AIBU in thinking if you have a Council house and the Council are modernising it you shouldn't really moan about it?!

[Mydietstartstomorrow]

So I'm in B&M in the queue listening to a customer moan on and on about how the Council have only given her 3 weeks notice that she is getting a new kitchen and bathroom fitted and this is totally unacceptable and how it's going to disrupt her life! Checkout lady then moans that she contacted her Housing Association to find out she's not entitled to a new bathroom for some time yet. AIBU to think some people feel so entitled? What about the people (me) who own their own home and cant currently ever imagine having the money to have a new kitchen and bathroom fitted?! Oh, and the loft was being insulated also!

I had a new kitchen, bathroom, rewiring, new heating and boiler, a wall removed (to make two rooms into one big kitchen) and a chimney taken off all in one big renovation work!

It was a massive upheaval and I pretty much moved out for a month (luckily I could) but the results were definitely worth it. I’d never, ever have been able to pay for any of that work myself so I was very grateful and my new kitchen was nice, didn’t feel cheap. Had a bit of choice with the colour of unit and work tops too which was nice.

However I can see why some people may find it harder to deal with such extensive disruption at short notice. Because I moved out the builders didn’t have to clear up quite so much but they said some people could get really off with them for even the slightest bit of dust at the end of the day.

It’s a PITA, we paid on reflection far too much for our kitchen to be installed in 2008. It took one week and included a bit of building work.
The next year our work kitchen (just a house) was replaced by the council. It took 10 weeks of absolute fannying about to be left with cheap shite that’s needed patching and repairs at my client’s expense.

I agree passthecherrycoke that the post isn't about that and I'm not minimising your experience. It's just not my experience and there are many myths and untruths surrounding social housing, as this thread shows

Keep in mind the council aren’t doing it for the tenants - although they benefit of course - they do it to ensure the properties are updated, maintained and legal so they can continue to let them out.

Fingers crossed you can transfer your tenancy @Ihavebrillohair

From an OPEN blog

(from a blog)
December 14, 2016 at 5:21 pm

I’m posting my complaint to sanctuary in the hope someone can tell me where to go…they cost me my job in jan 2015 as i was in a new job on probation and had to take 6 days off work in a month as they left me and my daughter with no hot water for a month because they kept not turning up or sending out wrong people to fix it, then took me to court for eviction in feb as i couldnt pay rent

This complaint now as u will see has been going on a yr, iv complained to 3 manager whole have all never got back to me. I emailed them 3 weeks ago as a manager told me in September she was dealing with.my complaint but has not contacted me since, emailed again yesterday to be told someone will contact u! Im at the end of my tether.

On November 3rd 2015 I reported a leak where water was coming in to my living room from underneath the coving. The man I spoke to said he would get a plumber out and I told him there were no pipes there but he still sent a plumber.

Following this between November 2015– July 2016 I have had 12 appointments with sanctuary maintenance staff because you sent out the wrong people, parts had not been ordered or people were sent who didn’t even know what they were supposed to be doing, I have attached a list of appointments and what was done each time.

In April I made a complaint to a manager Craig as it had been going on 5 months, every time it rained i had water coming in my living room. I have chronic asthma and this was causing mould and since February I had been seriously ill and admitted to hospital 3 times and was due to have surgery on 6th April and I was concerned I would have open wounds and having dirty water coming in.

Craig advised I could claim compensation for lost time/earnings/damages and promised to chase. On 7th may following another 3 appointments and nothing being done I went to environmental health as I had now had infections in my wounds from my surgery, in a lot of pain and still having to mop dirty water.

On 8th June i called sanctuary again as environmental health have also been chasing he is getting no response either, i am told you cannot bring the appointment forward and i literally broke down on the phone as i have now had water coming in my house 7 months, im in pain from major surgery and nothing is any closer to being resolved.

I complain to a manager Joe who tells me the job was cancelled!
Now the job was finally completed on 15th July by simply painting sealant on the balcony which Joe advised David bizzells manager knew of this problem as other houses had the same problem.

I am amazed i have been left this long for a simple problem sanctuary were already aware of, It’s disgusting you left me a whole winter with asthma with rain coming in and following surgery when i should have been resting i was mopping dirty water.

Now the problem should be resolved but i have been left with damage and mould to the wall, coving and curtain rail/baton due to 8 months of water, pictures attached. i am told this will need painting with a special sealant first to stop the water marks keep showing through. So are sanctuary going to come and do that and repaint or do i have to do this? I would also like to claim compensation for the time you wasted which cost me money off work for every appointment, the stress of what you put me through and cost of sorting the damaged caused by the water as you can see from the pictures I have a damp patch at the bottom of the coving and across the top of the whole wall and damp and flaking paint.

