full of people taking great pride in their homes and there are hundreds of pictures of lovingly decorated homes.
You are misrepresenting a huge group of people based on a few internet wankers.

Now why would someone do that?

@Battleax Wed That's a point OP. Why are you even here? Shouldn't you be fully engaged with applying ringpull pebbledash to your stairs or something? smile

" Far nicer than anything I could have afforded to replace the old one and I’m very grateful and happy with it."

You could (and did) afford to pay for it. Money for new kitchens and bathrooms comes out of the 1000s of pounds in rent a tenant pays over the years.

I realise you were just trying to be pleasant, but it's actually extremely unhelpful to perpetuate the myth that social housing tenants get "given" free kitchens and bathrooms.

They aren't free, and they don't get given to us. New kitchen aren't "ours" anymore than the en-suite bathroom in a travelodge belongs to the customers. You're just paying to borrow it for the duration of your stay.

Oh shots don't. They might well try it

Why indeed MrsDV?

I think it’s natural to be jealous of council tenants when you’re a private renter. I’ve had five moves in six years with a child with autism, all because landlords have sold up. The council won’t even put us on their list as we are in the south east, and the accommodation we get on our budget is of a terrible standard yet costs more than twice in rent what a council house would.

A lot of people are making out that their council houses are a horrible mess. But rented homes can be too. If you win the council lottery around here then the houses are pretty nice three bed semis. But the only people I know who have them grew up in council houses themselves and were assigned them once they started to have their own kids. The system round here is madness.

But that's the southeast though I live in the northwest and it only took a few months to get my house and the rent is only slightly cheaper than private rent .

It is very tough in the South East, and the insecurity is the absolute worst in private, especially with kids.
But as for the state of the houses against private? Yes I have lived in some grotty private rentals but none of them came to me with bare concrete floors and mouldy wallpaper hanging off.
I guess you can get a nice semi that someone else has done up, in a nice area, but that's not the norm, certainly not anymore.

I think it’s natural to be jealous of council tenants

If I am going to waste my energy being jealous of anyone I prefer to be jealous of someone living in a late Victorian 8 bedroomed rectory.

On MN if you covert something expensive or a high end lifestyle you get called bitter and mean for bringing someone down.
But its fine to be jealous of someone in social housing.
I can see why you would be envious. Private renting is a pita.
But you get home owners with lovely houses and comfortable lifestyles piling on these threads yelling about how lucky someone in two bed in Chorley is and how THEY SHOULD BE GRATEFUL.

Those of us with our own homes need not be grateful at all apparently. We WORKED OUR GUTS OUT FOR OURS

Most people on MN yearning for a council house would drop down dead if they were allocated a property and told to live in it.
They have conniptions if their cleaner uses her own choice of antibac spray.
It makes them feel 'out of control'

Imagine not being able to chose your own bathroom tiles .Oh the horror.

I've owned my own home and am now in social housing and trust me, social housing isn't all that great. As pp's have said, the work done is often crap and substandard and I have to jump through hoops to get anything done. I am currently sitting here freezing, despite the heating being on, because the windows aren't sealed properly. My rent isn't cheap either (south west) and my daughter pays £25 a month more than me for a gorgeous house that's got new carpets etc. I know this isn't the case everywhere though.
To all those people moaning about paying for a house they own, remember that in time you will own your house, I won't. So everything you do adds value, where if I do it too the HA will rip everything out if I move/ die and my children will have no house to inherit.

I was in social and now I own my own house.
Much as I was grateful for my council flat it does not compare to having your own place.
People who pretend it does are bonkers AND ungrateful for their own good fortune.

I’ve paid more than enough in rent over the years for my council house. By rights it should be of utmost quality, the wood chip should be long gone and a proper plaster skin should be in the walls and I should have a decent and safe house and garden for the kids to play in. But I don’t it’s shoddy and in poor condition, even my 2 year old kitchen is starting to fall apart..flooring coming up, cupboard doors falling off.

I get that house owners often face hardship and can’t afford to do big things to their house but at least the house is theirs, in a place they chose, in the neighbourhood they wanted to live in and they get to choose the builder or contractor to do work if they so wish. Council or ha tenants will never have that choice

I've rented enough times in my past, and usually in really shitty places where the landlords were lax enough that any DIY I did could only improve it, so they gave permission. I have had to replace a broken toilet at my own expense. I have also painted, put shelves in, put a kitchen counter in (there wasn't a counter at all), and so on. I did this when there wasn't even any real security of tenancy. It was worth it because of the low (not actually low, just low for the area) rent.

