Anyone else’s Landlord do this? AIBU to be irritated?

[Specksofwhiteallaround]

For context we’ve been renting this house from our Landlady for just over ten years now and she’s hands down the most intrusive landlord I’ve ever had. Can be very free with her opinions on how we live and has form for dropping in unannounced as she’s passing by, if she does let us know she’s coming it’s with as little notice as possible.
So fairly or not I find her very irritating generally but what’s really annoying me is the last couple of years she's developed a habit of scheduling in visits to the house every single time my son is off school. My son has autism and attends a special school, he really doesn’t like having strangers in our home which she is aware of. As my husband frequently travels for work at short notice I don’t work so she could come anytime during term time but she repeatedly turns up during the holidays, usually with one days notice and disrupts our plans. I just don’t understand why she herself wouldn’t rather come when my sons at school, everything is tidied away etc.
The last straw is her texting me at 6:30am on bank holiday Monday to say she wanted to call in at some point that afternoon to drop in some paperwork to us. She wasn’t too happy at being told we weren’t available that short notice but agreed to reschedule so now she’s coming today at some point between late morning and early afternoon so we’re wasting a day just hanging around waiting for her and I spent the hottest day of the year deep cleaning downstairs to circumvent comments on my not having hoovered over the bank holiday weekend and how my son really doesn’t need that many toys out…
Is anyone else’s landlord like this? Am I unreasonable to find this annoying and wish she’d try to schedule this in outside of the holidays?

Until recently I was a landlord, had four different sets of tenants - never met them once, never went to the property once while it
was rented out, never had any contact details for the tenants. The agent did an inspection twice a year and arranged any repairs. I had no direct interaction with the tenants at any point. This LL is harassing you and it will be a breach of your contract.

I mean she messaged me on bank holiday Monday hoping to drop it around that day and actually delivered it Tuesday, if I had happened to have been on holiday this week she would have been leaving it very tight? Not sure I’d have relied on my tenants been available that close to the deadline, so to me she left it late.

He’s a bit sad at the prospect of leaving as place as this is the only home he can remember living in. But he’s excited for the new house having an open fire being a big fan of toasted marshmallows 🙂
I am a bit relieved to only be disrupting him the once though.

She could have posted first class and relied on deemed service in which case it wouldn't have mattered if you weren't there but as I said, it's good practice to have proof the tenant has received it and understands it. It's not essential, just better to ensure the new terms and conditions are understood.

Tbh we found it quite hard initially to push back with an overbearing landlady - and we didn't have things like school cachments to worry about. She literally turned up on our doorstep the first day we moved in and I was so taken aback that before I knew it, she was in the house, tutting "oh dear" at the unpacked boxes that had just been carried in two hours before. She then shrieked "what have you done to my carpet!", it was Dyson Zorb stuff because we thought it smelled a bit doggy.

She'd stored a bunch of stuff in the locked loft/garden room and kept asking for access to collect things, and she didn't redirect her mail. She sent her partner to get things out of the garden room while we were supposed to be away, I was actually home and looked up to find a strange man in the garden at night and actually screamed.
She did go through an agency but just steamed ahead herself as and when she felt like it. When there was a cold snap she emailed them in a panic thinking we'd let the pipes freeze, she kept getting them to email us about the sodding hedges that she was obsessed with - it was summer, they were growing, I'd already booked for them to be cut in autumn.
Oh and her dog went to doggy daycare around the corner and we walked past as she was collecting him, and she introduced us to the daycare owner as "the people living in my house".

All the neighbours hated her and her overbearing ways. It had previously been her home before moving in with the boyfriend (and booting the old one out), and she just had not detached from that at all.

Sorry, that was long, and I've not even covered all of her bullshit. And that was all in one year!

Ffs I wish landlords didn't act like that it's so unprofessional- as is a doggy smelling carpet 🙄

The taps thing made me laugh, ours will without fail send a text or email to remind us about the outside tap even though we bought a foam thingy that sits over it and it’s been there many years. When we first moved in it was fine, we saw her and her husband at inspections and that was it, then it just sort of crept up. Around the time she stopped doing inspections is when she started attending the house with every tradesman, I genuinely can’t tell if she’s keeping an eye on them or us. I guess we were too accommodating and now she expects it.

It being normal for him is irrelevant. It's not actually normal. The point is, it's a sign of distress. Why should he have to be distressed in his own home when there's an option for the LL to come when he's at school? It's unreasonable of her to insist on coming during school holidays, there's no need for it.