This is standard appauling service from Sanctuary repairs, in january 2015 you cost me my job leaving me with no hot water for a month and me having 6 days off work because you kept sending wrong people out and i had to go to the mp to resolve and clearly nothing has changed"

"I'm not allowed to improve my own home and by default, their property, at my own expense.

I honestly don't think many landlords, private or LA, would allow any "improvement". It's too risky mainly, they can end up with badly done work, unsafe and would cost a fortune to fix for the next tenant."
The council housing stock where my DB lives were taken over by a Housing Trust some years ago. They ARE allowed to put in their own new kitchens (subject to approval) and the trust keep a record so that if you leave you are actually refunded part of the cost of the improvements.

Helenadove looking at the bigger picture, you're not wrong. On a day to day basis though people's lives are impacted by lack of social housing. I work for a domestic abuse charity and there are women with 3,4,5 children living in one room of a refuge for 18 months plus waiting on a home.

The kitchens and bathrooms are not fancy ones and they don’t hold up well. Mine is 5yo and half falling apart

I also pay rent to that HA and as part of the rent agreement they generally modernise on a 10 year basis. A few weeks notice given and maybe time off work, upheaval I think it’s ok to have a little whinge about it actually

Wow yes ynbu no way a private landlord would fix anything unless it was broken!

This is not strictly true. During my years renting two different landlords recarpeted, repainted, changed radiators for more modern ones and replaced all the old windows for new ones. None of that was broken to start with but all were older, a bit worn and therefore likely to bring down the market rental value of the properties. In all cases they asked for my input/preference when choosing the new items.

There are rubbish landlords out there (I also had one try to charge me for a chip out of a decades old and very chipped enamel bath) but there are also ones that value their properties and take care of them as if they were a proper business that required investment.

You are getting confused with those on universal credit who don't pay the rent

I'm on universal credit and i most definately have to pay rent!! In fact in transfering between Housing benifit and UC i became £700 in arrears.

@weleasewoderick22 And thats why HAs shouldnt be selling properties off as second holiday homes.

OP you say that HAs cant be expected to adhere to tenants calandars.

A lot of tenants who work work in low paid jobs and may well claim UC.

Are they supposed to risk losing their job or risk a sanction?

OP, 3 weeks notice isn't much if you have to try to organise time off work and re-jig arrangements for DC to have baths elsewhere, meals cooked etc.

You made your choice to buy a property and if you can't afford to maintain it then you shouldn't have bought it. Don't have a go at council tenants. They are lucky in some respects but often wait years for an appropriately-sized property and have no control over when refurbishment takes place.

I own my own home but lived in a council house until I married. There are advantages and disadvantages to both.

Of course you're being unreasonable. How do you know she didn't have a child or family member at home with a disability. How do you know whether she is Autisitic or not? She has the right to have a moan/panic whatever. Yes, you would have been grateful for. a new kitchen, and maybe she is, but she may also be in a tizzy about it. Stop judging on lives you know nothing about.

It is a massive inconvenience when they replace the kitchen. For instance when mine got done they were due to come in april. Cleared the whole kitchen, had to move all white goods into my tiny living room by myself as they're not allowed to help due to health and safety (that's fine). Had a knock on the door that morning, it wouldn't be happening until july. So everything got moved back.

Come the next date, had a phone call it wouldn't be done until the following week so yet again everything had to be moved back. When it did finally get fitted they did the biggest bodge job I've ever seen. The footboard under the sink is about an inch away because they didn't have one to fit so just shoved any piece of wood they could find. The doors dont line up on the cupboards properly, and the most bizarre thing they did was put a plug socket above a cupboard where you can't actually plug anything into as it literally sits on the top of the cupboard.
We are well within our rights to moan, my old kitchen was riddled in black damp due to poor ventilation in the house and was causing health problems. Our rent goes up when these things are 'modernised'. I did get to pick between 4 kitchens and changed the lay out slightly as the fridge was in a dodgy place so now we have space for a dining room table.

But when you have random men in and out of your house, leaving the doors wide open despite there being two toddlers and a dog. Men smoking weed in your back garden during their very frequent breaks it gets very very annoying.

We are in the process of buying now and I cant wait to not have to deal with this anymore. As for PP saying you can buy a house you know, yes you can if you have 10K plus for a deposit and not alot of low earning families have that cash floating around funnily enough.

They were smoking weed while doing the work? I wonder how many home owners would put up with that

It seems so very variable depending on the HA &/or council involved ...

