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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Am I a horrible person to be kind of happy about this?

114 replies

hatesomethinchangesomethin · 17/07/2020 05:49

We got evicted in March.

Our LL was the worst we've ever had. She told us she wanted more money which is fine it's her house.. but she didn't fix a single thing in the time we were there. Apart from when the back door seized up and wouldn't open so she sent a locksmith round and asked if they could possibly leave the lock out because it cost less to fix. So she wanted to leave us without a locking door. The locksmith said no thank god. She also didn't provide any smoke alarms or carbon monoxide alarms when we moved in despite having a working wood burning stove and solid fuel aga so I had to provide those. When we moved out I took the carbon monoxide alarms with us because they cost a fair amount and I bought them! She actually had the audacity to try and charge us for taking them away with us because ' it's unsafe' well no shit Sherlock that's why I bought them!! She also just randomly turned up and let herself in as and when she wanted until we changed the locks and had a go at us for not giving her a key, but after she let the dog out to play in the traffic we couldn't risk it.

Anyway! It's still on Rightmove to let, it's just been decreased from 1200 to 850 which is what we paid. It's not really worth 850 but it's her house. Then when I walk past and see the garden all overgrown and weedy it just makes me laugh, it's a small village and she doesn't live here.

The tenants that were there before us were in the pub the other day talking to someone who mentioned that they had viewed it and they just destroyed the LL, admittedly they had a worse time of it than we did but it was quite funny listening. It's been on the market for 5 months because she put it on there before we moved out. Very luckily we managed to buy a house in the village in that time.

OP posts:
Cam77 · 17/07/2020 08:46

LLs have a bad reputation because a significant proportion of them are assholes.

This stat doesn’t surprise my in the least.
% of MPs who are Landlords:

Conservative 28%
Labour 11%
(PS Ever wonder why tenants in Britain don’t have more security and rights like they do in, say, Germany? Well ...28%)

OhWhyOhWhyOhWhyy · 17/07/2020 08:48

@betteliefsen

She sounds awful but yabu to delight in another's misfortune
Hardly misfortune.

That's what happens when you're a twat Smile

SchadenfreudePersonified · 17/07/2020 08:49

Russelbrandshair

Grin Grin Grin

OneForMeToo · 17/07/2020 08:53

Imagine if as a possible tenant you could ask for landlord reference from the previous tenant 😏.

Serves this greedy one right. My current does the bare minimum with the cheapest materials from the lowest prices contractors willing to do a fast bodge.

jackstini · 17/07/2020 08:56

YANBU - and I say that as a LL
She has brought it on herself and crappy LL really annoy me

I have previously had current tenants recommend me to new ones and think LL references are a brilliant idea

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 17/07/2020 09:00

@Russellbrandshair

It always fascinates me how some MNetters never fail to seize the opportunity to dish out a telling off to the the OP. No no matter how justified the OP is in whatever they're posting about they can always find a way to have a dig at them

Yup it’s kind of hilarious. Eg “I just helped up an elderly lady who fell whilst crossing the road”- there’s always one: “omg how patronising of you, maybe her hobby is lying in roads and you just prevented her achieving the only thing that gave her happiness. Shame on you! Also you are being ageist- I hope you’re pleased with your awful behaviour”

😆

@Russellbrandshair, I'm sitting here chuckling uncontrollably now! Grin Grin Grin
Iwalkinmyclothing · 17/07/2020 09:33

Yanbu at all.

There are some really good landlords out there- decent people who take it seriously, provide a professional service and understand that this is their tenant's home just as much as the landlord's investment vehicle, and I am really glad those landlords exist and wish them nothing but good. Then you have people like this woman, lazy, grasping, entitled and selfish, unable to comprehend that tenants have rights and sure that they have an absolute right to profit without effort.

NotQuiteUsual · 17/07/2020 09:42

Our landlord gave us references from previous tenants. He gave them to the council who arranged it even though it was private rental. It really did help us feel at ease moving in. Another Landlord gave us a handbook telling us about his company and their values and the properties history. Things like this should be standard! We've been stupidly lucky with Landlords, but we're in the minority from what I've heard through friends.

TheStuffedPenguin · 17/07/2020 09:46

My son had a LL like this while at Uni but it was reported to the local authorities and they came down on the LL like a ton of bricks.

