For all those living in privately rented houses....

[Rhubarb]

I hadn't realised quite how many other people were in this situation and it does help just knowing that.

I have 2 kids aged 9 and 6 and we've been living in rented accommodation for 5.5 years (not the same house).

I hate it, I loathe it, I detest it! The lack of security - knowing that the owners can give you notice at any time and probably will sooner or later when they come to sell it.
The lack of a home - ours is inspected every 3 months and the first time we got an official letter telling us off for hanging up the childrens pictures in their rooms with blu-tack.
We can't paint the walls, we can't put up shelves, we can do nothing to the house. It's not a home at all, it's just somewhere to live.

I really feel as though I've failed my children. They should be able to have their own space. I long to paint their bedrooms for them, put up shelves, buy them lovely curtains etc. I feel that the security they should have in their childhoods of having their own space has gone.

I fear that we may never own our own home, that we'll always be renting, moving from house to house. It's hugely expensive too and we are just throwing money away.

I realise this is a situation of my own making but the longer we live in rented housing the more depressed I get. I am desperate to get a job to increase our chances of a mortgage, but despite applying for around one a day, I very often never hear back from them. I used to always get an interview at least. It just serves to knock my confidence more and feel like more of a failure.

It would be nice to find out how other people cope living in private rented housing.

We are in private rented in Italy....bit different in that we can't be given notice here....once you have lived somewhere for 4 yrs you can (bizarrely) stay for as long as you like.

I hate the feeling of dread when the landlord rings though- I always feel guilty even when we've done nothing wrong.

Our landlord, thank fvck, lives in Belgium so we hardly see him, but he is bonkers, drove all the way from Belgium once for a stepladder he'd left in our storeroom.

I too dream of my own house, mad thing is, in the UK I could get a mortgage, but here they are virtually non-existant. Your parents are supposed to buy you a house when you get married. Which we're not.

I suppose it's for dd more than for me...I hate it when she has friends round and they see what a tiny flat we have....

Good luck with the jobhunting Rhubarb.

dont live in rented but do own a two bed flat with 2 kids under 2 and a dog. just wanted to flip your situation over a bit.
we have be been trying to sell for 3 years. feel totaly trapped. flat is full to bursting. in an area that i dont like as too far from freinds and family. want to rent for a bi t when we sell as i am frightened of not been able to movewhen i need to. we have aslo lost money on the flat so even if we do sell we will be at a loss.
i totaly understand your situation but thought that my problems might make you feel better

Not all landlords are the same, we've lived in places where it's fine to paint (within reason - probably not murals or black walls!) and put up sheleves etc. The landlords we have now are pretty laid back, we do email them to check before doing things like painting but they always say yes. Maybe it's just a case of finding a different house with a more laid back landlord?

Chances are if they allow kids/pets they're going to be reasonably laid back about decorating too.

Ah - pud1 that was us. 2 bed, 1st floor flat with two dc's under 17 months. It took us well over a year to sell and was sheer torture. We lost money on it and now rent and feel totally liberated. I feel a bit pissed off at all the people who went on and on at us to buy just for us to end up worse off and totally stressed, that flat became a millstone round our necks.

We're lucky that our landlords are really lovely (they have 3 ds's under 6 so understand the mess!) and have no desire to sell at all. We have painted, put up shelves, changed doors etc and they've been fine with it all (although we always check first), in most cases we've made the house look better

Me too - same boat, I get depressed with this house in winter....

I also don't like having people round if they are not family/good friends, my house is really tiny in spite of having three bedrooms, the kitchen is more like a hallway than a kitchen. It is freezing in the winter - crap storage heaters in some rooms, none in others(bathroom, bedroom and kitchen don't have heating). It is drafty but at least we have double glazing and a wood burning stove - but it has cost us more than £200 per month the last few months for wood/electricity to try and stay warm.

I do worry about being moved on, though we have really good landlords, they know we are good tenants and appreciate the work we do - we lift carpets, removed depressing curtains, paint in neutral colours and do most of the maintenance.

We have also put up a shelf in the kitchen, a fence in the garden and have hens and cats now.

I just wish we had a house of our own, but we don't want to move schools at the moment, and houses round here are out of our price range. If we could buy this house we would, it has a huge garden, so loads of potential.

We're renting out our flat at the moment and have been happy with shelves going up/ bits of decoration etc so definitely would be worth an ask although I may be a freak because I would prefer to let the flat to people with children than a 'professional couple'. It should be lived in properly not either expected to be treated as a show house or used for horrble drug fuelled wild parties

Also, DB and SIL rented a flat and put in laminate flooring and redecorated throughout. LL was happy and gave them 2 months rent free in exchange so can sometimes be done.

