For invoicing my landlord and land lady and filing a complaint ?

[Mousegotinmyhouse]

Sorry for the length, I don't want to drip feed.

Two weeks ago, after returning from a 5 day trip we saw a mouse run into a gap in the kitchen base boards and found droppings. We contacted the estate agent who alerted the landlord and landlady (who live above us), got permission for pest control to remove the baseboards, called a next day pest control who came out within 24 hours. We also paid for pest control even though it's a landlords responsibility. Partially out of good will, but mainly because I just wanted the issue sorted.

Pest control confirmed we are not the cause of the mouse infestation. In his report he wrote the kitchen was clean and that the reason for the infestation was that there was heavy rain, and the mice sought refuge in our flat by entering via where some pipes are, as the hole is far too big for the pipes. He then said old cupboard doors meant that the mice accessed food sources by getting into the cupboards where the bottom of the doors don't align.

We obviously had to get rid of a lot of stuff in the kitchen. Our black bin is emptied every 3 weeks and was already half full. We filled it with the unsealed stuff from the cupboards or anything mice had gnawed through, and any sealed food items or general non food items were triple bagged with heavily scented bin powder (in case animals can smell sealed packaged food) and placed neatly next to said bins.

There were 5-6 bags next to the bin in total (sounds a lot, but I freaked and got rid of anything at mouse level). I contacted multiple rubbish collection companies, all but one gave over 7 days wait due to difficulties caused by our rural area flooding. I managed to find someone who could collect the rubbish within 4 days. I have the booking confirmation etc to prove all of this.

This Friday -2 weeks after the rubbish was removed, I got a letter from the estate agents saying the landlords have complained that 10-15 black bags of rubbish have been sat out for a prolonged period of time. We were told it is aggravating the mouse problem.

This is where I may have overreacted. I called the agents and explained the rubbish was collected two weeks ago, and that yes it was triple bagged outside for 4 days, but I can't control how busy businesses are.

The agent told me that they and the landlord and landlady feel we should have taken it to the tip sooner. So i pointed out that it wouldn't have gone any sooner because I booked on Tuesday and it was collected on Saturday morning, and because my husband takes the only car, an hour away to work in the week he would have also done it on Saturday. I also pointed out the landlords would have complained if the rubbish was kept in the kitchen for four days rather than keep the bags outside. The agent said they and the landlord also feel we could have taken a day off to take the rubbish to the tip.

I suggested that if the landlord and lady felt so strongly about the availability of rubbish collection services, or desperately wanted the rubbish taken on a weekday when the tip is open then they could have always taken the rubbish themselves. Or offered to reduce this month's rent to reflect the loss of earnings for my husband if he took an unpaid day off to take it.
(I don't actually expect them to do those things, I wanted to counter their unreasonable expectations.)

I then emailed the estate agent a copy of the rubbish collection booking, the pest control report, and the invoice from pest control.

I filed a counter complaint about the landlords malicious complaint of "10-15 open black bags of rubbish" as there were 6 triple bagged bags that were removed 2 weeks prior to the complaint being made, and requested reimbursement for pest control as the report indicates the mice got in due to structural issues of the property, making it their responsibility to pay for pest control and any follow ups according to our tenancy agreement.

My husband bumped into the landlady today on our shared drive and she made it clear that she is PISSED that I've made a counter complaint and requested a reimbursement for pest control. But I don't actually think I've done anything wrong. I did the best I could with the resources available and quite honestly I don't really feel like paying for pest control if they're going to make malicious, exaggerated complaints.

Just to add - I didn't feel the need to put up and shut up in case the landlord/lady files a section 21 no fault eviction out of spite. We're relocating in the next 6 weeks due to a job change so it's a none issue if I'm honest.

YABU - you should have taken the rubbish sooner and sucked up the cost of pest control

YANBU - your landlords should pay for pest control, and shouldn't have complained given the fact the rubbish was gone as soon as possible.