I've got friends in housing association homes that have paid for their own upgrades as they expect to be there for a long time.

I can see it being annoying if what you are seeing is demands and outrage over the quality (not the utility) of fittings, but I also think everyone in any home deserves a decent standard of living, and it's fair enough to have a moan amongst friends when what you have is adequate but not to your liking.

But I’d take a council house without flooring and in need of repairs over moving every year. Honestly. I just want to give my disabled DC his own bedroom and not have to explain why we are packing up yet again. I’m not saying council places are worth it, but at least there is an element of security and the rent is so much cheaper here.

As an example of how broken the system is, my last private rental was an ex council house that had been sold. All our neighbours were council tenants paying the standard rent, but we had to pay over a grand a month for our bog standard house which was grotty to the extreme. That’s until our landlord realised he could flog the place for £300k and put it on the market.

Well I for one am bloody glad I don't have to live in a council house at the mercy of a cash strapped councils idea of what a decent kitchen is.

I don't see why council tenants can't expect decent plastering, non damp walls and a kitchen which is fit for purpose.

I'd have thought that was the minimum.

If they want to lay CDs on their floors (eh?) then that's entirely up to them.

Bbc

Sorry wrong thread

I totally agree with op here I really gets my goat

dingdongdigeridoo.

The system can be so unfair.

I had two uncles. One left school at 15, worked all his life in a factory (rising to clerk of works!) and bought a 3-bed 1960s semi in so-so area. Other uncle never did a day's work in his life (well, a bit of ducking and diving) and he and his family got a large council house in a naice village with a huge garden as it was a corner plot. Somehow or other he bought said house and then sold it for £500K, and aunt and uncle moved in with their dd. Uncle no. 1 nearly died of apoplexy.

Look, you're always going to have some strange, entitled people. They exist on Mumsnet and in the middle classes, as well as in the working class.

However, there are also people complaining about things being wrong in council houses that are really urgent. I can't believe I'm having to remind people of this so close to the event, but please just try to recall the horror of Grenfell Tower, and the way that those residents had badgered and badgered those maintaining the properties for essential repairs. If you think such a situation isn't replicated across the country in many different units, you're really naive.

And can I also say that it is in the interests of BOTH tenants AND taxpayers that repairs that are done by private companies are of a good standard. As a taxpayer, I do not want to be paying an exploitative private company for shonky work, that they know they can get away with because councils don't have the staff to quality control builds. The reason is quite simple and pragmatic: bad repairs need redoing sooner and at greater expense than good ones. Do the job once, do it well, and maintenance costs remain reasonable. How much public money has been wasted recently because corners were cut on cladding?? I know in my city, several blocks have been stripped and redone, and the bill must run to millions. And all the while, those poor tenants have been put at risk.

Also, to those saying that private homes are a mess - YES! But just because some people have shitty housing, doesn't mean we should make that the standard. What we do need is pressure on all landlords to deliver decent, high quality housing. There is an organisation called ACORN, which is a renters union, doing some absolutely excellent work in this area - if you are a private renter, you really should consider joining because what they are doing is really effective.

I'm on that group...and the glitter obsession is doing my head in. I love glitter but that's too much.

I love how inventive people are though and how much energy and time they put into their properties. Council houses and HA homes can be very basic when you move in....mine was covered in graffiti!

I can also moan massively about my tiny kitchen,,,,they could have shaved two feet off the length of the living/dining room to make a bigger kitchen. There's my moan out of the way ....

But I am hugely grateful to have this place...it's only 13 yrs old. It's warm, it's lovely and since I've moved in and decorated it looks lovely.

My HA replace kitchens every 17-19 yrs although they are not obliged to replace them that quickly. When they do replace I will (as tenant) get a say over colour etc from a limited choice. The tenant that comes in after me will have to live with my choice.

But yes YANBU about some of the complaining. I can complain about the design of this house but the fact is it's the style of many houses from that time period. When you get folk moaning about the colour of their cupboards and expecting the council/HA just to change them then I get irritated. You give thanks for the roof over your head and get changing stuff yourself.

As for extra bits I think you can even add stuff if you get permission from the council/HA.