My son moved into a student let on the 1st July. It’s a large Victorian terrace that has been converted into furnished flats. His flat is downstairs in what would have been the front room and dining room. The front room is his bedroom, they’ve sandwiched a bathroom and tiny study in the middle and the dining room is now his living room with small kitchen extension into the back yard.
When he moved in, they said they were still working on other flats and the hallway hadn’t been touched at all. It had no carpets. They said all the work would be finished by the end of July and they would be replacing the rotten front door. He didn’t mind as he was away on holiday for the last two weeks of July, so only two weeks of noise to put up with. The work has been ongoing and was only finished a week ago. He’s had to put up with noise all day from the builders, then noise from other tenants making a noise on the stairs with no carpet. He works antisocial hours and it’s impacted on his sleep. He’s been home a couple of times, just to go to bed for a sleep!
In the summer, a tenant in the flat above went away for an extended period but didn’t clear out his food cupboard. This was discovered when they had to enter his flat to fix a problem and discovered it was full of insects. My son ended up with infestations of flies, wasps and mice coming into his flat because of this. He’s had to spend money on insect repellent and mouse traps as he got sick of waiting for them to provide them. He’s blocked all the entrances into his flat and hasn’t seen mice since. However mice are still getting in somewhere and he can hear them running about in the internal walls and on top of his ceiling at night.
The rooms have really high ceilings and small electric wall heaters. The living room heater is ok but as soon as he turns it off, the heat goes away. The bedroom heater isn’t big enough to heat the room and the room is always cold. He’s had to buy an electric blanket and extra bedding but he’s still cold at night. The room feels damp because it’s so cold. Some of his things have mould on and have had to be thrown away and he’s struggling with his asthma. It’s also costing him a fortune in heating already and we haven’t even hit winter yet.
The main front door is rotten and doesn’t fit. You can feel cold air coming through it and see daylight through it. There is a door between his bedroom and the hallway that isn’t insulated, and doesn’t fit properly so you can feel cold coming through it. This doesn’t help with the cold bedroom even though he does put a rolled up towel along the gap at the bottom. The front door is warped and difficult to close, so he is bothered by noise from the others slamming it shut which is annoying when he’s in bed a couple of feet away from it.
The bathroom has no heating in it and the fan is inefficient. The walls end up thick of condensation after a shower and the room feels damp all the time. It doesn’t have a window in it as it’s in the middle of the building. He’s had to buy one of those Unibond things with the big tablet in. It’s collected about 1cm of liquid in 24 hours.
The desk in the study was broken on arrival. It’s not been put together properly and they admitted it was just balanced for viewings and they forgot to sort it out. This still remains broken and it’s very unstable.
There is black mould on the kitchen ceiling because the roof on the extension is leaking. He has pointed this out and the builder told him it has leaked before. This still remains unfixed.
The freezer has broken down and he’s lost food. They have tried to tell him he’s broken it and needs to buy a new one, but I’ve told him to go back and say it was brand new when he moved in, so presumably it is still under manufacturers warranty so they need to sort it out.
He’s at the end of his tether with everything and would happily move out tomorrow but he’s tied in until next July.
What is the best way of making them sort all the problems out so he can be comfortable in the flat?
TLDR: son moved into a flat for uni that has had nothing but problems with it. What should he do?