If also say, if there's a hole in the wall how would the LL know if no-one has told them? I'm pretty sure it's a tenants responsibility to let them know ASAP if there's any problem. So if you already knew about this hole, they should have been told.
I'm just wondering how on earth you'd cope if you owned your own property...?! Total over reaction.
We had a mouse in our kitchen about a year ago, he was living behind our toaster & making himself right at home. I am a committed animal lover & thought he was quite sweet. They're just trying to live it's not the fault of the mouse.
We humanely trapped him & released him in a field a few miles away. No issue. I wouldn't have bothered getting peat control out for a mouse! They're for infestations not one little mouse. Christ.

It sounds like you just wanted people to tell you YANBU.

Aside from leaving the bags YANBU.

I'd have send the invoice too after the lies to letting agent. Play stupid games win stupid prizes etc

Should've put a post on local FB group, someone would've taken it to the tip for a tenner 🤷🏻‍♀️

Wow I guess you aren't self employed then. If you have customers book weeks/months in advance and strong competition and perhaps working long hours you ain't in the position to just rock up late and perhaps work on...in my previous life my mower didn't have head lights.

Let me guess your a civil servant?

I mean, if I owned my house I would also call a decent sized hole in the wall a structural issue.

Yes I'm so demanding paying for pest control, making my landlord aware of a hole in their wall and expecting them not to lie about how long the rubbish had been left in their complaint.

If they didn't want push back or invoices then they should have been honest and said they weren't happy rubbish had been left for 4 days. Rather than claim the rubbish is still there, 2 weeks after it had collected.

You've asked for people's opinions to just then disagree and question them...

Yeah that’s correct. Pests due to structural issues are LLs responsibility.

I don't think you sound anything like a nightmare @Mousegotinmyhouse and those that are saying you are, frankly, are being ridiculous. A 'nightmare' for responding to lies told to your estate agent? I mean, what was even the point? It sounds like they live next door or close - why didn't they come and say something, or I don't know, offer to take them to the tip once they knew you couldn't?

I think you acted exactly how you should have done (ok maybe a bit gung-ho on the binning of food!) and they have kicked off as you've basically highlighted an issue to them that they will need to pay to fix, probably before getting another tenant in.

Anyway, good luck with the move, I suspect it can't come soon enough for you now!

Couldn’t be further from the truth; I’ve been self employed; it’s one of the tests of self employment that you are not obligated by an employer to work certain hours (although granted that’s facetious as you may have appointments or the work may only be available at certain times, or you might not be able to dep out the work due to cost, which is fair enough). But that is part of being self employed is having to deal with shit like that. I did it full time for a long time.

I still maintain that there’s a million other things that could have been done than bagging up tons of unnecessary waste, leaving it outside for days and then getting the arse with the landlords when they quite rightly are a bit put out about the massive overreaction to the sighting of a mouse which they are now being expected to foot the bill for.

The OP has even herself said she could have not thrown out so much, they could have put the bags in the car, etc- which I think is a fair reflection.

I just don’t understand the choices where people move to places where they apparently know literally nobody they could ask to do them a favour including the people who live above them- I don’t think I’m the sort of person who’s got lots of ‘willing to help’ friends but if I had 6 bin bags to go to the tip that I couldn’t get rid of or store I know one of my neighbours would help, particularly if I was unable to drive. Why are people so unhelpful to each other these days?

and I do wonder at what point the landlords complained about the rubbish, the time delay before it was reported back to the tenants and what was actually said.

If there was a hole in the wall,& you knew about it, surely they needed to know before this whole saga?
It doesn't quite make sense though does it, leaving rubbish outside for any length of time, if the mice bothered you that much I don't think you would have done this, or at the very least you would have been working with your LL to come to a solution.

Your mention of money & wanting rent off sounds really suspect. Are you sure that's not what this is about? Wanting money off of your rent?

Yes. The rodents will have been looking for it.

Ummm no. That's not what's causing the prices to go up.

Boring update: We got the full formal complaint from the estate agents yesterday.

I got the time-stamped photos of the bags the landlord sent to the Estate agent. The timestamps show the landlord had taken the photos on the same day the rubbish had gone outside, and then sent the photos to the estate agent after 24 hours claiming the rubbish had been left outside since January without being dealt with.

