To wonder how people actually afford to move into council properties

[Niknick]

So, me and my dh have been offered a house with our local council after years of being on the waiting list. We have two son’s youngest of whom is autistic and we have been offered 3 bed meaning we’d all have our own bedroom at last. I haven’t had an official viewing of the house yet ie with the hosing officer but workmen are currently doing some repairs and they allowed me and my dh in the other day to have a quick look round whilst they were sat in the garden on a break.

Anyway i went equipped with my tape measure to measure up for carpeta, blinds and just to get a general idea of how things will fit. I’ve since gone to a cheap carpet place and been quoted £1500. Blinds will cost around £450-£500. Then there are things like decoration, removal costs, buying a new oven as our current one our landlord owns etc. The property isn’t in great condition and having viewed another of the council’s houses years back me and my dh are under no illusion that the council will do anymore than the bare minimum.

So far it needs plaster work doing as the workmen have done a rubbish job. It needs scrubbing beyond recognition, the garden is like a jungle so that will be more cost as we’ll need to pay someone to do it as me and my dh are busy with work and the kids. Plus parts of the fences are smashed and need replacing as it’s not safe with my son. I know it’s the tenants responsibility to do a lot of these jobs but usually, people moving into these properties aren’t well off so AIBU to wonder how do people manage to do all this? We have virtually zero savings due to paying high private rent, so long term moving to this house would be financially a good idea, but short term I’m panicking about where the hell we find the kind of money we are going to need to make this house at least comfortable for us all to live in. Moving to my current house paying a months rent up front plus deposit and referencing check fees is cheaper than what we’ll have to spend to move to the new house so I’m quietly panicking.

My friend lives in a ramshackle council house, her 100 foot garden is totally overgrown. She suffers from depression and has children with special needs.
I went over there a couple of years ago with my industrial strimmer and cleared the entire garden in one day. It was knackering as I do have back problems but we did it and she has kept it nice since with a weekly mow and has gradually done the beds and flowers.
An overwhelming job doesn't have to be, just needs some determination and hard work.

When we moved into this house we own we used every last penny literally including all the children's savings which I have since restored so in the last 20 years I have not really done any improvements or new stuff except I have been able to afford to have it repainted a few times and I do a lot of repairs myself although by no means all.

However I know who awful council houses can be left -0 there are series on youtube about hoarders and also companies that go out to clean council houses ready for the next person - most dirty houses ever or something like that which I was watching at one point and some of those were amazingly dirty and destroyed inside. Some of the worst toilets ever were simply just cleaned, not replaced.

My god talk about self entitled, if I was you hen I'd give it to a family who actually appreciate getting the chance to move into a council house and you keep paying private rent

@Cam2020

I'm not entitled, I just want everything done to my standard now confused.

In a house subsidised by others!

Wrong. Social housing washes its face financially.

@Dandelionz

when people who have already secured their council houses take part in swaps, do they still have to rip everything out?

Sometimes, yes. Especially if stuff has been changed without permission. I've heard of objections being raised to exchanges on this basis.

We don't have fitted carpets in our housing association house We have rugs or offcuts, and otherwise it's tiles downstairs and floorboards upstairs. We carpeted the bedrooms and living room in our previous flat but not the hallways.

Bare concrete is a bit austere, but just buy a carpet remnant of about the right size and throw it down in the middle and don't worry about the exposed edges.

And we certainly haven't spent anywhere near £500 on blinds! Buy ready-made blinds or curtains and fit them how you can. (For blinds, fitting them over rather than in the recess means you don't need precise sizes).

Decor doesn't need doing. There's still torn wallpaper we haven't got round to replacing.

I do agree push back on the council about the garden. But if they refence they'll do the cheapest, don't expect an opaque barrier it might be chain link.

Wallawallet I feel your pain, we’ve got peach! Finally have the cash to re do the bathrooms and gold taps are back in 🤦‍♀️ not in a hurry to do them yet as not sure about some of the styles around atm.

