AIBU to wonder how often other tenants see their landlord?

[Specksofwhiteallaround]

I am absolutely sick of the sight of mine but Dh insists it’s the same for all people who rent and I’m curious if he’s right as it’s not my experience of renting. So as not to drip feed we do have cats, but they knew this and agreed to rent to us. The cats have caused damage to the bottom of the stair carpet and a radiator but I have absolutely no problem paying to rectify this when/if we leave.

My annoyance is that in the three years since we’ve lived here we’ve had almost 3 monthly house inspections. Every time she comes she finds fault with something and I just don’t think any of it is that big a deal. Some examples are that a tree in the garden wasn’t pruned to her satisfaction so we had to buy a lot of expensive equipment to make that better, we don’t get to the weeds quickly enough, she wants us to have a window cleaner come every week and insisted I buy a rug to put under our computer chair which makes it unusable...
She has another house around the corner and checks how often and how long my bathroom window is open and it’s never enough.

The last straw for me is that we informed her about a plumping issue at the last inspection in mid December which has been steadily getting worse while she organised a plumber. Yesterday she turned up unannounced at the door to lecture me about what the problem was (she was wrong, it emerged yesterday that the problem has been caused by a pretty major leak in one of the outside pipes not us.) and let me know a plumber would be there the next morning. While at the door she also took me to task for not cleaning the gas cupboard in the porch. Not five minutes later she’s back with a man from the water board in tow and wants access to the house, apparently the fact it was 11am and I hadn’t washed up dishes from that morning didn’t escape her notice and today she’s messaged informing me of a house inspection this Wednesday. Oh and will I go out and inform the people from the water board that she wants them to come and fit new taps in the kitchen they’re outside fixing the leak...

I have terrible social anxiety anyway but lately It’s getting so bad I don’t feel I can leave the house some days and I’m just so anxious about everything all the time and it’s draining, I feel like I’m constantly waiting for her to turn up at the door or text or ring about more cleaning issues. I’ve not had this level of landlord interference before in my life, it’s like she expects us to keep this a show home and it’s just not feasible.
Sorry this is so long, I guess I needed a good rant I really hope my dh is wrong and this isn’t the norm because I wouldn’t wish this stress on anyone.

@Stillfunny she’s never lived in the house, they have several rental properties in this area and more in others including commercial property. I would make more sense if this was their home that we were renting. She did mention in a previous conversation that the tenants who live around the corner from us have left so I do wonder if it’s not just us who are annoyed by the intrusion.

OP, is your deposit in a deposit scheme??!!

@TriangularRatbag I am not surrounded by dirty dishes and weeds but thanks for that assumption. The weeds were an issue one summer when we had constant on and off rain which made putting down weed killer difficult. I spent days pulling them up by hand while trying to keep an eye on my autistic toddler and she’s mentioned it every visit since. This is what I find so annoying, she sees unwashed dishes on one occasion because she turned up unannounced and she also assumes that’s how we live.

@shockers he already gets transport as we don’t live in the place his school is so that’s not the issue, it’s more that this is an ideal area for him as it’s quiet and it’s what he’s used to so unless I could find somewhere in the same town I’d be reluctant to move.

OP, do you have a copy of your rental agreement to hand?

As many others have said, there are rules about notice to visit/inspect (except in an emergency) and “quiet enjoyment” (I love that phrase) of the property. You aren’t just paying for a roof, you’re also paying TO BE LEFT IN PEACE. What she’s doing is waaaaaaay out of order.

Please DO pop in and speak to / call your council’s housing office. I had to do this once with a landlord harassing us and was so scared, but they rang him up and sorted the problem within an hour!!! It was amazing. It’s in their interests to make sure you don’t lose your home, so they will be diplomatic with her.

Will you do it? You deserve calm!

@Lolapusht it is thankfully but we know we’ve lost it anyway as they’ll need to repaint etc.

God, I feel so lucky in my tenancy. We rent from a very good friend of ours, so we see him regularly when he’s back in the UK, but he only ever compliments us on what a nice job we’ve done of decorating the place. We do what we want to the property, and we don’t need to tell him about it.

He also pays for us to have a gardener, too, so we don’t even need to worry about that.