I found out that the landlords had also made a complaint back in January, because a bin bag hadn't been pushed down properly, meaning the bin hadn't closed fully. They complained on the grounds of excessive rubbish. The timestamps on the photo show they took the photo and made this complaint the day before bins are emptied, just a few hours before we're allowed to take our bins down to the street. The bin bag would been put in the bin that day (most likely from the kitchen), and it would have been pushed down as soon as I noticed DH hadn't done it when he took the bag out.

The landlord has also complained because we have two black bins when the council only allows one, because they feel we have acquired it as we produce excessive rubbish and "don't recycle or compost"- DH has a medical condition and uses disposable medical equipment. The council provided us with a second bin because our collections are every 3 weeks, meaning that he fills an entire bin with his used equipment. Once every few weeks, we also produce a large amount of recycling at once due to boxes of equipment.

The landlords had taken pictures of our excess recycling, that as per the councils instructions was sorted so that materials were correctly separated, and placed on top of our full recycling boxes ready to go down for collection day. The landlord lied that it was general rubbish and made a formal complaint complete with false accusations that we don't recycle anything or compost food

I made a formal complaint to the agent about the landlords behaviour. I expressed I was unhappy with the claims the landlord was making as at best they were exaggerated and some were clearly untrue. I said that I felt it was unreasonable to make a formal complaint about a full bin, the day before it was due to be collected.

I sent evidence to counter all their claims. Booking texts about rubbish, a letter from the council permitting the second bin, council guidance stating bins are collected 3 weekly, council guidance on sorting and bagging any rubbish, a bin collection timetable to show their complaints have been made a few days before bin day, when bins will be full.

I'm hoping that once the estate agents have read my email, they will acknowledge that the landlords are being unreasonable. If it was just a complaint about the black bags, I would have left it, because that would be a fair complaint.

But it's the fact they've so blatantly lied about so many things. I genuinely don't understand why they did it. I'm not entirely sure what they set out to achieve🤷🏽‍♀️

Oh and at this point I refuse to accept I am being unreasonable in complaining

Enough rubbish that the bin isn't shut is excess rubbish, whether it's bin day or not. I understand what you're saying about it not being overfull, just not pushed down, but that's not provable and makes no difference to the effect on rodent life etc.

The response to a mouse was OTT and the usual response would be traps -a much cheaper way to deal with it. The landlord could argue that as payment was not discussed when you inquired about pest control, they can't reasonably be expected to pay. They should have addressed this at the time though, so you may still be reimbursed.

You acknowledge that you shouldn't have thrown away what must be months worth of unopened long life food. I'll be honest, that response does make me question whether your attitude to landfill is always so blasé.

I had a mouse problem as a tenant. Yes, there were holes. The landlord carried out their duty to deal with it by placing traps. This dealt with the issue, as well as me being a little more selective about where I kept my opened food. No expensive pest control needed and no further rodent visits.

Now that you’ve explained your dh has a medical condition for which he needs additional equipment, I think it is understandable that you were so vigilant with the food and spooked by having rodents in your kitchen. Yea you overreacted. Hindsight is a glorious thing.

I imagine this falls under a disability. If the agent comes back with any back chat, I would respond that you feel harassed because your dh has a disability and add that he has protection under the 2010 Equality Act. That should hopefully make the, back off.

Have you invoiced the landlord and have they responded about this?

They obviously saw away to blame you for the mice and decided to take it, don't let them get away with it. I hope you've added an invoice for the wasted food and your time organising the pest control, rubbish collection etc. And do stress the disability discrimination element as a pp suggested.

Excellent. More supply of housing to the market to help bring pricing down so more renters can buy.

landlords acting like they are doing a noble job when really they are hoarding assets for investment opportunities. Which inflates the housing market.

Some tenant/landlord relationships are worryingly poor. I had the exact same issue. Hole in the wall where food was stored. Mice started eating through food packaging. I called landlord. He sent someone over to fix the holes. I called pest control who advised to wait and see if the problem persisted. Thankfully it didn't. Problem solved. No guns blazing from anyone. You overreacted and so did your landlord.

