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.

Rhubarb - what's the matter???????

why rhubarb??

What's up?

Can we help?

Do you wanna talk about it?

Rhubarb if you leave I shall, I shall, ermm, oh I don't know what I'll do but don't you dare leave because of that.

Rhubarb you are NOT a piece of shit. We're all in the same boat.

In fact if you want to know the truth.....DH got forced out of his job last year ( long story) and is now self employed but can only get enough work for 2 and a half days per week. I normally work part time but am PG and have had the shittiest pregnancy so have been off work since October getting SSP. We can barely afford to eat each week. Sometimes we can't and DH and I have to eat baked beans and make sure the kids eat properly. My parents give us money towards kid school uniforms because we can't afford it. DH and I can't afford new clothes and I feel sooo guilty because because I'm PG (accidental) and can't afford to buy things for the baby.
I also have a HUGE credit card bill that I've buried my head in the sand about, don't open letters or answer the phone in case it's someone asking for money and I half expect the bailiffs to be knocking at our door any day. I'm ashamed of myself.
DH comes from a wealthy family who have cut him off because they hate me. I feel bad for him that he could be living in his own house (paid for by them) and not having to live in poverty with me and my 2DC's and soon to have one of our own too.

Its easy to insult/offend someone who is just words on a screen - please dont take it to heart.

Being bitched about by a few really isnt worth leaving over when there are literally thousands of other posters who arent joining in.

We live in a privately rented house, but my Landlady is a star.

She owns quite a few properties, and seems very laid back about it all.

I was the first person to view my house, and after saying I was very interested in it, she then said it's yours then and after arranging for me to move in 3-4 days later , promptly handed over the keys , even though I hadn't even paid a deposit.

She was there the day before I moved in to sign the paperwork, and had the house cleaned from top to bottom, she removed any furniture that I didn't need.

Since then (3 years ago) I've seen her once and spoken to her a handful of times. A couple of things have needed doing but we done the job and she's refunded the money back out of the rent.

Her exact words when we signed the paperwork was I don't mind what you do, as long as you don't knock down any walls- see you in 10 years,lol.

She also has British Gas Homecare Insurance out on all her properties, so if anything goes wrong with the Gas, Elec , Appliances then we just ring British Gas and they come out and deal with it, as well as giving the Gas a yearly service, and yearly inspection.

She's agreat landlady and I would'nt swap her for the world.

Oh Rhubarb I'm a huge Twilight fan, but like you had an issue with that thread title, just ignore them. You are a great poster on here - don't let them gang up and make you leave.

DP was made redundant just before Christmas and we decided to put our house on the market.
Good job too really as freelance for him has been very thin on the ground. The redundancy money will just about see us until June and pay for several months advance rent. We will need to rent because DP does not now have a regular income or the history of several years earnings as a freelancer her would need to get another mortgage.
I am on a rollercoaster atm swinging between thinking we will get a nice ll and house and then feeling a failure for having had to give up our mortgaged house.
We also have three cats and lls are very scared of them. I am dreading the whole thing.

Come back Rhubarb please.

Oh I thought Rhubarb was feeling shitty about having to rent a house.....seems like she's been bullied off MN.

I hate it when that happens. Others make people feel so crap out themselves and gang up on certain people on threads like a bunch of nasty school girls.

Hope you are ok Rhubarb?

I read recently that in fact tenants do a lot better in financial terms over the life of the property as compared to people who buy at current prices.

Apparently if you save the difference between what you would spend on a mortgage for an equivalent property and your rent, which is nearly always cheaper, you would make the same capital amount in 25 years as if you'd bought (not that most of us could actually afford to put that money away )

Also, you save most of the considerable maintenance costs of having a property. I do like the fact that if the washing machine goes or the heating packs up I'm not paying out for it. (Of course I know some landlords are so crap that they don't maintain at all and that's awful).

I was a landlord once for a year, and it cost so bloody much to maintain that I made no profit at all.

Luckily I like white and magnolia and my letting agents here are great but the last lot were really anal about blutac etc which is vile for kids bedrooms. I also got charged a fortune on the deposit for 'carpet damage' and marks on paintwork etc due to having the kids living there...

I haven't read this whole thread but I thought I would chuck my thoughts in, from a professional point of view (I run a property management company looking after people such as yourselves).

1. Letting agents cannot ask you to stick to rules they apply that are unreasonable, and that do not come from the landlord themselves. For those of you not able to decorate, put blu tac up etc, do you know for a fact that is the landlord's perspective? Very few landlords are really that unreasonable.

1. The other thing to remember is that a landlord is not going to kick you out for putting something up with blu-tac / redecorating a room. Well if he is, he needs his head examined. He can ask you to "make good" when you leave.

There is a clause in the Landlord and Tenant Act 1989 which states that you are all "entitled to quiet enjoyment and will live in the property in a tenant-like fashion".

That means that if your quiet enjoyment will be achieved by allowing your DD to have a pink bedroom you are entitled to do it. Yes, you can reasonably be expected to paint it back before you leave but that is the most the landlord can impose.

Also ARLA state that a propery should be redecorated at regular intervals, bedrooms around every 6 years, main living areas after three. In order to keep them to a lettable standard.

So the amount of money the landlord can withold from your deposit for the redecorating in pink should be pro rated based on when it was last decorated.

