Going to see a rural house to rent this week and wondering about a few things

[itsvampirina]

Seeing a listed rural house this week.
Rentals round here are going off the markets in hours in my price range. This house is much bigger than anything else we can currently afford. However I think it's because there's a few extra things we need to consider.
There's a septic tank. What on Earth do I need to consider for these?
It's oil heated so from what I can gather I need to get a fair price on oil and order it in advance?
Anything else we need to consider?

Cats may not be the answer. Ours bring mice into the house to play with them and then either get bored and let them go or eat them and leave us the inedible bits.

mice? Screwfix no-touch mousetrap. Quick and humane.

even if we had a cat, I really wouldn't want to keep it in the attic.

We lived very really for 15 years. Had nice in the garage twice but never any inside. Yes to spider especially after harvest. Conkers in the corner's work.

Many oil companies offer a monthly DD system and auto top up every 3 months which helps to budget.

Ok so we've sent over a yes and now will have to wait and see!

😂 at the spiders in the cupboard. My worst nightmare!!

Our little rural gem has been taken off the market so no idea if they found tenants. I was put off by the attached barn on the side of the property - we had no idea what was inside. Whether it was vehicles, rats, Aragog or otherwise!

I was having nightmares about what was on the other side of the wall 😂

I grew up on an old farm - I shouldn’t be a wimp like this!!

Good luck with your application

We moved from London to a rural and remote property a few years ago. Never looked back!

This might have already been mentioned but I'd recommend you test the mobile signal at the property and find out from locals if there's a particular provider that works better than others so you can switch to that. We had to do that (O2 is great for London but it turns out that EE has the best coverage where we moved to).

Internet strength might be an issue. Find out whether there's fibre/superfast broadband.

Are there chimneys? These need to be swept/checked regularly.

Also... footwear! Turns out there's a lot more mud in the countryside than the city. I ruined a lot of shoes in the first few months. Invest in wellies/grubby shoes.

@itsvampirina did you see the house?

We have a septic tank - I'd recommend you have it surveyed. If you ask the vendors who does the emptying now, you could ask that firm if they could do it. If not then Google septic tank surveys for the area. Ours wasn't expensive - about £300 I think - but they did a full camera survey of the tank and a review of how it operated, the soakaway viability etc. Very useful in terms of knowing whether everything is running as it should be.

I don't use bleach at all - eco friendly products do the trick (many antibac products are a no-no but check the label as there are some, such as Method) which are ok. Apart from that it's common sense - don't tip oil down the sink, don't flush wet wipes (even the so-called flushable ones) or tampons, as they can cause blockages.

We don't pay sewage charges as we aren't on mains drainage, which saves us about £600 yearly. Our emptying cost is £160.

We live in a small hamlet of 10 houses sUrrounded by farmland. We have a septic tank and oil.
We get the oil filled up between twice a year and 3 times in 2 years depending on how cold it has been. We have a remote sensor, and it is great so you can see at a glance how much oil is left. It doesn’t cost much more than normal gas heating, it just feels like it because you pay for it all in one go.

As for the septic tank, we have lived here 4 years and only had it emptied once. If it is all working properly, the bacteria break everything down and from your point of view as the person using the plumbing, it is just like a usual system. We were told that supermarket bleach is fine, just avoid those that say things like “super strength” or “kills 99.9% of the bacteria”. When we had ours emptied, I’m not sure if it stirred up all the stuff, or removed too much good bacteria, but it smelt for a couple of weeks. I got some bacteria sachets from Muck Munchers and it soon settled down.
We haven’t had any mice or rats in the house, but that might Be due to having a cat and two dogs. We do get A LOT of spiders though!

boiler service info - who pays for that?
fireplaces in use? CO alarms?
smoke alarms?
EPC ok?
how's the internet?