Perhaps the landlords are doing ut to argue they should get to retain part of your deposit when you leave, building a case that you are nightmare tenants. I would have charged the landlord immediately for the pest control and for the rubbish collection, now it looks like you're being petty when really it was their responsibility. That also would have avoided the argument over bags going to the dump. I'm also confused as to why the landlord is complaining to the agent and you also rather than direct engagement. Bit odd as surely the landlord is the decision maker anyway so why not just cut out the middle man? If you're leaving in 6 weeks anyway does it all matter, could you just tell the agent now that you're not going to engage any more with LL's fake complaints but if the agent wants to come over and view the prthemselves to check it's in good order they are welcome to do so. Do you need a reference? Landlords can be awful, my landlord once tried to get me and my housemates to pay £500 for a tree that was overhanging into the neighbour's garden and needed a tree surgeon, arguing we'd failed to prune it. Never mind we'd only lived there 3 months!

Yeah, your moving at the next renewal.

The thing is, we were more than happy to pay for pest control, as a favour because up until recently, everything has been friendly with the landlords. But in all honesty once we noticed that the complaint claimed we had left the rubbish out for weeks, we suddenly felt a lot less generous. Maybe thats absolutely petty, but it's how we felt. The landlords have said they'll refuse to pay any invoices. That's their prerogative and I'm not going to waste energy pushing it.

Landlord has complained to the agent that we didn't give them a chance to sort pest control. Which is a fair complaint. But then they've gone on to say that even though they want us to go via the agent for all property issues, and would have said made a complaint had we contacted them directly, they would have also lodged a complaint if we'd have gone via the agent and waited their standard 5 working days for a response because that would have taken too long. I've asked the agent what exactly I should have done then because they have said in writing that they would have made a complaint whether I spoke to them, the agent or paid for pest control myself.

I think the landlords have initially complained the the estate agent rather than coming to me or DH because DH or I would have just pushed the rubbish down so the bin was closed, apologised and said said we were taking the bin down at 6pm as per local council rules. If they'd approached us about recycling we would have just explained it was appropriately sorted and bagged and was going down in 3 days. The agent wouldn't know the rubbish was due to go down, nor would they know from a photo that we'd just forgotten to push a bag down properly.

I've sent the agent evidence showing the complaints are untrue, and have told them I will not be responding to any further untrue or exaggerated complaints. I also sent a time-stamped video of the empty garden and bins yesterday, and said they are more than welcome to bring our yearly inspection forward because we have nothing to hide. The landlord will struggle to keep our deposit on the basis of previous complaints about rubbish because the issue no longer exists.

I also can't believe your old landlord tried to charge you £500 for a tree that wasn't your responsibility. That's ridiculous. Landlords really will do anything to money grab it seems! Did they eventually back down?

Thankfully we shouldn't need a reference. We enquired with estate agents and all but one has said that as long as we have positive references from other properties they will be happy to proceed with no reference from this landlord. I lived in my previous house for a long time, and left with a glowing reference that also explicitly states the only reason I was served a section 21 was because because the landlords divorced and they needed the house back due to financial reasons. So hopefully we should be fine.

OP I am fully with you on this.

The report pointed out it is the fault of the property for the cause. This lies with the landlord.

You have fully explained that the bags were well wrapped and there is only so much you could do in the space and time.

You would not have had to put the bags of rubbish out in the first place if it wasn't for the mice issue which is the landlord's fault.

Someone using your complaining as an excuse for all landlords being twunts is beyond far-fetched.

My only concern is that the landlords will use this as revenge. Best of luck OP.

You've admitted that on two occasions you left uncovered bins outside, once when you had so much rubbish you couldn't close the bins and another when you left six loose bags out for days. This attracts mice!

I don't know how you can claim it's the landlord's fault you found a mouse in your apartment. You have no idea how it got in. They come in through standard vents or stroll in through open doors while you're putting out your rubbish. You are being unreasonable to say you got pest control 'as a favour' to your landlord when your ongoing actions seem to be inviting rodents to the buiding.