To be fair we were moseying on Rightmove and this little doer upper came up, BRIGHT PINK bath, sink and loo, would have to replace the carpet but said to my sis I would totally rock that and keep it haha. It had a 70’s kitchen, the tiles and units were super retro, apart from the wood panelling on a couple of walls and carpet, it was reminiscent of some of the posh arty farty decor that occasionally pops up... a few tweaks here and there and it could be a cute quirky little house.

The cheapest carpet Carpetright sells is £2.99 a square yard. Might not be the best carpet but it will cover your floors.
You can buy it off the roll and lay it yourself. Plenty of videos on YouTube to show you how.
Unless your house is a small palace you should be able to do the whole house for a couple of hundred pounds.
Charity shops are full of unwanted curtains. Buy what is available and alter it needed. Look on Facebook market place and any local Facebook pages for cheap and free items.
Wilkos own brand paint is cheap £10 for 5 L in the functional range that comes in white, magnolia and grey. Rollers and brushes are also cheap and can be cleaned and reused.
The garden can be left until next spring and then it is just a matter of hard work to clear it. You don’t need to pay expensive gardeners to do it for you. If it is that bad hire a brush cutter for the whole day and just cut the whole lot down and start from a blank canvas.

Dandelionz the only thing I had to remove was the light fittings when I exchanged, I left the carpets & Blinds. I had to get the pendants with bulbs put back before I passed the inspection.

Social housing washes its face financially.

Important point from @VinylDetective and worth repeating.

The council is responsible for the fencing and should be done for when you move in. As for the walls you suggest they have been plastered just not to a good standard. Why not sand them??
Sounds like you're creating problems in your head tbh

@Niknick

Honestly i don’t want the best of the best. I can’t afford that and nor am I interested in this, I just want comfortable. I’m happy to paint the whole house plain white and just add little bits of colour with affordable cushions and niknaks. All I’m saying is I can’t not have carpets or window coverings and that I’m surprised at how people can leave their properties in such a state. I know money is a major factor for most people but like most of you have said things can be done bit by bit so if this is the case why are so many council properties left in a terrible state?

I grew up in council properties, we always had to sort carpets and curtains ourselves. In fact my parents still have the gross brown thinning carpet that was there when they moved in 27 years ago. They got nice rugs to go over things because there were more important things like making sure we had heat and food to deal with. The only things the council did for them was the kitchen and bathroom, a good 20 years after moving in because they had signed up to a better homes project and needed to make sure things were suitable... trust me the bathroom wasn’t for a long time. And the doors were redone after the Grenfell fires to fit regulations. So in 27 years they have done what they can and there’s still crappy carpet and stuff that isn’t right. But they took a place close to work and school links and made the best they could.

Oh and we had to re plaster ourselves after the council decided jet washing a flat building built in the 30s was a good idea. It blasted old brick which crumbled and it came in under our windowsills. All the wall paper came off and brick dust everywhere. Technically I guess they are still on a wait list for repair as that was damage done by the council (4 years ago) but my dad fixed that and we all painted it together.

Very few people though buy a home that has no floor coverings, no light shades, no window coverings even if they are stuff the previous owner left.

Few houses we've bought had these! One house had no bulbs either. Never mind curtains or floor coverings. It was an expensive house too. Our first house had no hot water or a bathroom. We made do.

Can i suggest you look at universal credit.. you have a higher threshold if your Ds gets Dla.

I tried to get my fencing fixed to secure the garden when i moved in.

Off cuts can be great for smaller rooms.

I just had a rug on my bedroom floor for years.

Free fb sites locally can help.

I also hot a £50 b&q voucher for decorating no idea uf it still exists.

Ikea if you have one nearby can be quite cheap for some household furnishings.

I had no money so vot the lounge done first so i could at least sit down in the evening.

Another tip find out what day rent us due. Ours is Tuesday to Tuesday so i signed on Wednesday and then had 6 days to move in.
You can give notice on your house as soon as you have a date to sign which will help a bit.

My garden was a tip. I was entitked to a one time garden clear up but wasn't told until i cleared it up.