I'm in rented now, lived in "our" (well it was all in XH's name as they wouldn't accept me on the mortgage) own home(s) for nearly 9yrs.

Did rent for a while last year, then moved back into "our" house.

Now renting again.

Only moved in 2 weeks ago and (touchwood) so far Landlord seems ok.

Put it this way, he was quite happy to accept a single mum on benefits (even after he saw my "darling" dS's racing round this house like maniacs when I came for a 2nd viewing and he was here clearing out some of the cupboards of stuff previous tenant had left. He waited for 3 1/2 weeks while benefits messed me around, and was willing to have the house inspected by (and go on their "list") rent assistance scheme people.

And when it came to quite a lot of stuff left in the house he hadn't had a chance to move when I was ready to move in ........well he's said I mustn't get rid of the sofa's but everything else he said I was free to do what I wanted with - sell, keep, throw away (and there was so some quite nice/quite a lot of stuff!) (if I'd sold it I could probably have made a couple of £100!)

Obviously early days on whether or not I have a nice landlord...........

But I do have that feeling of "will I ever be able to buy somewhere of my own".......be able to decorate the boys room exactly how I please... (although actually it's been decorated really nicely here and he's left all the paint pots in the cupboard under the stairs so I may just touch up as the boys destroy.........)

Am I now stuck in rented for ever..........

I am living in rented after relocating to the East from Scotland for dh's work.

I cant see us ever being able to afford to buy a house here - average 3 bed semi around £220K. Bank is looking for 15% deposit which just seems unreachable when we're paying £1k each month for rent with bills on top and 3 dc's to provide for.

We lived in a fab house when we first moved and had no problems with the LL. Unfortunately he lost his job abroad and had to come back so we were given notice 2 days before Christmas. Nothing on the market so ended up on this shithole. Has left me with that feeling of insecurity, we can basically be given notice at any time.

LL does absolutely nothing, doors and windows are rotton, leaky extension roof which has resulted in the plaster falling off, mouldy patches in the hall - I could go on. I actually started a thread recently about the problems with the letting agent.

We had kitchen waste from a blocked drain all over our garden that took the LL 6 weeks to get a plumber to fix. When he appeared with the plumber he said to us "you do realise your hedge needs cut". I had been walking through the crap to get into the house, does he seriously think I was going to walk through it to cut the hedge (it was only a small section where the waste had pooled, all the rest had been cut). He was obviously making a point because he was annoyed at having to pay for a plumber - this is MY house, not yours and I call the shots.

I hate the fact we cant decorate - dd1 is desperate for a pink bedroom just like most typical 5 yo's but just isnt allowed one

We are due to move next month into a larger, nicer house. The LL obviously has the same taste as me as the decor is lovely so I'm praying I feel a bit more settled there.

Yours all sound like lovely landlords!

We rent ours through an estate agent. The landlord himself might not mind us doing things, but the estate agents are really strict (hence the official letter about the blu-tack that they also forwarded to the landlord).

All the walls are white and the paint is not waterproof, so if I try to wash off food stains, spilled juice, crayon etc then the paint comes off too - no doubt they'll want us to repaint the house when we go.

We get terrible mildew in the bedrooms in the winter and were told that we had to use our heating more and move the furniture round every few weeks! We are trying to save money so heating the house all the time is not an option.

I also get embarrassed by it. I'm lucky it's not a flat, but it is a 1960s bungalow, the kind my mother would love. I guess that's why I hate it so much.

pud1, I'm really sorry about your situation. If it helps, they do say that Spring is the perfect time to sell and prices are not dropping atm. Hope you manage to sell soon.

sb6699 - hope the new house is better.

How do you cope when you have to move the children to another house? How do you make it like a home for them?

I dont feel my dc's have ever liked this house either tbh

Where it is is beautiful, they love the horses coming by the back gate and watching the tractors in the field outside - but it is very isolated, too far from school and the condition of the house is so poor I have recently stopped letting them have friends over as I am so embarassed.

They are really looking forward to moving - the new house is right beside their school and they understand that their new bedrooms will be warm as there is dg and gch (bit sad that a child would actually notice something like that). I have promised that we will put some of their pictures up, if it damages the walls and we have to repaint eventually then so be it.

Aw sb6699, when we moved here from Cumbria the kids were excited about having gch too as for the past 4 years we'd lived without.

I know it affects them living here, every time we are due a visit dd takes down all her pictures in case the lady has a go at them again (which she did in front of the kids) and I can see she's worried in case they find something wrong.

It's not on when you can't relax in a house. We are constantly reminded it's not ours.

After feeling so depressed in this house, I am determined that the new one will be a home

We already have a list of friends who are coming over for tea and plans to build a playhouse in the garden.

