to be furious at this letter from letting agent -

[ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight]

3 month check on our flat, we have only been here 3 months. They have written to us saying that we are not paying 'enough care and attention to cleanliness'! WTF! Then they say it is not for us to dictate how people live their lives but it can be hard to clean the flat to a good standard at the end of the tenancy if it is not kept clean enough throughout. Then helpfully give us the name of a cleaning company.

Ok, we have a one year old, the place is a mess a lot of the time. They were supposed to call back to confirm visit which they didn't do so I forgot they were coming, otherwise I would have tidied. But What? It really is not dirty. Ok the wall near the kitchen bin needs a wipe and it might have needed hoovering but the general state is absolutely fine. I am furious as it is my right to live in a messy house as long as it isn't trashed, and we need the landlady to agree to a rolling contract/to renew which she might not do if she thinks we are slovenly pigs. They are coming back again in 2 weeks so I will obviously make sure it's clean and tidy but what kind of state would you expect a place to be in to get a letter like that?

Letting agents really do not work for tenants at all, do they

We rent a MQ (houses for service people), and again, magnolia throughout. However, in fairness, it is good quality gloss paint, so it can be washed/babywiped if it gets marked. Green carpets here though!

I was so happy when I moved into this (also rented) house, as it is actually decorated like a real person would like, instead of the hideous mismatched woodchip/textured wallpaper segaments at random on a magnolia wall and cheap horrible carpets chosen for hardwearing qualities, but still with holes in as they have been down for 20 years or more. And doors that don't have those irritating slamming devices! I actually feel like I live in a home, instead of some kind of institution.

Unfurnished as well, so even though i can only afford cheap furniture at the moment, I can gradually replace it with better stuff as relatives and friends are getting rid of their old furniture. I have a hatred of cheap dining chairs after a house where the chairs would fall over if you stood up, and in fact two of them simply collapsed under the (big, but not remarkably so) weight of one of my housemates!

Ours was hideous when we moved in. The carpets were caked in filth, long pile some of them and falling-off 'old charm' wall lights that didn't work. Curtains were totally disintegrated. There was a fake-bamboo framed print of a japanese lady on the wall, in grey/pink 80s stylee.

Most of the furniture was broken so it went.

luckily I had my own as my previous rentals were also unfurnished...we stripped the floors back, got some rugs, and bought new curtains which cost a bomb even second hand as the windows are 10 feet tall. But it is lovely now

I always go for a place that is wrecked as the agents are so grateful when you turn it into a home again, it's usually cheap as chips and instead of spending an extra 200 a month on rent, you can spend it on furniture or decor that you like instead...well, if you have got an extra 200 quid that is! Most places around here are about 800, ours was 575 when we got it.

Flight, what sort of security do you have as far as the amount of rent is concerned? Is it reviewed from time to time? Could you end up paying much more once you've made it lovely? (or does your contract say something about £x less than market rates?)

If I put that much time & effort & money into making someone else's house nice I'd be gutted if it ended costing me more!

Hi, scaryteacher, I quite understand about, and accept, the reasons for magnolia paint, but it is a bit boring (yes, it's meant to be! - sigh-), and ditto for "neutral" coloured carpets. It's just that light coloured carpets are not practical to live with (dirty pram-wheels, anyone?). It would have been much more practical to have even some cheapie laminate for the front hallway at least.... Ah, well.

There was another thread recently about a tenant's being asked to show prospective buyers round; there were a few suggestions of sabotage (to put the buyers off), but those suggestions attracted the quite proper rebuttal that peopledon'twanttoliveinapit_; it spites them more than the landlord. kat2907, I'm sure you are in the good-maintenance camp . Who wouldn't be, with children?!

Well Ponders no, there'a nothing afaik - but we do have a super relationship with the landlord, and he is just happy for people to live here who will fill it with stuff and make it feel nice and lived in.

I don't think they would do that to us really, although of course they might...you never know do you.

The fence and garden stuff I would have to leave behind, as well as the slate floor but everything else like curtains etc etc I would certainly take with me when we left. I enjoy doing the work anyway, it's a gorgeous old flat and seeing it come to life is brilliant.

Wherever we live it is going to be insecure, but we do have nice agents here and the LL just wants someone permanent I think - he doesn't seem to care about the money too much.

As an ex letting agent, could I just point out that we were acting as messenger for the Landlord a lot of the time. IE, a LL might agree to a prospective tenant, we would take a deposit, having done many viewings, and hours of hand holding, and then the Landlord would let to a friend leaving us to break the news to the poor tenant, AND we would not get paid. We would also have to pass on petty complaints from the LL so they could still be friendly with the tenant.
Please remember we work for the LL,we are intermediaries.
HOWEVER, of course some agents are shits, (F***S) spring to mind, and am sure yours are trying to get a kickback from the cleaning co. I only ever mentioned cleaning during a tenancy once, when a catlitter tray was so full(boaks) that it was leaking all over a carpet. I was trying to point out that if a carpet had cats piss marks on it, it would come out of their deposit!
As mentioned, good tenants are valuable, I am sure you will not lose your tenancy.

