Worried about our young people's utter lack of initiative

[ThisDandyWriter]

I work for an English letting agent and every year I'm utterly shocked at our young people (ie students) utter lack of initiative/entitlement and lack of self resilience. A few examples of the sort of things that we encounter
My smoke alarm is bleeping, why is that?
The light in our bedroom has gone out, can you send someone out to change the bulb
What does a fuse board look like?
My washing machine is smelly, I think it needs replaced
This house has got a massive damp problem as water (ie condensation) is running down the windows in the mornings

We had to stop offering an 'emergency' line (which is not compulsory) because our staff were getting calls at 2am about seeing mice, light bulbs blowing, smoke alarms beeping, boiler not working (in Aug and has an electric shower).

Today a tenant has emailed to say that she's locked herself out and we need to open the office to get her a spare key.

When I was at Uni, Google wasn't a thing, so if there was an issue, I'd call my dad and try and sort it - I very rarely contacted the agency or landlord.

Today, we have all the information at a drop of a hat, but they can't be arsed to Google or try and sort something themselves and the first stop is to email (or get their mum or dad to email - don't get me started on that). The lack of initiative is genuinely worrying.

So please, if you have kids at uni - spend a bit of time with them explaining the basics!!!!

And encourage them to actually read the information they are sent - the amount of questions we are asked which is covered by information sent out (about important things like handing in your keys, how to claim back your deposit) is ridiculous!

Unless it's leaking gas or spurting water then it can wait. Simply a lack of hot water isn't a sudden emergency

I am always baffled by their non use of google given the amount of time spent on line (2 teens and a tween)

A lack of hot water alone isn't an emergency, lack of both heating and hot water can be.

Absolutely not….to be fair on him he has a father who changes every clock at midnight,

but also this is the child who took a fake houseplant i gave him to uni and watered it religiously for 6 weeks 😳

so all bets are off with that one

Water on the inside of the windows in the morning isn’t normal.

When I was a child, you could have frost or ice on the inside of windows in the morning.

A lack of hot water alone isn't an emergency, lack of both heating and hot water can be.

It's not a 2am emergency.

Not overnight it isn't.

Hmmm yes but it’s not limited to young British persons. I’ve had an East Asian woman asking me to make a 6 hour round trip to sort out a situation where “ the lights broken””. ( the bulb had blown) and because a sink was blocked (by her hair extensions). Or the cooker was broken (no, fat from her cooking had obstructed the grooves in the cooker rings). African tenants have asked me to chop a crab apple tree down because it drops fruit. A friends South American tenants were also notoriously high maintenance ( panicked phone calls when hearing nice under floorboards ). This is just a selection.

Yep!

We once locked ourselves out, kicked the door in and went to b&q the following day, replaced the lock, filled and painted the.minimally damaged bit of wall and gave a set of keys to the landlord explaining what happened. No issues. Got full deposit back.

We used to have a letting agency and the calls you get can be ridiculous. One tenant had a huge sofa that they couldn't get into the flat and demanded we sent someone round to take the front window out, wait around til they'd got it in and then but the window back in. For free.
The most obnoxious one was a woman who was staying in a property we managed while the tenant was away. She had stepped out of the flat at 2am on Sunday morning and the door slammed shut behind her. She called us and demanded we get out of bed and drive the 40 miles to the office to get keys, then another 10 miles to the property to let her in. We didn't.

I moved out at 16 and had no idea how to do a thing. I had to teach myself (didn’t have parents to lean on hence leaving home so young) and I did have Google but I honestly don’t remember using it even half as much as I do nowadays. Changing a lightbulb was a mission at first and I still only know how to do screw ones. I can’t change a fuse, have no desire to learn either. I would freak the fuck out if I saw a mouse, I’ve never lived in a home with mice. Condensation is a bit of a no brainer- open the windows, I’d have known that at 16 naturally.

I think smoke alarms are on the landlord by law, I’m certain you have to ensure the property has working smoke and carbon monoxide alarms so if it’s beeping you should check it out.

This.

OP, please tell us the name of your agency so we are all aware😂

Condensation on the windows is usually due to tenants drying stuff on radiators and not opening windows. I’ve got the T shirt on that one.

I don't disagree but that isn't an age thing, it's a wanting a drama thing.

Some people like a drama. Some people like attention.

A few are useless. There's probably a subset of people who are all three of those things.

But there's no need to make it about age. These threads just feel like some people want to pretend their kids would never say or do anything silly because they were such amazing parents.

My daughter had no problem sorting problems in her accommodation - she compiled a 4 page document listing all the damage & issues on moving in & sent it to the agents & ensured the cleaners were sent back twice to actually clean it. There was some poor performance but it wasn't the youngsters, it was the agents who were clueless about the state of the house & couldn't give a monkeys. Perhaps agents should do better before berating students for expecting houses to be in an acceptable working condition.

I bloody love this!!!

That girl will go far - my sons the same!

If the students have left food around, they may well get mice.

I haven't read the full thread but my teens could change a light bulb, change a battery and know where the fuse board is. They also know what causes condensation. Its definitely a parent thing.

However, I also dont think its just young people. My DH does some work for a few LLs and some of the requests are mind blowing and pretty lazy. Think washing windows on the outside, painting a cupboard or changing a curtain pole. Things surely anyone would do for themselves in their home. Non of those are safety or emergency issues.

Funny that when our DS lived in University halls and dried his clothes in his room, there was no condensation, because it was properly maintained, heated and ventilated in the first place. I don't think he ever opened his window as it was a tiny/slit thing that only opened around 4 inches anyway, so pretty useless. What it DID have was proper ventilation/fan in the bathroom, proper insulation, proper heating, etc.

To reply to another poster, re mice and leaving food out, again, proper maintenance solves that. We leave food out in our house and have lived there 29 years without a single mouse, despite having mice (and rats!) in the garden. That's because the skirting boards/walls/floors etc don't have holes/gaps - it's all sealed properly, so unless the mice/rats have power tools, they're not getting in!

Painting a cupboard and changing a curtain pole ARE landlord responsibilities unless it's for choice rather than because they're damaged/old or other general maintenance reasons. Why would a tenant "repair" someone else's property?

Yes, this thread illustrates how some landlords think they should get money for doing very little.

I have been more concerned with how useless some landlord agencies are. If students have only just moved into their accommodation why should they have to deal with smelling washing machines, problems with damp or beeping smoke alarms?

I can't paint a cupboard or change a curtain pole. As a homeowner I would pay someone to do it. If renting, I expect the landlord to pay someone.

I didn't say it's automatically an emergency in every situation. I said that a complete loss of heating and hot water can be classed as an emergency, depending on the circumstances and the landlord's emergency-repair policy. So saying categorically that it “isn't an emergency overnight” isn't necessarily correct.

I dunno, hopeless young adults are always with us. There was a thread recently about things people learnt far too late... Lots of anecdotes from people who tried to cook tinned food without taking it out of the tin first and the like. My favourite was the one who'd called the water company to complain hot water wasn't coming out of the taps and a very nice person gently explained that this would be a boiler issue... Lots of the anecdotes were from the 70s or 80s.

That said, thanks for giving me a renewed gratitude that my 25 years of renting are behind me. The look / tone of blank astonishment you get from a letting agent when it's suggested that they might do a stroke of work is not found in any other profession, ime.