To wonder how other people afford to keep their house ‘nice’

[WaspLady]

I’m a single parent on low income, I work full time but have nothing left at the end of the month. Don’t buy myself clothes, go out or have any extravagances other than kids hobbies.

I have a housing association house which is absolutely falling to bits, we are expected to be responsible for most repairs ourselves but I don’t know how it’s possible to pay for it, if I owned the house then I guess I might be willing to go not debt/ remortgage to replace the kitchen (currently 18 years old and cabinets and worktops disintegrating rapidly!) and internal doors (I think same age as the house so been there at least 35 years and only one or 2 not had some kind of repair job, several just hanging on by a thread) or have a shower installed (currently only have a bath).

I go into neighbours homes and they have all put in nice kitchens, have had showers installed, replaced a lot of fittings etc, but how can anyone in a low income afford this? Where am I going wrong? I’m embarrassed to have anyone in my house and it makes me so depressed. It doesn’t matter how much I clean, paint and patch things up the house always looks awful 😞

I work for a HA and you absolutely should not be doing your own repairs. Yes, they will patch up and repair, rather than replace but they are responsible for keeping it in good order. Kitchens and bathrooms aren’t usually replaced until they are 30 years old which isn’t great. If you peel wall paper and the plaster falls off, report it and get them out to re plaster.

Please go through the HA formal complaint process and take this to the Housing Ombudsman. Damp and mould complaints are taken extremely seriously by the Ombudsman. The HA need to take reports of damp and mould seriously, especially with a vulnerable person the household. They need to arrange a specialist damp and mould surgery to find out the cause and take action to fix it. If they don't treat it seriously, the Ombudsman will investigate.

*damp and mould survey not surgery. Use the formal complaint process and then escalate.

You can thank this government for the millions of pounds of grants they have removed from HA's. I work for a HA, albeit not directly involved in the repairs and the budget cuts we are dealing with are absolutely unreal. That's not to say, of course, that some HAs, as well as councils or private landlords, are not absolute shite but the vast majority of us at our HA try our absolute bloody best on bigger all funds.

Op, honestly don't worry about what other people do in their houses, for all you know they have gotten themselves in crazy debt to do these things. Looks like lots of useful suggestions so far for small changes from PPs

Shelter may be able to help you submit a case to the Housing Ombudsman. There is a difference between the things that would get anyone down (disintegrating kitchen cupboards) and those which are dangerous to health (damp and mould).

Have a look at the repairs policy and see what leverage that gives you to make a formal complaint.

Ignore the balmy 'take the wallpaper off, do a quick polyfiller job and hang lining paper' posts. That's a ridiculous suggestion for a lone parent with three kids and no money.

I'm in a council house and we get a new kitchen and bathroom every ten years as part of our regular upgrade programme. They are very basic but the quality has improved hugely compared to queen I was a child and they were plain white units with silver metal trim. Now you get a choice of 2-3 styles of door, 3 types of handles, 4 worktops, and black or white tiles.

Glue down the peeling bits, paint it lovely colour and either hang pictures in a cool display or put up huge mirrors to widen the space. The paper will be far less noticeable to people than your artful display or their own reflection.

Lots of good advice here but the other thing I'd say is please don't be embarrassed to have people round. Some of my friends houses are mansions, some are council houses .... Some gorgeous, some (by their own admission) a tip. I don't care a bit, I think it's lovely to be invited to someone's home. People who are close to you won't be judging your house!! X

Everyone I know with a nice house on a low income has multiple family members who help out with DIY. It's hard if you don't have that.

if it’s that bad, you need to put in a claim for
disrepair. Your daughter’s health can’t be in
jeopardy because your LL is refusing to meet his obligations.

you need to take photos of the kitchen and log it as a repair and keep doing it until they send someone round.
but Yanbu I know people that have paid thousands to renovate their housing association homes, enough to have put a deposit down to buy a house and I just don’t know how they would have been eligible for the home in the first place, because when we were on a low income there wouldn’t have been money left over for a tin of paint let alone new flooring or landscapes gardening.

A lot of the tips above will help but at the end of the day it does take money to keep a house in order and make things look nice.

Can you get your MP involved? This is a hot topic in housing right now. They need a boot up the arse and your MP is the one to do it.

Have you tried asking the HA for a kitchen/bathroom upgrade?
I have a council property and our bathrooms are every 15 years and kitchen every 20 (I think)
But sometimes you're past the time and they've just not allocated it to you yet and need a wee reminder

You don't have to be on a low income to be eligible for a HA property. And I doubt very much that people are spending the equivalent of a house deposit (£10k? £20k?) updating a HA home, particularly when they're not allowed to do anything structural (new kitchen/bathroom). That's an awful lot of paint and cushions.

Most HAs don't include flooring when you move in - that's an essential, not a 'renovation'.

The ignorance and prejudice on SH threads is astonishing.

Housing ombudsman @WaspLady

https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/

You need to keep reporting every repair to the HA. Every single thing.

Mil is HA and has just had her kitchen fully replaced, they said it’s usually every 20 years - worth a call to yours to ask?

Absolutely this. I missed your post but this reply is spot on. But re damp etc., You also need to show you're doing as they say
You need to air the rooms
You need to make sure they're not over filled. Otherwise they'll just put damp down to tenant behaviour. And tbf we have tenants who fill bedrooms with large wardrobes and 3 kids and never open a window and wonder why it's damp and refuse to change their behaviour, so it does happen. But if you've got an inspection make sure the windows open, make sure the room is tidy etc so they can clearly see this isn't your fault.