A good scrub and it really will feel better

Charity shops, sales, Gumtree and Freecycle. My carpet and lino are provided by the council but I pay extra on my rent each week for them.

You will do it, it takes time but you'll get there. We were in a similar situation about 30 years ago. People kept telling us that we would get vouchers and grant's but we didn't get anything. The house was classed as fair condition but I had never seen anything like it.( it still had working gas mantles on the walls). It took years of graft in between working/kids etc but we got there. I can remember being so overwhelmed and full of despair at the state it was in when we were allocated it, we had no choice in the matter it was that or the streets with 3 kids under six. When I look back at photos and videos Im so proud of what we achieved on next to nothing and we had such happy times in that house that i would go back in a heartbeat. Good luck, all the best in your new home.

@Niknick

Newspaper in the windows and bare concrete floors? Erm no. I will most definitely starting looking around for cheaper alternatives but I’m not moving my kids into a new house, which will be unsettling enough for my youngest dc, coming up for winter when it’s freezing, to bare concrete floors and no window coverings. I have a credit card, which to be fair I’ve just finished paying and don’t want to go back into debt but I’d use that first before moving my kids into a house with no floor coverings.

Let someone else have it then and carry on paying high private rent

Our house was horrible when we first moved in.

To start with just put blinds/curtains up in your bedrooms then you can do the rest at a later date. I didn't have lounge curtains for 18 months when I moved in my house! Other things just took priority and all people would see if they looked in was a watching tv..

I imagine if the grass/weeds are cut it probably isn't as bad as it looks whilst overgrown...

Facebay/marketplace/gumtree/charity shops are your best friend! I got some lovely ceiling light shades for about £1 in a charity shop and they are lovely!

With decorating, I've lived in my house for 5 years and each year I do some decorating. I still haven't done my bedroom yet but lounge, hall, kids rooms are done.

@Stinkerbells ha ha. I don't actually mind the pink now but the tiles are pink patterned which is yuck. The quality is good though & we would put up with it for longer but the lay out is weird & the bath is tiny, DH & I are both quite tall.

We also had weird sauna panelling in one room.

Can you really not see how a house could get into a ‘state’.... really???

Think about it.

People unable to maintain due to age, disability, money or physical or mental health. How about that?
And also just that when you live somewhere a long time it’s easy to stop ‘seeing’ things.

Sounds like you’ve led a pretty sheltered/narrow life.

Unless your house is a small palace you should be able to do the whole house for a couple of hundred pounds

Honestly this is really unrealistic. I'm giving my house a spruce up at the moment... doing it all ourselves. Not buying ridiculously expensive things and it's still costing really quite a lot. Even just painting a room yourself adds up...brushes, rollers, masking tape, dust sheets, white spirit, sugar soap, sand paper, matt paint for walls and ceilings, gloss for skirting. All the little things really do add up

It's expensive to move and decorate however you do it (private rent to secure tenancy or mortgage to mortgage). You do have a choice as to how expensive you make it though. So one thing is not in your control (the fact it costs money) the other things is in your control (how much you spend)

To be frank the secure tenancy is worth everything you have to put up with . I have a mortgage but will never feel secure (or maybe I will in 24 years time) but if we lose our jobs or interest rates rocket like they did in the 90s we're in a sticky situation. You're safe in that home for as long as you want to be and can probably downsize when you retire.

The day we moved in to our house the oven was condemned because there was a gas leak. We had to cook using the slow cooker and microwave for 9 months before we could afford to do anything about it.

We had to rip up all the flooring and replace. We bought cheaply and lived with that for 10 years.

Moving and decorating will always have a cost. It's up to you as to how expensive you make that.

There's some fab Facebook groups about how to decorate on a budget - check those out.

If you want to take current curtains etc (because familiar to your DS) perhaps you could negotiate with your current landlord to buy them at a bargain price? They might be planning to freshen up anyway? Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

Good luck.

You do it bit by bit. Nothing is that essential unless it’s to do with water, drains, or heating and electric.
Things like carpets, blinds and plastering/decorating can be done as and when you have time and money. It won’t kill you to live without for a bit or even years.