My DS is really excited because he is getting some new grown-up furniture for his room - the one is in just now is so small there only space for a bed and chest of drawers and the windows are cracked and mouldy.

I think as long as you are all happy as a family, children are adaptable and will settle just about anywhere. Mine are very close which I think helps as they bring each other security.

ANother one in rented, and I'm not wild about it but I think that we will be renting for a good long time (TB brutally honest, probably until my parents drop dead). This house is OK, we have been here for 5 years and so far the lease gets renewed every year (despite my occasional lapses WRT rent being a day or two late). But I dread being given notice, am on HB and have an erratic income.
I also have a teeny bit of a hoarders' syndrome problem, which I am working on but it makes the idea of moving very alarming.

Your dd taking her pictures down brought a tear to my eye - wee soul.

hanaflower - dont even get me started on magnolia!

My new LL has said she wants to repaint before we move in and I have told her that if she paints over the lovely apple green wall in the hall I will literally cry - it was a breath of fresh air to see some colour.

I'm in a HA rented 3 bed house at the moment, using the bidding system to try to get a 4 bed new build. Just have to wait it out!!

Hearing your stories remind me of when we lived in married quarters with the ex h. They too were a state, decorated in 'mould and magnolia' but at least all us army wives had same mess, nobody had a nicer place.

SGB - the HB thing really worries me. DH's income has gradually decreased over the past couple of years.

He is a haulier so the recession/increase in fuel has hit us hard.

If it eventually got to the stage where we had to apply for HB, does the LL have to let us stay? I know some mortgages dont allow HB tennants.

Btw, my dh has a shed full of "stuff". I have warned him that if it is not sorted out every single thing is going to the skip!

I am in rented but it is because we live overseas and our house is lovely. However I don't like being at the mercy of how the landlord gets problems dealt with. He is a lovely guy but believes anything anyone tells him!

On the other side we are also landlords renting out our house in the UK. If a family moved in and wanted to paint a DD's room pink we would have no objections. We have no objections to pictures up either. It's a shame that so many landlords are so horrible.

Buda I think it's the letting agents more than the landlords.

We're on HB too and I haven't told the agents that although we are supposed to. It's a pride thing I suppose.

I just keep thinking that a job could be just around the corner. But even with a job there's no guarantee we'll be able to afford a decent house. For an average 3bed around here we are looking at £170,000. For one that's not on a rough estate you can add another £50,000 to that.

I would go back to a 2bed one but dh won't hear of it, he says the kids shouldn't have to share at their age.

We use letting agents Rhubs - I hope they are nicer to our tenants than yours are. I think they are.

What kind of jobs are you looking at? It is a shitty time to be looking I suppose.

Rhubarb - it's still early days here.........nothing has gone wrong or broken, nor have I yet asked if I can stick some pictures up in DS1's room.

When I rented briefly last year the landlord appeared ok, said as it needed redecorating (it really did) I could decorate "tastefully" and as long as I kept receipts would get my money back (never stayed long enough to do that), but the agents were pretty shit, and when it came to it the landlord point blank refused to accept that the shower DIDN'T work. "on full" it dripped like a tap that hadn't quite been turned off.

Was hell, as obviously I could use the shower, the pressure for the hot water upstairs was so slow that running a bath literally to 20-30 minutes. Being on my own with the DS's there were no "quick shower" or "quick baths" for me.

And this is early days in this renting malarky...........I'm not holding my breath that I'll be here for a decent length of time (I have no plans to move - but obviously can't control the ll) and then I will just have to see what the next brings.

2 of my DS's will always have to share (unless I win the lottery or something). There's no way I will ever be able to afford to rent or buy a 4 bedroom house so DS2 and 3 are stuck with each other.......... I suppose I could do what some parents do and "give up" their room, but with my history of depression and sleeping issues don't think that's such a great idea.

For me going to sleep in a bed at night is actually quite an achievement at times.

Buda - I'm looking at anything and everything. I have been a TA, I've worked with children with learning disabilities, I've also worked for charities, I can do most admin work/reception/website maintenance etc. But I'll fill out an application that ticks all the essential and a lot of the desirable boxes and I hear nothing back.

It's very demoralising.

Toccata - I think maintenance wise things have got better, but as a result the tenant can do very little to the house.

In our last house we cleaned from top to bottom when we left. We even left our compost bin for the next tenant and a card welcoming her. Next thing we knew we had a message from the letting agents accusing us of stealing all the light bulbs!

I was furious. They withheld some of our deposit. I still get very angry when I think about that, I mean wtf?

How often do you have property reviews? can you afford to loose your deposit? If you are already in the agreement of painting the house when you move I don't see why hey shoudl be complaining about bluetack.

Take the courtains down and store away, put everything back up when they come to check.