IdblowJonSnow · 17/07/2020 09:50

Yanbu. She sounds horrible.
I thought detectors were a legal requirement though? Could you not have reported her?

totallyyesno · 17/07/2020 09:54

My bad LL story: I shared a flat with a girl who worked early shifts for a while and we often didn't see each other very much for days. I used to come home and see that the toilet was dirty and not flushed, that there were coffee cups left unwashed in the kitchen - and thought it was her. She also thought it was me! When we finally compared notes we did some detective work. Turned out that our lovely landlord had given a copy of our key to some builders who were doing some work for him down the road and told them to feel free to use our bathroom and kitchen whenever they liked. Angry When we confronted him, he refused to stop as he said it was his house and he could do what he liked. AngryAngry
You are not being unreasonable OP!

Kisskiss · 17/07/2020 10:06

She sounds awful lol. Charging you for carbon monoxide alarms that you bought??? Confused

Bbq1 · 17/07/2020 10:07

We are LL.We inherited our home and rented out our first house instead of selling. We've had out tennant in since March. We've spent a small fortune on it. Completely decorated throughout, new bathroom, fairly new kitchen. Since tennant moved in there have been issues coming up with the house that have needed fixing. Just last week we paid to get the gutters done. Yes, it can be annoying having an unexpected expense but at the end of the day, we still own the property and have a duty of care to the tennant. We wouldn't dream of not competing work and pride ourselves on being that way. I would be so ashamed to not care. The Tennant loves our house and says we are great landlords and wants to stay forever. I'm proud that we are good LL and that we care.

SimonJT · 17/07/2020 10:10

I’ve only had one bad landlord, the rest were decent people who cared about their tenants and properties.

Our landlord would only allow us to contact him in writing (as in an actual letter, not an email or text!), our letters were obviously lost in the post. Weirdly when we wrote to him about a severe water leak the letter somehow wasn’t lost and made it to his house five days later (2nd class post of course). Sadly as he had specified in our contract we simply couldn’t tell him of the leak any quicker. A few of his gems. He had new windows filled when we moved in, he locked them all and refused to give us keys. Oddly enough as the property couldn’t be aired it became damp, thankfully environmental health got involved and he generously gave us one window key. The element in the oven broke so it was essentially a big posh fan, he replaced it with a plug in two ring hob and a microwave. My favourite was when the lock on my bedroom door broke, he fixed it by kicking the door in and then tried to charge me for damage to the door!

Emeraldshamrock · 17/07/2020 10:14

Yanbu. There is nothing better than a helpful considerate landlord and tenant relationship.
It is like many relationships in life you get what you put in.

Amibannedorwhat · 17/07/2020 10:15

Oh god she sounds just awful and I’m glad you’ve got your own home now 😊 I had a landlord who started putting the rent up every 6 months so I moved out. He put it up quite a bit after I left snd it sat empty for a couple of months then he had to decrease it, it was very satisfying! He also didn’t get maintenance done unless he really had to. So you are definitely not BU, enjoy the karma. Grin

SatsumasRock · 17/07/2020 10:17

When I was flat sharing, we got the keys to a new flat - after having cleaned our previous one we were leaving until it was spotless - opened the door to the new one and cried at the absolute state of it.

It was filthy - bags of rubbish everywhere, the oven hadn't been cleaned in years, all sorts of random items abandoned everywhere (including a pair of size 10 plastic 'stripper' shoes, a crotchless Santa Claus outfit and a weird gimp mask). Lamps that didn't work, a table with a broken leg stuck on with blue tac. The LL was useless - he'd given the previous tenants deposit back and wasn't concerned that we had to spend a day cleaning.

He told us to throw anything we didn't want out. So we did. Including a hideous lamp that didn't work.

He decided to sell the flat a year later - we didn't want to hang around to be evicted when he sold so found somewhere else. When we handed our notice in, he got really shitty and wanted us to stay (paying his mortgage) until he'd sold. Then he accused us of stealing the shitty lamp that he'd said we could throw out. Apparently it was a 'family heirloom' Confused . It was nearly a year after we left that he eventually sold his crappy flat. Which pleased me because he was awful.

thecatsthecats · 17/07/2020 10:17

@betteliefsen

As others have pointed out, this is just consequences, not misfortune.

But since you provide one sanctimonious perspective, I'll provide balance and say that if she were to suffer 'roof blowing off' style genuine misfortune, I'd feel happy about that too.

I feel no obligation to moral superiority, I just let my feelings be my feelings (which in and of themselves can't add any weight to anyone else's misfortunes, so long as I don't share them with the people concerned). Being mildly satisfied that someone has been a dick to you suffers is a lot more natural than your reaction.

WhatamessIgotinto · 17/07/2020 10:19

@betteliefsen

She sounds awful but yabu to delight in another's misfortune
It's not misfortune, it's by her own doing. No bad luck, just being a dreadful LL and human being.
Kandigirl71 · 17/07/2020 10:41

Karma is a wonderful thing.

