To ask for your bad landlord / terrible tenants stories?

[SylviaPlath1984]

So I was watching nightmare tenants slum landlords this afternoon and I was shocked at how awful both sides can be... then I thought I bet Mumsnet have some wild stories!!!

Before my (now) DH and I got married we were dirt poor and temporarily moved into a shared house. The landlady lived in a different room in the same house. She was lovely but the situation just made us so uncomfortable. It turned out the house was part of a divorce settlement with her ex who lived across the path. She had a young son who the ex didn't allow to come to the house. The ex was an awful man who would find excuses to come into my room when my DH was out to "fix" things and made me scared. The landlady told awful stories about how he basically kidnapped her from abroad when she was 18 and couldn't speak English and forced her to marry him and then sleep on the floor. It all got more and more uncomfortable until one morning we found out that the landlady had tried to kill herself the previous night. I felt so sorry for her but ultimately we had to find a new home because it was no real way to live. I often wonder what happened to her.

Not a bad landlord as such, but moved into a property with my now ex and our baby for a fresh start.
Within a month we were advised that the house was for sale! We took it as a sign and asked if we could get out of the contract earlier and we’re told no (it was 12 months) so we basically had a year of regular viewings, not being able to really unpack or settle, it was a pain in the ass. The house was really overpriced and didn’t sell by the end of my year tenancy. The landlord asked us to stay on a rolling contract until it sold but nope! Off we went at the end. That was a year ago and the house was still listed mid summer last year

Oh god, so many. I’ve often thought of starting a running thread up about it but couldn’t be bothered maintaining it so thanks op . Starter for ten, at least 2 out of 3 rented places I’ve been in have been damp, seriously damp, with mould. Every single landlord and agency has tried to pass it off as ‘condensation’. Condensation? With bloody great big cracks in the walls visible from outside and the sound of water running down chimneys, or even dribbling down internal walls? You learn to be very suspicious of fresh paint. One place I viewed made a big deal of the way they’d done up the attic, creating extra room, and it was beautifully done. Sadly when you looked up there was nothing on the ceiling between you and the roof tiles, and you could see straight through the cracks. Why do landlords waste their money and ruin the building stock like this? Why?

Landlords are so arrogant. One of the damp flat HMO I was in had a coin operated electric meter and electric heating. We needed the heating to mitigate the damp. When the landlord came to empty it he’d laugh and joke about the way he could pay the entire house’s bill from our meter and take everyone else’s as pure profit. Highly amusing.

There was the one we stuck in for over 10 years because it was dry, but the landlord did no repairs, not even essential ones to the brickwork, and gerrymandered the electric and gas certification each year. Until his best mate started begging him for jobs and suddenly we were getting inundated for requests for appointments and harassed for not attending them, when the reality was the chap only turned up when he felt like it and we took time off work several times for non-shows. The landlord gave him a direct key to the backyard. Sometimes he turned up at 6 or 7 in a morning with no warning, we never knew what was awaiting us when we opened the curtains for a while, and he wrecked everything I had in the backyard. We eventually left and the house was given - given outright - to the landlords child who’d paid nothing for it, and the landlord stole our £500 deposit. Very rarely used to get deposits back.

I know people who’ve been evicted for no cause with little notice, where the landlord gerrymandered the electrics to the point of serious fire risks, where they’ve not even bothered to secure doors and windows entry points. But never mind that our illustrious Leaders in Parliament repeatedly block the idea of legal standards for housing, eh, it’s only for working class people who keep the country’s lights on after all.

I inherited some money in my late teens and bought a flat which I rented to a family 'friend' as I wasn't yet ready to live on my own. He paid on time, no reason to be worried so i admit i didnt do checks - he was someone my family knew well. When he left a couple of years later, he had wreaked all the carpets, the walls were yellow from smoke, the toilet bowl was actually black and the only thing that got it off was industrial acid, the kitchen walls were covered in grease...I sat on the floor and cried when I saw it. I sold the flat as soon as i could and would never rent again.

I hope landlords, even accidental ones understand why, when faced with ruined belongings and health caused by damp or immediate risk to security or even life caused by dodgy electrics, I’m not really inclined to be too sympathetic about dirty carpets. I’ve had too many landlords (work colleagues) whinge at me about actually having to do some work once a year for the money we hand them and the mortgages we pay for their much-prized pensions and inheritances to be anything better than uninterested.

