DD’s nightmare flatmate.

[Timble]

Hi all,
do you know if landlords or agents have a responsibility to protect tenants?
do tenants have any rights at all?

my DD is in her third year. Living with three lovely girls and one who they are all terrified of.
she has locked them all out, refusing to let them in (I wasn’t told until the next day and told DD she should have rang the police at the time). She’s rude, threatening. Makes a lot of noise in the middle of the night. She keeps calling the girls racist (there has been no racist comments towards this girl aside from this girl constantly calling them ‘stupid white girls’ or similar. She messages the girls regularly to tell them to stay out of her way or they’ll regret it. To shut up and be quiet or she’ll make them. (No loud noises, they’re all in their third year and studying hard/on placements). All the other girls now want to move out as they can’t face living with her anymore. I just can’t believe we have to pay and even though they’ve reported this girl to the estate agents and they’ve had meetings nothing has changed. They believe this girl has been kicked out of uni and hasn’t paid rent but they don’t have proof.

my DD is 20 and she manages most issues herself/with the other flatmates but currently she’s had enough and needs help.
I guess it’s not really an AIBU but can we refuse to pay last terms rent or we pay and chalk this up to a horrendous experience? No idea where dd will live if she moves out!!

thank you xx

5K a month? 25K per month for the house? Everyone involved needs to rethink this. That's insane. What notice do they have to give? I'd be finding them a new house at 1K per head pcm.

Contact the Uni, try for an office where an adult answers the phone. Pastoral care, the school chaplain? You definitely don’t want to spill this drama to a student who answers the phone.
You want to say you have a safeguarding concern and are looking for support. Ask who will call you back? It needs to be Dept head or chaplain.
Explain in a few concise bullets that a student is threatening, making racist conversation, etc. to your child & others and you need to disclose this. You have safety concerns.

You must report it - “hear something - say something. “

You are handing the issue of her behavior to the Uni.
Not sure that it will resolve rent issues.

Timble you're tying yourself up in knots. This is one of several good suggestions here all of which you're hesitant about acting on. Choose one, any, all. Personally I think you need to go to the LL and the agent and insist they solve. You all gathering to talk to her may well be intimidating but she will have no grounds for complaint, or no more than your girls already have rgds her behaviour. Meantime your girl and her friends need to start diarising (maybe also recording?) events, verbatim and without emotion, for backup.

I’d get my daughter out of that situation as soon as possible. I’d get a lawyer. She sounds unhinged.

I agree, and each of the flat mates needs to document this.

If the uni responds that the flat mate is no longer a student (thus washing their hands off), then this is leverage with the estate agent who only lets to students.

I’d get my daughter out of there. I’d talk to lawyer. She’s sounds scary and I wouldn’t sleep well knowing that person was in my daughters space. You might have to lose a deposit but I think it might be worth it in the long run. This girl ruin your daughter’s mental health. I’m old and I wouldn’t want to live with that.

Contact the Uni, try for an office where an adult answers the phone. Pastoral care, the school chaplain? You definitely don’t want to spill this drama to a student who answers the phone.
How fucking condescending, students are adults!

so fucking sorry to have not been clear, please everyone at MN, especially OP, please accept this correction

talk to a Uni employee with the proper safeguarding training like the chaplain, or the Uni employee who has responsibility for pastoral care
and not a person who does not have safeguarding trading.

Your dd overheard her talking to her dad about how she was treating the other three girls and he didn’t care? Because he is unhinged/aggressive/rude as well? Right.

Maybe he did not care because his DD is relaying a story about how badly the OPs DD and friends are treating her?

Get her to speak to student services ASAP.

They are often very good.

People on here are giving advice from a non-specialist point of view.

A student set up with agents imposing nightmare students is not your standard set up and likely something no one here has experience of. But student services may well have dealt with this situation before. They may even know the agent as they may be known for doing this kind of thing locally.

It is incredibly frustrating when the kids have partially flown the nest and encounter difficulties - the instinct is to be protective, wrap your arms around them, and fix things for them.

However, @Nmeshed has a point. Looking at this from the perspective of all parties concerned, your daughter and her friends were initially aggrieved as their friend had scuppered their living arrangements, which may have coloured their interactions with the new girl. Similarly, this new girl may well have led a sheltered life and may not have had much immersion into wider British culture and perhaps sees new experiences as challenges as opposed to opportunities, and perhaps - yes - it's all getting a little much for her and her mental health is suffering.

She may well not have liked the suggestion of an interrogation council by your daughter and friends pre-moving in. Just as your daughter was let down at the last minute for living arrangements, so may she have been - hence why she was looking for accommodation at the last minute. That in itself is not a reason to judge her. And the fact that she may be of a lower socio-economic class than your daughter and have financing issues leading to university fees not being paid is most certainly not a reason to criticise her - I would hope.