Tootletum · 17/07/2020 10:47

There are so many landlords with no clue. We had one who was blatantly fiddling the meters as the national grid had no record of the meter existing. Tried to charge us some made up amount at the end of our tenancy, claiming she had the account with the electricity provider. We refused, she tried withholding deposit for it, we took her to court and she had to pay us 3 times the whole deposit as she hadn't even put it in the scheme (we had already told her she was legally obliged to). Previous tenants contacted us and told us she had done exactly the same thing to them, and they just had to suck it up as they couldn't wait on court to get their deposit. I was happy to gloat, she was a total bitch about everything and I was also pregnant.

LakieLady · 17/07/2020 10:53

YANBU, OP and I hope the whole village gets to hear what she's like.

DP was renting for a few years before we started living together. His LL used to go in tenants' flats while they were out, snoop through their post and then gossip to other tenants. We know this because we were among those he gossipped to, eg how another tenant had MH issues and LL had seen appt letters from his psychiatrist, and another had been made redundant and got over £20k redundancy pay. He evicted one tenant because she was a solicitor and he didn't like solicitors (wonder why? lol), and another because she had a black boyfriend and he didn't want "that sort" living there. He let himself in when I was in the bath one day, and then apologised, not to me, but to DP.

He was proper slack about maintenance, too. DP's flat was on the top floor of the house, up in the eaves. He nearly didn't take it because there were pigeons roosting and shitting everywhere, but LL assured him he was "getting it sorted". Four years later, despite being told he was "sorting it" nothing had been done. You couldn't have the windows open because the birds got in and shat everywhere and it was baking in the summer. He also refused to do anything about a massive wasp nest and one evening the flat was so full of them we had to go out. I was stung loads of times and developed a wasp sting allergy.

His solution to damp on the communal landing, coming from DP's shower, was to remove the shower. There was a bath as well, but then the mixer tap seized and you had to run a bath by holding the shower head until the bath was full. When the washing machine packed up, he gave DP the keys to an empty flat and told him to use the one in there, then conveniently "forgot" he needed to replace DP's washing machine when the empty flat was let. His solution to the oven packing up was to buy one of those halogen ovens that sits on a worktop.

He accused me of bringing my dogs to the flat, simply because I had a dog cage in the back of my car. He insisted that I park on the street, despite the long drive and parking area had room for at least another 10 cars.

He wouldn't let tenants change energy suppliers, and somehow all the gas meters were linked to the wrong flats, which meant that DP had been massively overpaying. When we realised and got it sorted, he went ballistic and said DP had no right to do it. DP changed energy suppliers anyway, just to teach the bastard a lesson.

He'd bought this massive Edwardian house for £42k in the 1960s and converted it into 13 flats. He built a big 4-bed house for himself and a 3-bed house for his son in the grounds, and a block of 5 flats that he rented out. He insisted on collecting rent in cash and you had no privacy because the fucker was always on the premises. The rents ranged between £750 and £1,300 a month, and this was 10 years ago. He must have been so loaded.

When my divorce was close to being sorted and my ex's move out was imminent, we contacted English Heritage and suggested the building was listed, and it now is. He was, by all accounts, absolutely livid!

Straycatstrut · 17/07/2020 11:01

No you're not. I'm on my 3rd landlord and they have all been horrible. First was a couple and they'd let themselves in whenever they liked (what makes them think they can do this?!!) were not bothered about mould or leaking ceilings. Second one would bang on my door at all hours demanding rent that I supposedly hadn't paid - I HAD. He also left his written off car parked on the drive for months. My one now also owns nextdoor. Nextdoor happens to be his ex, and mother of his child, who lives with him. Trouble is his ex is a wild party animal and has had none stop, ALL night blasting raves since I moved in over a year ago. They got worse during lockdown as she couldn't go clubbing But he won't tell her to pack it in as she's the childs mother. I'm now back on rightmove after spending so long settling my boys here. It's a nightmare. I keep thinking I just want to buy a house it'd be easier, but if you got lumbered with nightmare neighbours then it'd be even worse!

Wishing you all the luck with your new place!

Happydinosaur53 · 17/07/2020 11:04

Sounds like karma

AlexisCarringtonColbyDexter · 17/07/2020 11:10

She sounds awful but yabu to delight in another's misfortune

What a load of rubbish. Misfortune is unfortunate or bad luck. This has nothing whatsoever to do with luck, this is the natural consequence of acting like a knob.

By that rationale, you could say that someone who murders someone has the "misfortune" of going to prison (which in this case could actually happen since she hasn't installed fire alarms or carbon monoxide detectors- that could kill someone).

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