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

except the OP has also said that on her guarantor contract there are five names of tenants; the four girls who are friends and the original girl who never moved in

and that the name of this problematic flatmate is NOT on the agreement

which makes a big difference legally if that is also the case for any tenancy agreements

what OP does not seem to know is; whose names are on the tenancy agreement?

does her DD have a copy of her agreement?

I'm not sure that's the case if the police have never been involved.

Coloured? Haven’t heard that in yonks. Wtf. Get with the times. Do better.

Anyways OP. As others have said tell your daughter to call the police. This girl sounds weird AF. Also report to uni as will be against the British values thing that they follow. They might even refer the girl to prevent as her behaviour is very unusual. I’m mixed race and I’ve not heard of anything like this before. It’s very scary and needs looking into.

I’ll probably get flamed for this but if I was in your position I’d go live there for a week and start dominating the space. But I’m petty and grew up in an environment where you needed to stand your ground (council estates with lots of anti-social behaviour). Also I know you said you don’t think the dad will care but if I could contact him I’d 100% be on the phone to him. Is the dad West African by chance? My dad is from Ghana and he would be LIVID if he’d have got a call from someone about my behaviour. Obvs I can’t talk for all Africans but generally education etc is taken super seriously and it’s likely he would be mortified if he found out what his daughters been up to.

It’s quite straightforward.

Gather all evidence of threats and intimidating behaviour and contact:

1. Student services including accommodation office
2. Police

This behaviour could indicate mental health crisis, and the uni has safeguarding obligations both to the girl as a potentially ‘vulnerable’ student, and to your DD and friends who may be at risk from her behaviour.

@Timble
You sound like a well meaning parent simply worried about your child.

I'm sure your daughter is intelligent and doing incredibly well on her course - but she is still a young person and will benefit from your wisdom and guidance regarding this.

Once you have been to the house and met this girl, you can assess what needs to happen and execute - whatever that may be. If you do need to approach relevant authorities, your case will be stronger with the observations being first hand as opposed to hearsay.

But I fear that unless you are doing an almighty drip feed with an earth shattering reveal to come where this girl is actively involved in criminality, with only 90 days to go, the best course of action may well be for cooler heads to prevail and to appeal to her better nature.

She's got MH issues, is a bully and sounds racist. If this was a male living with them you would absolutely call the police as he would be a potential physical threat to the women. Why wouldn't you do the same for a woman? Call 101 and log, log, log.

Whether it's a joint tenancy or not realistically there will be no eviction before June because the legal process is too slow. However the flatmates should still contact the LL in writing asap with a detailed record of what's happening. Dates, details, screenshots. Signed by them all with cc to the agents. So if they end up leaving before June they have protected their position. Photograph everything before they go in case the girl causes damage after they have left.

They should as a group contact in writing official student care at the uni. Not a helpline /drop in centre operated by student volunteers but an office staffed by trained uni employees. They have a duty of care both to this student and to the flatmates as students of the uni. She sounds a danger to herself and others, not only those she lives with but potential patients if she is doing a healthcare course. The uni should take action. It sounds like there are already issues about paying fees and /or attendance so it is likely she is already on their radar. This may be the catalyst for them to do something.

There is only 3 months left on the tenancy. My priority would be my daughter's safety and her ability to finish her course and get the degree she deserves. If the parents of the flatmates can afford it, and OP has indicated that they can, the group should look into finding other accommodation, parents paying double rent if necessary.

Everything the group do should be in writing so there is a paper trail and nobody at any point can say 'we didn't know/you didn't tell us'. If they have a verbal conversation either in person or on the phone with the uni student welfare office/LL/agents/police they should send an email afterwards setting out what was said for the record.

I don’t know if it is unique to the university environment, but I have worked with students and it has been an eye opener. Time and again I found that many of them would twist narratives in their favour. They weren’t even lying: They genuinely believed that their view of a situation was correct. This has led to me needing to gather all the evidence for myself and seeking truth from that. While I support them, I had to take into account all sides of the story.

op, I hope this all works out. I would urge you to be very careful with this girl as she sounds vulnerable and isolated in this situation. You could find that you and your daughter end up as the bullies. If you visit I would frame it as a visit to your daughter and be sincere in that. Do not see this as a visit to check out the girl. Try to keep an open mind - very difficult as she has been demonised, but try to think of her as being just like any other student, albeit one who is struggling - as many do. In other words do not go with the expectation of finding a snarling, violent monster otherwise that is what you will get.

Your posts are very aggressive.. You are being extremely rude to OP and then trying to blame her for not taking your shit. How you can possibly defend texts saying "watch your back" is outrageous.

If there are conflicting narratives, the uni, not the OP, is in a better position to decide where the truth lies. The uni will have a much fuller picture of this girl, her behaviour and circumstances. What the OP thinks of her on a single brief visit when she could appear distressed/ vulnerable/victimised or aggressive/frightening is neither here nor there. Her DD and flatmates have been living with her for months.