The mistake you're making is thinking you have to accommodate her at all. You don't. If a particular date doesn't work for you, then it doesn't work for you, end of. Her reasons why it "has" to be that date are irrelevant. You can just be a broken record repeating over and over "it's not convenient, next week sometime is fine". Her "reasons" are manipulation, you don't have to succumb.

Sign that she received the paperwork in accordance with legal requirements laid out by government. With a massive fine if the ll hasnt complied, it is very sensible for them to obtain a signature, because believe it or not tenants can forget or lie about receiving documents.

You do know landlords have requirements made of them?

Regular inspections ensure the 2018 regs are met.

Checking tradesmens work is something I always do before payment and it's a good thing, I've picked up a few instances whereby the tenant would have been considerably more inconvenienced if I hadn't checked. Two examples come to mind. The time the plumber dropped the shower screen in the bath and made a hole in it. And after a major leak from upstairs the painter had to be called back to finish the job as he'd missed things. Oh and there's the occasion the plumber (a different one) was fitting a tap and somehow managed to soak the kitchen.

I don't always tell the tenant there's been a problem, some just worry.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-renters-rights-act-information-sheet-2026

I only mentioned him hiding in response to a poster saying I should let her know her visits cause stress, I was just saying that it must be obvious to her he doesn’t like it and I have over the years told her many times he doesn’t cope well with changes which includes unfamiliar people in the house.
I feel I need to point out he’s not hiding in terror or anything, his reaction to things he doesn’t want to see is to hide his face. He happened to be at his desk doing some Lego that day so he ducked his head behind it, he wasn’t cowering underneath it or anything. He does the same thing every time he sees the Argos advert as he hates the creepy doll…
It’s not the end of the world that he sometimes has to see her, I just find it irritating that she could easily try come in school hours as I don’t work and she doesn’t have set hours either but doesn’t. As I’ve said it’s gotten worse since the end of last year with the work being done in the house and the fact she seems unable to let tradesman do their thing without her being here.

landlords must give tenants at least 24 hours' written notice and get explicit consent before entering a property. Tenants have the legal right to "quiet enjoyment". This includes 'inconvenient' calls and messages.

Post it. Ask tenants to sign and return confirmation that received.

You and your husband must let a lot go in life to avoid having to deal with any kind of conflict. Even though asking someone very reasonably not to be rude to you is really not “conflict” as such.

Jeez people on here lack nuance. There’s a difference between someone being outright rude to you and some sporadically making passive aggressive comments. As I’ve said before I do reply to her. When she comments on my spare duvet living in the box room I point out that with no loft and no built in storage it’s hardly going to live anywhere else, I’m not sure what else there is to say to that.
I just don’t see the value in escalating a war of words with someone who could ant any time ask you to leave their property and cause you no end of disruption and cost you a lot of money.

Your definition of outright rude seems to be set at a fairly extreme level. Laughing at you? Calling a hoarder? Always making comments on our age even though we were thirty one and thirty two when we first moved in nd have been living together and renting since I was twenty one.

Always making comments about my appearance in weird ways

I have social anxiety and when it came up in conversation it was like she didn’t believe it, kept saying No, beautiful blonde specksofwhite can’t possibly have social anxiety!',

“Blowing up” “war of words”

it needn’t have been this at all.

anyway you’re moving out now. So hopefully your home will finally be properly your home. Enjoy

And if she hasn’t put your deposit in a recognised scheme then she is in for a shitstorm of legal nasties and you OP are in for a little bonus! Please pursue this, your landlady is clearly not in touch with legislation and the chances are she has messed up on the deposit scheme which means she is liable for a penalty, which you get.

How exciting. A house you can finally call a home, somewhere you can plant flowers and see them bloom, somewhere you can have as many pets as your heart desires, somewhere you can paint all the colours of the rainbow and somewhere you can put pictures up without fear!!!

it will be fantastic for you and your family. I think some of the people on this thread telling you to tell the landlord no, don’t know the reality of how beholden you are to your landlord. That anxiety is hard to live with, I’ve had near breakdowns (not an exaggeration) over some of ours.

If the rent increase was after 1 May she needs to serve you a Sectipn 13 notice with two months notice. The Renters Rights Information Sheet can be paper or a PDF (emailed). There is no requirement for you to sign for receipt .

Again without the full context I don’t see how you can decide what is rude or not. Yes she comments on our age but it’s in the context of referring to us a young couple which is fairly patronising when we were early thirties with a toddler but it’s not insulting is it? I always say we’re not that young, what more should I be saying in your opinion?
I think most people would be irritated by it but ultimately roll their eyes and ignore the comments?

But they don't 🙄

Wow ok. Commenting on your appearance in weird ways and talking to you both like young teens is rude IMO. But if you don’t think rude 🤷‍♀️ all good