In one memorable rented house, the LL insisted on using his own handyman, who didn't have a clue what he was doing. The handyman had installed the boiler incorrectly, the hot and cold water pipes were the wrong way round, and we didn't have hot water for the majority of the six month tenancy. The heating also didn't work, it was absolutely miserable. The LL finally got a professional in, but they only diagnosed the problem, they said we had to arrange with the LL to fix it, which never happened. They wouldn't accept that the handyman had made a mistake.

The house came with a washing machine, also installed by the handyman. He had put the wrong valves on so only a trickle of water would reach the drum. That took numerous calls to the LL, visits from the inept handyman, and finally a professional engineer to fix it. The whole tenancy was miserable and I was glad to get away after six months.

@PlayingGrownUp

Landlord owned the house until she got married, she was also our estate agent and her best friend lived next door. She’d visit her friend and knock to tell us stuff about the house which drove us mad.

When we bought a house the oil man sent £1000 worth of oil that my grandma bought as a house warming present to her house and when we called to say they were taking it back (less than an hour later) she had put a padlock on the gate. Eventually I had to take her to the small claims court.

Sorry I cannot decipher this post. What house did she talk about? And where was the oil sent, to your landlord's house?!

@MayYouLiveInInterestingTimes not sure if that's aimed at me. Sorry that happened to you. However, this was a brand new flat so none of those problems...the damage was caused by the 'friend' not once cleaning or hoovering for 2 years. My 'much prized' inheritance was die to losing both of my parents by the age of 19. Not sure I deserve that criticism even though of course i should have done checks every 6 months. That was my mistake

It was general. The complaints of tenants are those of privacy, security, lack of access to power, damp. Rather more important than having to clean up a bit of dirt. I’m sorry you’re parents died, but the fact is it’s left you with economic power which is being directly leveraged against us. I gave up crying back in my teens.

When I first moved to London I had a landlord whose daughter also lived in the flat. She would play music at all hours, tur the hot water off if she went home for a weekend and told me off for eating meat. I quickly left but not before the landlord shouted at me on the phone insisting my contract said they could hold on to my deposit for 28 days.
Another landlord said he didn't need to use the deposit protection scheme (total rubbish). He'd send cowboy workmen round with no notice and enter the flat when he wanted - didn't understand he had to tell us apparently. I then had to send him a letter before action to get my deposit back. A few years after leaving I got a letter from the water company saying I owed several thousand at that property. Arsehole landlord had put bills in my name without my permission (under the contract he paid the bills). Thankfully I could prove to water company I had only lived there a few months and somehow convinced the landlord to pay me the remaining amount- although annoying that the water company said someone fraudulently opening account in my name was not their problem - they let it happen!
I hope karma got them all

Ok...you sound nice. I was 20 years old and I believe he paid me £200 a month...

@sneakysnoopysniper you change the locks on your rental properties without your LL's permission and you threaten to call the police if they don't give seven days notice in writing of a visit?

And you think you're a good tenant?

I had a lucky escape from one LL. It was when the tenancy deposit schemes were still relatively new, maybe a year or so after. Looked round the property, asked (to confirm) the rent, deposit etc and the scheme.
Landlord said 'oh no I don't use the schemes, its an extra months rent instead in lieu of a deposit' I politely said I thought we had to? He said 'but then I don't get to say if I give the money back?' He looked at me a bit quizzically and helpfully explained that the deposit was his money and that it wasn't safe if it went to someone else.

[quote JamesMiddletonsMarshmallows]@sneakysnoopysniper you change the locks on your rental properties without your LL's permission and you threaten to call the police if they don't give seven days notice in writing of a visit?

And you think you're a good tenant?[/quote]
You're legally allowed to change the locks as long as you restore the old ones when you leave.

Seven days notice in writing is batshit, however.

@Livelovebehappy

sneakysnoopersniper wow, you’re a landlords worst nightmare! Do landlords actually always get references from previous tenancies? Surely that would weed out people like sneakysnooper, who I’m guessing no landlord would touch with a barge pole.

Some people get their friends to write fake references.

I had one crazy lodger once. For some reason, I couldn't find a good lodger for my vacant room in my flat so I took on someone who wasn't my usual type. He seemed ok and I even phoned the reference to check it out. On the day he was due to move in, there was some story about why his deposit wasn't in my account, but he turned up with all his stuff so I said he could still move in but not sign the contract until the deposit was in.

The first couple of days were relatively quiet. I went away to stay with my boyfriend the next night and when I came back after work that evening, he immediately rushed up to me and said "I was waiting for you to come back, I need advice because my previous landlord's threatened to kill me". He then proceeded to tell me about his various troubles for several hours that night. It also transpired that the previous landlord reference had been a friend faking it, but he justified it by saying he would have been homeless otherwise.