My so. Had this in a 6 bed house during Covid- people were moving out willy nilly in London and the landlord had some kind of a head tenancy situation ( or they were renting it themselves- officially) the landlord then put in two schizophrenics to fill the rooms- my son had them banging on his door, shouting around the house and being generally threatening- eventually him and his sensible mate in the share moved out and got somewhere on their own

Should say my son

This site looks like it has some useful information.

www.housingrights.org.uk/landlords/problems-tenants/dealing-antisocial-behaviour

My DD was in a similar ish situation in a flatshare. They were all young grads in their first jobs so no university involved but there was one very difficult flatmate. Noise, drugs, random men staying over., financial flakiness. This person had been there the longest after many had moved in and out over a period of time. It soon became clear why.
The LL and building manager were fed up with the complaints and constant churn in tenants. The sensible flatmates wanted to stay but not with her. They discussed this with the LL. When the tenancy approached renewal the LL told her they were renovating (which was very plausible) and she was not offered renewal. The other flatmates kept quiet. She moved out and they stayed and renewed with a new flatmate.

Weighing in with a different perspective …
I rented a flat when younger & single. A man in same building, not in my flat started to stalk and target me. Banging into me in shop or on footpath, writing letters & sending signed for saying I was too noisy and also dumping rubbish outside my door. Also threw hot coffee over me from behind in street. “Proving” legally what he did was a problem for police plus I didn’t even know him so not domestic violence even tho we lived at “same address but not same flat”. I was not noisy.

The letters & seeing him throw drink & body slamming me was not enough for police. A lawyer friend helped and we found out he had done this to 2 other female residents one of whom still lived there.

Friend contacted landlord on phone, then in writing saying that as landlord was aware of tenant previous issues and should have disclosed this to me before I rented. That they knowingly put me at risk.

Landlord moved me to different building with much cheaper rent and moved a large man into my old flat.

If you find out that she was moved from another flat for being antisocial and threatening / then landlord can have some responsibility for not disclosing??

It's 4 against 1 though, they need to start asserting themselves.

A poster with primary age kids has started a thread slagging off parents who act as guarantors for their young adults at uni. Saying she would never be naive enough to do that 🙄
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5291158-horrified-at-how-many-parents-guarantee-rental-agreements-without-reading

Well we did act as guarantor. Four in a lovely flat. We knew the other parents. I'd be wary of houses of multiple occupancy though

Apparently she’s horrified. Me too but guess what, if we didn’t sign as guarantors she’d have nowhere to live and a 2hr + commute every day was a bit much.

@Timble
I am sure a HUGE dose of smugness is just what you need right now as well 🙄
Everyone is wise after the event and/or if they have never been in that situation

Oh to have young children and no idea of what’s to come 😂😂😂😂

They are not schizophrenics, just as people with autism as not autistics. They are people with schizophrenia. People with serious mental health issues have a shit enough time without being talked about as if they are not even human.

Honestly I’m just not the type of person who could ever try to bring someone down, I’ll never understand these types of people! And the posters who say maybe my dd and the others are racist while all the comments regarding race are coming from this girl!! It’s definitely always easy when you’re not the one going through it!!

They would have no reason to twist anything. They just want to crack on with work and their dissertations. They don’t go out much generally. Home bodies I’d say. If they just weren’t keen on the girl they’d just keep a distance. They are the ones missing out. This girl wakes the house up in the night for no reason. She’s not going to uni but will bang doors, make phone call’s make noises and cook food at 3/4am. When they asked her to keep the noise down as they have placement or they are studying so trying to sleep she goes mental about it. My dd sent her a text that said ‘hi X, would you mind being a little quieter please’ to which she replied ‘I can’t be quiet, don’t you dare ask me again, I’m warning you’ that’s just not normal. I have seen so many screenshots, they are the only ones suffering so yes there’s two sides to a story but I can’t even imagine what her side would be!!

ive been so stressed at work all morning but I have made some calls this afternoon. The girls are making an appointment with the housing advice centre to run through their contract, apparently they may be able to help them find somewhere else if they are in danger (but this was from a university support worker so not sure that’s correct). They are filing a report with the university with all of the information and they will help them navigate (it’s a specialist office that deals with all student issues. I’ve asked my dd if we can set up a group WhatsApp with all the other parents to discuss next steps/support. I’m now figuring out what to say to lettings agent as they obv won’t tell me anything (GDPR) but I may be able to ask questions hypothetically!

the weird part is they have a contract with the new girl on it that has their signatures on but none of the girls remember signing it. They are looking through emails where they were asked to sign something as they think the letting agent just took their previous signatures and added the new girls. Of course they may have signed and just forgotten but no guarantors have signed!