I grew up in a council house.
we were poor Hence why we needed one.
you do have to be earning below a certain amount to live in one (£45k) where I’m from.
£45k a year these days is not a lot, certainly not enough to be replacing carpets and kitchens at the drop of a hat.

you can make expensive renovations with permission from your landlord, that includes new kitchens and bathroom, small extensions, knocking down walls etc.

I know people who have literally renovated their whole HA home (I work in the property industry)
new kitchen, bathroom, landscaped garden, conservatories and utility rooms, All new tiling and underfloor heating. And yes they’ve spend well over £20k doing it.

I’ve lived in a HA house for the last five years.
My. house had no equity when it was sold after my divorce , h was fine as he moved in with OW
initially I couldn’t rave about my HA enough as repairs were always promptly seen to , then in 2021 a new CEO came on board and everything changed , they stopped investing in improvements for their older properties and are only interested in ploughing money into new builds For Shared equity etc .
Managers have left in their droves .
I live in a small cul de sac of Rena homes (non standard construction) and these were built in the fifties . We were told that this year they would be refurbished as they desperately need new roofs , windows doors etc then suddenly they’ve been removed from the major works programme . Most if my neighbours have 30 to forty year old kitchens and bathrooms as the properties weren’t touched when the HA aquired them 10 years ago .

the windows and doors are touching thirty years old and aren’t fit for purpose because as always everything was cheap and shoddily installed to start with .

They refuse to carry out repairs instead telling tenants to do them , themselves including not turning up for emergency things like boilers packing up . Last winter our boiler packed up during the coldest spell in December and the HA left us for ten days with no heating or hot water .. making excuse after excuse . In the end I got my own heating engineer out who repaired it same day at a cost of £400 . I then lodged a formal complaint with my HA who had to admit they were wrong and I was reimbursed .
However , the houses aren’t up to standard , they are literally crumbling as they’ve reached their maximum timeframe before major refurbishment is required .
We were able to have a new front door and bath, sink fitted after lodging yet another complaint but it’s exhausting.
They ignore all repair requests on their website - and when they do agree to come they now send someone to “look at the issue” , you then never hear anything back ..

We revamped our kitchen by essentially giving it a makeover and fitted a new sink etc and have had to pay for roof repairs and window repairs.
It’s disgusting and this HA are now one of the biggest in the U.K. .
To the naked eye out house looks beautiful but I hate it because it’s costing me more money than when I owned my own home and I’m on tenterhooks waiting for the next huge crack to appear in the ceiling or in the wall (the house is visibly subsiding ) the neighbourhood coach is burnt out and stressed from the barage of angry tenants calls etc she gets every day .

Trying to get these people held to account is impossible , our HA is not a registered charity but s for profit assc so seem to be able to do what they like ,we’ve been through the housing ombudsman who were effectively useless and local conservative MP doesn’t respond to any requests like this (we live in a rural affluent area )

Some flats near by have fallen into such a poor state of repair and are literally almost falling down as their non standard construction deteriorates .. that no one wants to live there and now they are used as temporary housing and whole families with several children are being stuffed into the flats

I totally feel your pain OP as I feel that the older housing stock and the tenants are just left to rot by HA’s while they build more new houses (which aren’t up to scratch ) and I actually wish I lived in a council house tbh

I have a SH working background, DH still works in SH, I live in SH. I've never heard of a SH LL that allows you to knock down walls or add extensions etc. If you did this without permission, you would be charged by the LL for works to bring the property back to standard when you moved out (the only exception being for adaptations, which the LL would approve and carry out themselves).

There is currently no threshold for earnings either. And LLs are responsible for updating kitchens, not tenants. Social LLs have programmes where they update things like kitchens/bathrooms/windows every 10/15/whatever years. If you'd put your own kitchen in when they came to update it, they simply rip that one out and put the new one in (and charge you for the privilege, most likely).

Why would anyone spend £20k renovating a property that wasn't theirs anyway? In the knowledge that when they move out, they'll be recharged for its removal?

It's strange how on threads like this everyone 'knows' someone who's done expensive renovations on their HA home/swans off on holiday/lives in a council flat but earns £29748829 a year. In reality, those of us who love/work in SH don't know anyone who's done these things.

This is awful. I'm so sorry you're going through this 💐

@GillianMcQueef
There are literally forums full of complaints from people living under this HA saying the same thing..We are luckier than most in that we can afford to carry out repairs .. but we shouldn’t have to and every year the rent goes up £80 a month .
I currently have an ongoing complaint lodged after I had to pay to have three double glazed units replaced as they had failed so badly , after two years of HA refusal to repair and I’ve spent several hundreds having faulty and downright dangerous electrics sorted because HA refused to even come and look .

Absolutely this. Be the squeaky wheel. Get all the help you can in making them stand up to their responsibilities. Particularly in relation to the health aspects with heating and damp.

I know you’ve tried. And I know the consultant wrote about your daughter. But I suspect you gave up because you thought maybe you weren’t entitled to anything. Well, you are entitled to it. Make an appointment to see your MPs office. Take along the consultants letter and pictures of the damp/mould/whatever else problem. Take other picture of the worst bits of the house, and a list, and details of the responses you have had from the HA. Do the same with shelter. And try citizens advice for help too.

This shouldn’t be on you OP. Your HA are not fulfilling their responsibilities.