So say it was decorated by the landlrod before he moved out four years ago, it would be due for redecorating in two years. If it cost you £60 to decorate, all he can ask for is £20.

And if you argue that you have actually made it better than it was, the landlord will fail in any pursuit of monies from you.

I get seriously pissed off with jobsworth letting agents, typically single-up-their-own-arses-wideboys-in-grey-suits-with-brown-loafers that know nothingn about living as a family with small DCs when they still live at home with mummy so all their salary can fund their BMW / Audi A4.

I would never allow my landlords (I have dealt with thousands) to impose such strict restrictions on all of you. You all pay your rent, and you look after your houses, you cannot ask for more than that.

Ha, ha, 3 years - my house hasnt been decorated by the LL for at least 15 years. The walls were actually dirty in the living room and nicotine stained in the bedroom, hence why we did it ourselves.

There are 2 layers of textured wallpaper in the living room so the top one doesnt stick properly around the edges and we have to stick it back down with superglue.

Funnily enough the LA I am with just now is a nationwide company and supposedly prestigious reputation. They have recently sold their lettings department but I am still under them because I am considered part of their "rural" department.

We all know tennants have rights - but it is so bloody difficult to enforce them.

We live in a rented house and, TBH, I love it.

I love the freedom. I love knowing that we are not stuck here. We are here for DH's children (my DSDs) and, while I agree that we have to be here for them 100%, once they go off to uni, I don't really want to be stuck here! :-)

allegrageller, that's nice from a money point of view, and something that we certainly realised when renting - that we would be worse off money wise if we were to buy. But that doesn't take into account that all the while you were living in your own house you could redecorate and change things, extend and add value.

I hated renting, we have just moved out of private rental - the worst bit was feeling guilty, like rhubarb says, when doing nothing, like being in a shop and feeling like you have stolen something, even though you havent, because a security guard is watching you.

What this country really needs is a huge amount of building and investment in social housing.

I think it's disgusting that so many children are inadequately housed, and so many people have to live in insecure housing subject to the whims of landlords charging hugely inflated rents.

Private rent is often double what it is for social housing!

Bigbadmummy - thanks for your post. I won't feel unreasonable for approaching our LL with ref. to decorating the main room. I don't mind painting it, but it really needs replastering and I do think that is the LL responsibility.

TBH our LL is pretty good - he leaves us alone, has said to treat it as our home, and fixed the boiler straight away when it failed on Christmas Eve.

It is a nice feeling that if we wanted to move we could do so quickly, and we are living in an area that we couldn't otherwise if we had to buy in the current market.

We are saving what I think we would be paying in mortgage (well the difference between that and our rent) but it is going to take awhile before we have a deposit big enough to get a good mortgage deal.

Woo! Missus84

You took the words right out of my mouth!

Private renting is horrendous. While I'm sure there are some lovely landladies on here I've had some shockers.... The best one being a twit who decided in a house containing five graduates, none of us were capeable of working the shower properly - not that the thing was bloody dangerous and nearly scalded my friend.

I had another flat that became steadily moldy no matter what I did... The LL response was to fix the bathroom fan so it never went off and kept us up all the night...

So many LL really do think that the rent we pay is free money, they forget that we pay not just for the right to live in the property but for a maintance service aswell!

We need more social housing and we need it NOW. That would solve so many social and finacial ills in this country.

People would have more "disposable" income so wouldn't need to work so many hours, less need for child care, more time to cook proper food, less stress so better health...

At the moment, the poor essentially buy houses for the rich. It's insane.

Vive La Revolution, lol.

I agree Missus, we are on the council list where the prices to rent are a lot cheaper but due to the lack of 3 bed houses we don't stand a chance (even though we are top of the list).

At the moment i sleep downstairs with my Autistic daughter in our tiny siting room, we are struggling to find a 3 bed in this area that we can afford the rent on (the average is 700.00+ per month in this area).

even social housing isnt maintained so well!

our HA have cut back massively on what they will and wont do. i have a condensation problem and even the inspector agrees it will lead to bigger problems if not sorted out now,so in turn ,cost them alot more. he says his job is so frustrating because they have the staff to carry out the work....alot of it simple....but not the finances

Rhubarb- sign my petition-

petitions.number10.gov.uk/Childlands/

I think private tenants get a really sore deal as well.

Rhubarb??? what's wrong??? Please come back woman, you are stronger than whatever any person can say. I can't live without you!!! (OK, I can... but we will miss you badly if you go, honest!).

I would love to be in social housing - our huge rent leaves us very little disposable income and would leave us free to make the house a home.

Even when we had to leave our last property and couldnt find anything on the market we could afford, the HA said we had to wait for the baillifs and go into a hostel before they could help.

We are still on the list but have at least 10 years to wait.

We're in social housing.

This place is full of damp, o bad you can smell it when you walk in the door, and anti-social neighbours and their thug kids.

I feel I've failed my children, too.

We'll never own our own home, either.

But we're going back to private rentals as soon as we've got rid of some of this debt and saved deposit/first months' rent and moving costs because I can't have my kids seeing all this type of behaviour and having their sleep and life blighted by all this God-awful behaviour, dog poo and rubbish everywhere.

I don't know what to anymore.

Even if we both worked all the hours God sends we won't be able to buy FA.

Rhubarb - you started this thread it is only manners to see it through to the end!

Get your arse back here