I have a cousin in a council house. It’s a bungalow in a lovely area, huge garden etc

They’re always redecorating (to their own taste), they've put in s new kitchen at their own cost and just had built in wardrobes fine. A few years ago they had an old out building converted into a utility room.

The council replaced all of the front doors in their houses in the street, they hit the choice of which door (out of a huge range) and it was fitted properly

They’ve done their driveway (their own cost) etc. Their place is really lovely. They pay £400pm if it was market rent it would be easily £1300 pm probably a lot more

They have lifetime tennancy, they turned down the RtB option a few years ago (short sighted silly decision imo)

So despite owning my place, yes sometimes I’m envious as they have a lovely home, for the fraction of the market price/rent, they can do as they wish to it...there’s really no disadvantage to them not owning it (except possibly passing an asset onto their children eventually)

yet I read on here about others who are living with mould, substandard heating etc and aren’t allowed to do much as put up a blind...it’s all baffling

But for anyone who thinks getting work done is easy for home owners I’d urge you to think again. It’s as much of a bloody nightmare, but costs you a fortune.

HelenaDove Sun 16-Jun-19 03:22:49

a post of mine from earlier this year
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HelenaDove Thu 07-Mar-19 16:54:22

HelenaDove Sun 10-Feb-19 15:31:48

We have had FOUR letters since New Year wanting access for some reason or another and its only early February.

To discuss changes to the flat doors for fire safety

Access so they can do a gas safety check (we are electric but still have to have it done)

The company doing the doors wanted access to tenants flats in the WEEK commencing 7th Jan. They wouldnt even narrow it down to a day let alone a time.
Then no one turned up.
They also wrote to us last August saying they MAY knock on our doors to do a check on a certain day. MAY is even written in bold in the letter so wasnt even for certain.

Yet moaned when they couldnt get access to some of the flats.

They wont be able to get access to flats all at even roughly the same time. Because many people work shifts. A lot of tenants who are working are in precarious low status jobs and fear taking time off especially if its zero hours which lots of them are There has been an erosion of workers rights and SH tenants dont have a lot of rights either so are often caught between a rock and a hard place.

We had a paramedic on our estate who gave up his tenancy and moved in with a relative because the HA were so inflexible with when they wanted to do things and he just couldnt keep taking time off.

I know some HAs can be flexible but ours is 8.am to 6pm Monday to Friday for access checks visits etc and refuse to budge from that.
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HelenaDove Thu 07-Mar-19 00:14:48

And here we go with no 5. Another access visit this time for a stock condition survey

I had a council house some years ago & yes I was so grateful to get a new kitchen & bathroom but it was also an absolute nightmare with 2 weeks notice (shift worker so I finished at 6am & they were in my house from 8am, wasn't able to book holidays) a 5 year old & a baby with no kitchen or proper bathroom for 2/3 weeks!

I can feel your frustration and I'm sure the lady was grateful & was just having a little moan!

we have two more since then so SEVEN since January

I've experienced this twice in council housing - once as a teenager when my mother's house was modernised and once as an adult before I moved Heaven and Earth to get myself out of that hellhole flat. And then there's where I live now.

When you pay for it yourself, you get what you want and the workmen are generally professional, respectful and do things properly as quickly as possible. If there are problems, they get sorted and usually, they are very polite.

When the lowest bidder is sent by the council, you get a shit job done by shit people who think you're scum, it takes weeks and there is no comeback when it falls apart in the first year. If you're really unlucky, you risk losing your job because they expect you to be there all the time or you hand them the key and wonder how much stuff has been nicked or inspected - but there's no comeback because a) they will deny it and b) you should have jacked your job in to watch them all the time. And if you've just spent five grand replacing the kitchen yourself with their permission, tough shit, they're ripping it out whether you like it or not. Decent mixer tap? Gone. Reasonable quality flooring? Chucked out the front in bits. New tiling? Drilled and hammered out. No chasing cables into the plaster, no repairing damage to the door, no decorating carefully.

Oh, and random people in queues look down on you if you sound less than delighted about it.

People live in council houses and have lives, jobs, children.. 3 weeks notice is not a lot at all. YABU. It might be 'free' but she's not owning it, they are maintaining their own property

The cladding on Grenfell tower was part of a modernisation project. Councils cut corners and residents have no choice, then are expected to be grateful to boot.

@MitziUk EXACTLY Ive been saying the same for years Its why there is this petition.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/petitions_noticeboard/3378879-Petition-to-bring-housing-associations-under-the-FOI-Act

Housing associations do NOT come under the FOI