You've mentioned that the day she locked your daughter out for 60 minutes, your daughter and housemates were accompanied by several others - amongst them large physically imposing males - in a group totalling 7 people. 7 vs 1? "Strapping" males vs one female? That sounds more like a lone woman sheltering in place, or indeed someone showing defiance in the face of conflict. The fact that she has told her father about the issues in the house, and that he is checking in on how she is coping in weekly phone calls also suggests that her perception may be that she is being intimidated by your daughter and friends - yes, it may be passive aggressive due to your daughter and friends being of a higher social class, but this girl appears to be able to read between the lines.

Without being there, you can't judge whether all is as your daughter presents it - and what has been presented sounds irksome but doesn't sound to rise to the level of criminality, as some PP have stated.

Go down and see how this girl is for yourself. If she truly is a threat to your daughter's safety, take your observations to the relevant authorities. But if it is just a case of people who have been forced together not getting on, help your daughter to build the life skills and resilience to coexist and deal with various people, as not all people in this life will like you or behave in ways that you desire or have a similar background to you. And if your daughter is to have a career in healthcare, this will be a valuable skill to develop.

This is all very unpleasant for all parties. I had some interesting housemates at uni myself, however, I feel stronger having grown through the experience and have drawn on those skills in my career over the years.

I hope that the issues are resolved and that your daughter can finish out the final 3 months of term pleasantly and productively.

@FrauPaige Not terribly convincing. 'Sheltering in place'? These were her four flatmates coming home, as is their absolute right. Bravo for coming through your university experiences a more resilient person. I'm sure the OPs DD will also be learning useful life skills. I also agree that the flatmate may well have a totally different point of view of how events have gone down. Whether this is rational, I have my doubts.

@friskybivalves
If this young woman had phoned the police that evening citing concerns of physical harm from males unknown to her with no contractual right to be in her place of residence, that would have been far more convincing to the police than a report from the housemates that someone had done a poo with the door open, didn't want to drink with them, and looked at them funny.

But who knows? Young person isolated and bullied by clique of girls, or uncouth person on edge of breakdown? I have no opinion either way. Hopefully, OP will discover all when she goes down and meets the young person and finds a resolution.

I really feel for your dd. I don’t agree with fixed term rental agreements for tenants. But that’s the law. Back in the day when I had awful bullying flatmates, I left at the end of the first term. They bullied one girl out then they started on me. I hope your dd finds a resolution, ideally that the tenancy agreement is null and void.

They can sometimes. If they are paranoid and believe others want to harm them, for example. Who knows what’s going on for this young person. But for now, your daughter is a victim, and police and the university must be told asap.

the other thing she does is sit in the lounge in the dark, curtains drawn eating her dinner

This is sounding more and more like a mental illness. The girls need to mention this when they call the police. If the girl gets picked up in a crisis, the more info available to the police and NHS, the better.

I hope your daughter will be able to contact student services today. You must be so worried and angry. Good luck.

I can’t remember if this has been mentioned? But can the uni move them to low cost student halls rooms for the last few weeks? Not ideal of course but it might be the cheapest option. And rooms do come up mid-term.

Or smoking a fuckton of weed which can instigate psychosis, especially in young people, hence my question earlier.

It sounds like the girls are not being supported via the appropriate channels, which must be so stressful for you all.
If you're all willing to pay x% extra maybe float that to the estate agent and if they say no, pay market rate for another house between the girls.
It's very unlikely that anyone will come after you or keep you to a notice period give you can show the harassment.

They haven’t noticed any drug use and she doesn’t really go out so I don’t think it’s that.

I will definitely get them to find out, they’d take anything at this point!

I understand why people need to see both sides, who knows I could be making it all up, but I’ve seen the screenshots, something in the group chat as simple as ‘it’s bin night tonight’ can provoke a strange reaction like ‘don’t you dare tell me what to do, you better watch out’ this is in a group chat, not directed at this girl, they have a Rota (she doesn’t contribute to it)

This all came to a head last night. My dd had been dealing with it herself but got upset last night and told me other things that had been happening. I’m looking for advice so I can act. I want to do it properly. There has been a lot of different posters saying offering different ideas, I can’t do them all, I’m not hesitant I’m just trying to figure out the best course of action that will work for everyone.

I can see you’re trying to make this into some kind of bullying/racist situation but it couldn’t be further from the reality of what is happening. The reason my dd told me about the dad was because I suggested me and dh could meet with her dad to see if we could sort something out. Dd said she doesn’t think he’d listen based on what she’d heard.