Thank you to everyone for replying, it’s nice to know this isn’t the norm. Dh has a very pessimistic outlook on life so he expects landlords to be awful and she’s played right into that.
I don’t think the inspections would bother me quite as much if it was the only times we saw her, I hate the fact that she can turn up at the door at any time and because we can’t afford to move I have to put up with it for fear she’ll serve us notice.
We had an inspection when my Dh had just got out of hospital after an emergency appendix operation and I was on the verge of a blood transfusion due to a bleeding issue and I could see her looking at my sons toys that were out in the living room instead of hidden away like I have to do usually when she’s here and that there was pillows and a things around the sofa for Dh who couldn’t move. Pretty sure that was another black mark against us, she made a pretty pointed comment about life going on
I’ll be spending the day outside cleaning the front of the house since she’s scheduled another inspection for this Wednesday, fingers crossed she doesn’t find something else to comment on then.

Agree with others on here. She sounds a bit nuts and needs to back off. She may have had bad experiences as a landlord previously, but I think her behaviour is unfair.

You should maintain some of the property, but you shouldn't be spending hundreds of pounds to do this. It is a shared responsibility. We are painting our flat now as we have been here a number of years, and many people think we shouldn't be doing this, but it's just £20 and some elbow grease. If she wants you to prune the tree, the stuff should have been there to do it when you moved in and if she doesn't like what you have done, she should do it herself/pay and get someone in. You are there to rent her property, not rennovate it!

My landlord is ok. My general view of landlords is some are completely unreasonable, like yours, some are a bit grabby when it comes to rent increases/deposits (someone I know had 6 month contract with their landlord who was redoing the floor as the previous tenants trashed the place, and they asked them how much they wanted to 'contribute' - WTF!). A lot of them are fair and just want someone paying their mortgage, and understand that the property is not going to look identical to when you first moved . They accept this as par for the course as a landlord.

I’d stop tidying up so much - there’ll be nothing in your contract to say a pillow can’t be on the sofa etc. I think you need to grow a bit of a backbone (in the nicest possible way). She should be worrying about you moving out - it’s a pain to have to sort new tenants.

I’d pull her up using the right to a peaceful existence (or whatever) clause.

This thread is really showing the grey area which shows that tenants and landlords come from a totally different perspective when it comes to housing.

Landlords are usually home owners and have been for some time. They take pride in their home and consider looking after it on a regular basis normality and duties that comes with housing.

Tenants see their rental home not to dissimilarly to paying for a service like one do with a hotel room.

As such tenants expect to be able to do exactky what they want in their home and maintenance to be the responsibility of the landlords. Landlords expect tenants to consider every day maintenance responsibilities to be theirs.

This should normally be highlighted in the contract though. I let a 4 bed house with a large garden and I do expect tenants to put aside some money monthly to maintain the property. This includes keeping outside windows clean, pruning lower trees, deweeding and keeping the garden tidy. It also includes clearing the gutters regularly.

My responsibilities include heating and water, building defects, roof, gates, doors (unless damaged by tenants actions), cutting the very large trees etc...

This is all explicit n the SLA and mentioned when signing. Tenants know what is expected and have the choice not to sign. What they can't have is signing an agreement and then saying that they don't like it.

I know a number of tenants who get quarterly inspections all through their tenancy. This is usually to check for dodgy activities like growing weed in attic or rooms as sadly happens.

I do a months inspection and then annually or if I get a call about an issue, I'll go there first to discuss and will have a quick look. I always give 48 hours notice and agree a day and time convenient for them.

Your landlord must give 24 hours notice before any inspection, and appears to be breaching your right to quiet enjoyment. Perhaps a carefully worded email from you might be in order.

I think they could use more discretion and when tenants are good at paying, clean and tidy, they could reduce the inspections to 6 monthly.

As I mentioned above, it is a condition of my LL licence that I inspect my properties every three months. More and more areas are moving to compulsory licensing and this will probably be a stipulation for all of them.

It’s just bullying. I suspect OP has been bullied before and is used to it.

England?

www.gov.uk/government/publications/how-to-rent/how-to-rent-the-checklist-for-renting-in-england

write to the landlord reminding her of the rules on inspections and entry. You can totally refuse any entry except if an emergency.

how are all the legals and documents?

We only see ours when they drop over Easter eggs or Christmas presents for the children. They live in the same village.
They come in if I invite them in for a cup of tea which I do if I’m not busy.
We are very lucky because they are a lovely family.