I was so unsettled by all of this that I moved a heavy wardrobe in front of my own bedroom door that night. Which turned out to be a good move because during the night, I heard someone trying to get in my room! The next morning, there was no sign of him and I went to work, thought it over and decided to ask him to leave when I got home. He came rushing up again claiming that his previous landlord was still threatening to kill him but I cut him off, told him that I felt sorry for him but that I didn't feel comfortable living with him and that I would give him a week to move out.

He went crazy! He started ranting and raving at me and then went on the phone and shouted into it that I was threatening him and basically a massive guy who was his friend turned up, he let him into my flat and he told me that he would be visiting every night until I "accepted" my new lodger. The friend stood menacingly in the hall and refused to move. It was the most bizarre thing.

I phoned the police. They were superb, came round quickly, asked us both some questions, quickly assessed the situation and marched him out. The friend disappeared as soon as the police turned up. The police told the lodger to contact them to arrange a convenient evening for me to collect his stuff the following week, and told me to refund his deposit when it arrived in my account.

Him and the police did turn up the next week and he had to gather his belongings with the police in attendance, watching him like a hawk.

I'd like to say that was the end of that but his MOTHER left a message on my phone the following week, pleading with me to take him back and saying it was his dream flat.

It really is awful feeling unsafe in your own home, and I had my locks changed (and took it off the deposit I returned to him). The police really were great and solved the whole problem without any real fuss. I often wonder if they knew something about him when they checked his name, which was why they acted so quickly.

I rented my flat out when overseas to a teacher who was never a problem until the last month of her tenancy. She came home drunk one night and started undressing in the communal areas. She cut herself and there was a trail of blood and clothing to the flat opposite.

One of the people in the flat had a carer who came early in the morning and saw the blood and clothing. She knocked on the door and no-one answered. Fearing something bad happened the police came and forced the door open on the flat opposite. This disturbed my tenant who came out to complain about the noise. She was mortified as she couldn't remember anything.

The letting agent wanted me to pay for the damage. I politely told them to fuck off.

In our first rented flat we had the annual gas safety check done by the letting agents approved engineer, he turned up, it was a Friday and he spent most of the time on the phone to his wife who kept ringing to se did he was done as they were going out that night, it was my nephews birthday so I was wrapping his gifts before we went to see him.

For several weeks prior to the safety check whenever DP and I cooked we would start to feel ill/really tired, it was winter we both had heavy going jobs so just thought we were tired. A week after the check I was cooking and the carbon monoxide detector started going off, I turned the gas hob off and rang the engineer, he told me that he had just replaced the batteries in that last week and to ignore it, he was busy on a job and would ring me back in 30 minutes, needles to say I ignored his advice, and rang the local gas board and ventilated the flat as best I could (windows were all painted shut) DP was delivering training. So my dad very kindly came to help, the gas board came, condemned the hob and evacuated the other flags, I went outside, was violently sick and was hospitalised with carbon monoxide poisoning, the letting agent never rang us back despite a call to their emergency line and the gas engineer rang me back the next day as apparently he didn’t finish his job until midnight (was around 6:30pm when I rang him) he was speechless when I told Him he could’ve rang as i was in hospital at that time.

Also in that flat about 2 months later the oven broke (the hob had been repaired in about 4 weeks by a different engineer as I wouldn’t let the first one back) after 2 weeks I was quite angry nothing had been done, after 4 weeks I was assured it would be fixed in the next 2 days and after 6 weeks advised I would be deducting the cost of a new oven from the monthly rental payment, letting agent said I couldn’t do that but understood my frustration(!) but that they were waiting for a “special oven” turns out it needed to be stainless steel....they got 6 links to John Lewis of ovens that fit the space and were stainless steel and I said I was happy to buy it and deduct from rent, the next day the first engineer turned up to fit the new oven which had apparently originally been stolen and then found which was the reason for the delay.

We were given notice on the flat 2 weeks later and I negotiated a significant reduction in the final two months rent for the issues.

The next flat had an old intercom phone on the wall which was held in my a single nail and disconnected, if you moved the phone there was a large whole underneath! Letting agent said landlord didn’t think it needed fixing but when we moved out tried to blame us for it, thankfully had all emails sent whilst living in the property and pictures, I was delighted to be able to buy somewhere!