In our last house we had 3 monthly inspections and the agent told us he was basically just their to make sure that we weren't trashing the place and I shouldnt bother cleaning manically just because he was visiting. According to him the house was immaculate anyway.

When we were due to move he left and another agent took over who did the whole clipboard thing.

Think it just depends on the agent.

In my current house, it says in our contract that they will do inspections but we have been here for 2 years and nobody has come. Although the landlord advertised through an agent they manage themselves and apprently have seen us painting and me tidying the garden and other household stuff (they live very nearby) so are happy to assume we are keeping the place up to a reasonable standard (it was pretty grotty when we moved in btw).

Flightattendant - very good points. We did exactly the same with our current rental.

We negotiated a £250 a month rent reduction and agreed with the LL to put it into decor, carpets etc but made sure we have a guaranteed 2 year rental term to make sure we do not get kicked out before we enjoy the benefit.

He came round the other day and he is very pleased. We get what we want and he gets a nicer house to show at the end.

I have great tenants, apart from the fact they don't heat the house enough. I got a call from my letting agent saying there had been an accident with a burning coal and the carpet, and I wanted to know how much, so I could claim off my insurance. My tenants bless them, had replaced the carpet and repainted the room, and wouldn't hear of being reimbursed, even though I offered when I went to see the house in August.

NB: I don't go to the house to be horrid - I take them chocs from Belgium where I live, and to see what they want doing on the house for the next year. I'm going back to UK for a weekend in Novemebr so will be taking them chocs then as well.

We've got our inspection next week which I hate. The place is clean but always feels cluttered to me as there is little cupboard space and we aren't allowed to use the loft. What gets me is we've been here 5 years now, they've been round every 3 months and never found a reason to complain, so why can't they just leave us alone? We have in fact spent considerable money and effort on improvements such as replacing the mud/weed patch with turf, putting new lock on garage door etc etc, but we never get a word of thanks for that! It's not as though there is anything to trash, there were no curtains at all when we moved in and I think the cream carpets are in pretty good nick for 5 years constant use, especially by a semi-continent autistic child. In fact, last time the agent came round he asked if we had a new carpet! No actually, I'd spent 3 hrs and a fortune on shampoo to clean it after the ceiling had to be replaced due to a leaking pipe under the bathroom floor.
I know there is nothing wrong with the house but I hate the feeling of being judged. OP, I feel your pain! YANBU.

YANBU - eejits!

If a home-owner is so flippin' worried about "their precious home" I wonder why they're not living in it!

letting agents are real arses. I've never rented direct from a landlord so can't comment on them.
Our previous place, the agents kept letting themselves into the flat to collect the landlady's mail. They wanted to have surveyors come round while we weren't there. It turned out they were pretending to be a 'friend' of the landlady's. They harrassed us constantly, never did any maintenance, so the place was falling apart around us. Shortly before we moved out, one of them let himself in and used the toilet before starting to shuffle through our paper. i was 6 months pg and naked in bed when he let himself in. THen I had to stay at home to make sure they couldn't come in, e was threatening me. He came round while DP was home and tried to barge into the flat. At this point DP 'forcibly removed' him. He turned up that evening with the police to get DP arrested. Thankfully the police realised he was an arse, and said DP had acted within his rights.
OP YANBU - agents have no respect for the fact that this is YOUR HOME! you have a right to live in peace as long as you aren't trashing the place.

Ok, have to point out that our current letting agents have given us no such problem. There should be more regulation though to put cowboys like the last lot out of business. We eventually realised they were comitting fraud as well, by pretending that the owner lived in the house, which is why we always got mail for her, then they would turn up once a week to get it

It's hard for people who don't have small children in a flat to understand the difference between 'mess' and mess. We lived in a flat with 4 of us and my landlord moaned constantly about 'mess' then was shocked and commented about how good a job I had done with cleaning up when we moved, I did little other than move our stuff out and wipe down/hoover everything. Try not to worry too much about it, there's a difference between things being cluttered and things being dirty and you're hardly likely to want to let things get dirty with a 1 year old in the house are you?

Skihorse, because the Navy posted us abroad and it's damn difficult for dh to commute daily from Cornwall to Brussels. That's why I don't live in my 'precious home'. Is that OK with you?

I like the letting agent to check every three months so I can budget for if a window needs redoing, or if the tenants want anything. It also means I have a handle on any potential problems. Plus, I have a lot of money invested in the house and want to ensure that it is well maintained both for the tenants and for when the RN posts us back to the UK, and we move back in.

Curiosity, we have been offered places before that were really spanking clean and very neat. I took one look and said no thankyou, because of the sheer stress of trying to keep it nice - I would far rather take a place that was old and nobody cares if you get a mark on the wall or something spills. A lot of agents don't want children in their houses at all.

Scaryteacher you sound like a WONDERFUL landlady

skihorse you have NO idea if that's true, you are making it up as you go along, i bet if you had an empty house you'd let it out

fast buck indeed

did you even read her last post? she sounds like an amazing landlady.. I mean, I'm fair, but she sounds beyond fair.

Skihorse those posts are WELL out of order and I'm reporting them now.

It's not on to level accusations regarding posters' private financial arrangements on a public forum.

It's very, very rude and comes across as a personal attack, basically.