@StVincent sadly you’re right, my mother was a verbally abusive alcoholic and very manipulative so I have a lot of trouble trying to please people and always thinking I’m the problem in a lot of situations as I grew up being constantly told that. Obviously having severe social anxiety on top of this is making things really difficult.

We have 3 monthly inspections from the letting agency, it's in the contract but they pop in when we're at work and never a problem. The actual landlord only if a problem and he pops over to help or usually at Christmas he drops of wine for us and at renewal time, to check we want to continue. Hes a nice guy though. Yours us excessive and I would consider moving

That’s not normal surely . We have to rent out a house we couldn’t sell and put it in the hands of a letting agent . He does a 5 min inspection every 6-9 months .
The tenents have a dog . They have redecorated and the garden is up to them , as long as all is clean and presentable when they leave .imo good tenents are like gold dust and should be cherished !

I used to live in a flat with my partner, and we never saw the landlord once in 6 years. We paid the rent to him every month - he never increased it - and the only person we saw was a guy to do a valuation as he was remortgaging.

It was brand new when we moved in, so nothing needed attention from him, and never has. It was in the contract that we would replace or repair anything needed before moving out, or it would get taken from the deposit.

The only thing that might need replacing is carpets, as it didn't really come with anything else anyway - and even they wouldn't count after so many years (now more than 10) as you can get away with calling it general wear and tear.

This thread has certainly opened my eyes. I’m realising I’ve been a bit of a mug. Thinking about it they’ll be getting the house back in better condition than when we moved in. We’ve removed about a million broken plant pots from the back garden to the tip, removed all the dead plants, cleared out and replanted some stone troughs with herbs and bay trees, dealt with a diseased apple tree. We actually have mostly gravel in the garden but because it was done cheaply the netting is only an inch under the gravel which is why we get so many weeds so this summer we’re going to get that fixed out of our own pocket. When we moved in we had to buy and fit all the hand towel rails and toilet roll holders as they didn’t have time, wasn’t expecting to be reimbursed for them and will leave them when we go of course. We replaced a tatty hall carpet out of our own money. She was very happy to let me dad fix three not working plug sockets in the kitchen for free and sort out the phone line, in fact when it came up that he’s an electrician she said ‘oh that’s handy’. And of course we’ll pay for brand new carpeting on the stairs extra to our deposit when we leave as well as replacing a discoloured radiator.
On the other hand we have no heat in our downstairs toilet for the last two years, the loft is unusable and she tried to suggest we should pay for new taps last year as she was convinced we’d been over tightening them despite the plumber pointing out that wasn’t the issue.
Wasn’t too impressed with the comment she made at one inspection that these things were just part of being an adult, like I’m failing at being one

Please, please look up the rules on 'betterment' of rental properties. A lot of landlords don't understand or choose to ignore the rules and I'd hate for you to get screwed over. Know your rights and responsibilities!

"Just part of being an adult" how patronising! That's shocking. She's not your parent or school teacher ... She's obviously getting a kick out of being condescending and massaging her ego with snide comments which make her feel superior.

Time to move or contact shelter for advice on standing up to her and asserting your right to quiet enjoyment of the property Specksofwhiteallaround

Yes I really need to start standing up for myself here and get things back under control. For the first few years we lived here we were caught up in getting a diagnosis for my son then dealing with portage, speech therapy, nursery then his ehcp and admission to school so it was easier to just do what she wanted in the hope she’d back off as I was more concerned with my son. I guess she’s now used it and knows she can get away with doing what she wants. They also said they’ve not out our rent up as we’re such good tenants so there’s an element of will they put it up or give notice if we start saying this isn’t acceptable.

once in 3-4 YEARS
I think what she does is harrassment
I would not open the door and would not answer the phone if its not convienient (I do it frequently, someone ringing the doorbell doesnt mean I have to open, if they havent let me know in advance)

with your social anxiety, just find another place. she knows now you can be bullied and the water-problems will give her a cover on controlling you

move away
you can see from the posts its not normal harassing you this way, and landlords do no come to inspect you normally....find a new place and dont agree to some ridiculous "quarterly visits"

on the other hand, maybe you seem to her not competent and she is worried how you tackle problems like the water thing? honestly, the only 2 ways landlords are doing this is because:

1. they are mental and thrive on bullying their tenants
2. the tenants are problematic, like not paying rent on time or if their habits disturb other tenants