Uni friends and I rented a 10th floor flat in desperation, having been unable to find anything suitable. The lift often didn’t work. The landlord installed a phone which phoned out-sheer luxury! However, neighbour’s soon let us know that it was a council flat and he had no right to rent it out. We’d paid cash for the deposit/first month’s rent so owed nothing bar utilities/phone. We told the landlord we were going, he came round with a couple of mates. Luckily, we (2 girls) had a mate round to help us move and the landlord was demanding our new address, don’t know why. We didn’t give it to him. He was incredibly shifty.

Not a nightmare tenant by any means, but my tenant has 2 days off a week and if there is an issue, he messages endlessly. The other night, he was drunk texting and texting about the fence falling down. I think he gets drunk and just decides he’s going to tell me everything. After multiple messages, where he said his brother in law would charge £1000 to replace 3 wooden panels and 4 posts, I told him I would sort it and get my own garden guy in, thank you very much and to stop contacting me after 9pm unless it’s an emergency. I’d already asked this when he sent me about 15 pictures of a very slow leak on a radiator one night. My DH went up the next day to replace it. I phoned the garden guy, fence was replaced the day after.

This is the tenant who asked if we would provide garden furniture! As it happened, we were replacing ours, so gave him our old table and chairs, having jet washed them.

9pm is not a "reasonable" time to call on anyone without warning or an appointment.

7 days notice of a business meeting is reasonable. If the tenant is in a customer facing environment then s/he may have to make arrangements with their employer for time off. You cant just walk out of work or stay off just because your LL wants to see you or send around work people.

We had a tenant who for years was fine if not my type of person. But then he got involved in the local drug scene, going rapidly downhill, wouldn’t let the agents in for the yearly inspection, wouldn’t answer the phone etc. We heard through the grapevine that he wasn’t even living in the house as he had been done for a local burglary along with his mate and one of the terms of his bail was not to be so close by.

I went round to the house and did a scout around the place only to see that the back bedroom window was smashed, the back fence was down, the garden was like a junky ward and the place had an air of abandonment about it. I rang the tenant. No answer. So I rang again, and again and again. And again. Until he eventually picked up the phone and granted me permission to go in the house. To say it looked like a crack den would have been giving it an air of grandeur it did not possess.

We served a section 21 to regain possession of the house which I was terrified he would ignore, he didn’t but equally he didn’t move any of his shit out of the house. He was horrible and very intimidating. We ended up piling as much of it as we could into our car and dropping at his poor girlfriends house at his request who quietly confided that she had seen the state of the house and she was embarrassed at how he had left it and she didn’t blame us for wanting him out but now she was stuck with him and that she had cancer and she didn’t want him there. I felt dreadfully sorry for her but explained I didn’t want him in my house either.

Took thousands to sort that house, had to get a house clearance company in to clear it back to bare bones and found the remnants of a weed farm in the loft.

The mate he’d done the burglary with was put away for murder shortly after the eviction.

A year or so later we received a request for a reference regarding him as tenant. To my utter shame we just ignored it. He knew where we lived and I just didn’t want the hassle of him knowing we’d given a bad reference. Putting windows out and intimidation etc would have been no issue to him. I couldn’t in all conscience lie about the type of tenant he was but nor could I be honest for fear of reprisals.

Not junky ward 😳 junk yard!

Greenland that sounds terrifying! Bet he was known to the police.

My rented house currently needs :

Radiators flushing so they actually work - been asking for 4 years, winter is brutal

Half the windows are blown aluminium double glazed and you can feel the cold seeping in and it sounds like they are open when they aren't

The basement is full of mould and unusable

Walls in 2 of the bedrooms, the bathroom ceiling and kitchen are mouldy

The kitchen walls seep wet when it's raining so the plaster is getting wet when the outside walls leak somewhere but not developing mould yet

The mastic in the bathroom round the bath tub is completely black - like solid black - and orange stuff grows up the tiles

The floor is falling away in the corner of the dining room where the rising damp is destroying the floorboards

The plaster board is blown and falling off the wall on the landing and in a bedroom - I have used sticky back plastic to keep it all up and stop it falling all over the carpet and getting crunched in

The kitchen cupboard doors are coming loose again and the fronts have fallen off the drawers - cheap and badly fitted kitchen - has been repaired twice already

Numerous broken floorboards that bounce you up like a springboard if you don't know where to step

Generally draughty and cold

I used to rent my flat out after I got married, had some great tenants, but one bad one years ago, would regularly get complaints about noise, music, stuff in the stairs/halls.

The final straw was he kept his moped in the flat! Which was on the 2nd floor up two huge flights of stairs. And sometimes the engine could be heard running inside the flat.

They was the final straw and he was told to vacate.