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Landlady's husband letting himself in and going through rubbish

1 reply

florabel · 06/03/2019 22:47

Hi, I need some advice or opinions about an ongoing situation in the shared house I live in. We are an all female shared house, I had to move in after being bullied out of my job and been on ESA ever since although about to start job hunting due soon. I moved into current house because I had a tribunal fight on my hands at work and needed lower rent. The problem is that the landlady;'s husband just keeps letting himself into the house whenever he feels like it. Sometimes it is under the pretence of being there to do jobs, sometimes just blatantly sitting around smoking in the kitchen, he has brought his mates in at times, he creeps around the house and has let himself into people's rooms (although I can't prove that), he brought one of his friends to use our bathroom when he thought nobody was home (I heard him tell the man that 'it is quiet so no one will know'), he lets himself in to use our toilet and a couple of days ago, turned up with one of his friend's, took our rubbish bin from the kitchen and went through it (whilst saying to his friend, 'no it isn't here, I will look through the recycled rubbish bag') tipped it out of it's black bin bag and directly into the wheelie bin and just left rotting rubbish which I then had to clear up. I was fuming. I think he is allowing his dodgy mates to use the house address for various things as we have been receiving mail to do with congestion charges and parking fines (can tell from return address on envelopes) and we have just written not at this address and return to sender and reposted them. I haven't told the landlady this but I did complain about the rubbish event and just got a two-word response that said 'Very intimidating!'. I have run the message back by several people who have all said there was nothing intimidating in the message. I did not use bad language or threatening language, I just stated how angry I was that this had happened, that her husband going through our rubbish is unacceptable as is leaving the rubbish tipped out of the bag as it is a health hazard and the bin men might not take it and please could she make sure it did not happen again. They are not above the board landlords, I went through an agency and thought they would be ok because of that but the house is riddled with damp that they keep hiding through paint, we have been left with no hot water for weeks at a time, the radiator in my room has never worked since I moved in, there is no fire alarm system or smoke doors etc. The problem is that I am receiving ESA and HB at the moment so moving would be really difficult. I guess what I am trying to ask is that if they decided to turn nasty for some reason, do you think I have enough grounds to say it is a revenge eviction and that they, the husband especially, have harrassed us and meant that we couldn't have quiet enjoyment of the property? We never know what time of the day or night he is going to let himself in or who will be with him so we could think we are the only person in the house and be leaving the bathroom with only a towel around us etc. Any advice on how to handle this situation would be really welcomed.

OP posts:
Jon65 · 07/03/2019 19:41

You have the right to quiet enjoyment of the property. The landlord or their representatives cannot let themselves in unless they have given 24 hours notice. You could put a safety chain across the door. One that you need a key to open. Do that on the back door too, and when the ll complains say you are concerned that people have been letting themselves in who you do not know. Refuse to give him a key. The local council will have a tenancy liason or similar. Speaking to them might be a good idea. They can write to the ll. This sounds like an hmo which also has quite stringent rules, so if the ll is behaving like this, chamces are the property isn't licensed either. Speak to the council.

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