Right, I'm going to give you the full story (as much as I can remember!) and want to know if something can be done. Not only that, but I'm going to CAB tomorrow about it so hope that it makes sense.
Our (my partner and I's) last job was in a garden centre (with accom provided for weekly fee of £32.50). It was an okay job actually, it wasn't great, but it was interesting and I'm quite reluctant to take things further as we wanted to go back next xmas, but I don't think that we have a choice. We have two separate issues here.
When we first arrived we were told that they were refurbishing. It was fine, mainly the kitchen needed a paint and replastering (a few cracks and a large cracked area where something had hit the wall) and it also needed skirting boards in the kitchen. It was an old house with normal wear and tear in other words and in need of some love. Me and my partner were actually asked to clean the house (during work hours) shortly after we arrived as it was a bit of a mess. A couple were fired after we arrived and they were charged a lot for a cleaning service of their room. Apparently this was the first ever time this had been done. At this point it was also made clear that we would not be allowed visitors to the house what-so-ever due to previous parties.
We lived in one of the two chalets/bedrooms in the garden (there were 7 bedrooms in total, 2 'chalets' and 5 bedrooms inside of the house, each housed a couple and four bathrooms, two of these were for exclusive use of the two couples outside, so at some points there were 10 of us to two bathrooms) which again, was fine at first. The nature of our work and living arrangements worked well up until September. In September we took a room inside when another couple left. The only available room before that was a room with mold in it, which we were hesistant to take, understandably. There was also mold growing in the downstairs bathroom of this house on the ceiling, which was quite high and we had been told not to touch it (just in case), yet nobody ever came to look at it.
In September me and my partner were moved to the Christmas department, which was fine again. There was also a meeting with the owner of the centre who said that she'd arranged for the heating to go on from 4-8am and 6-10pm daily in the house and that we had to give back any greenhouse heaters that were left in the house from the previous year when the heating broke down. We did this as asked.
However at the beginning of November, we were moved to the grotto team. As it wasn't busy early on, only two people were in the grotto at one point. This grotto was outside but under a shelter, however this shelter was inadequate. One side of the selther was completely open. Above us we had two gaping gaps in the roof where the poly tunnels met which allowed the weather and wind to come through. If it rained, we got wet. When it snowed, we were very cold! Unfortunately for me, I was one of the two people outside full time, when I asked for a reprieve I was told that it'd be fine, but nothing ever came of it, the same happened to the other full timer in the grotto. (To add, there were also three reindeer kept in a roughly 15ft by 8ft pen near us for from Nov 5th to Dec 24th and during this time they were not let out once, and it wasn't uncommon for the staff looking after them to forget to feed them! This may out me but I cannot seem to care anymore!)
Meanwhile the rest of the Christmas team (mostly other seasonals) worked the stock. The boys commonly worked in the warehouse, finding stock to bring out. Some of this stock was from the year before and had been left in containers for the year, most of that was moldy. We were all made to work through this stock to find stock that we could put out still. We also had to rewrap grotto presents from the year before to give out to children in the grotto. Many of these were also moldy.
Back to the grotto. The grotto itself was in a Warehouse, the only area with heating was Santa's room itself and the booking booth (where most of us worked) was the outside bit. When it started to get really cold we were given a little greenhouse heater to keep us warm. When we complained we were told to put on more layers. They would not provide or even semi-pay for these layers even though they sold them in the shop and many of us did not own thermals of any kind and had to go buy some in order to get enough layers on to stay slightly warm.
We were expecting the cold however (even though it was colder than expected!) but doubled with the fact that the heating in the house was inadequate, we spent most of our days freezing cold, and it was even too cold to shower at some points. It certainly wasn't warm enough anywhere in the house to dry our wet clothes after washing them! The heater in our lounge didn't work, the heating in the kitchen was useless due to a draughty conservatory attached to it, the bathrooms had the same problem of being draughty and our bedroom heaters were useless, mine didn't work at all during my time there. We were lucky that one couple, who left when it started to get very cold, stashed a greenhouse heater, so we kept that on in the living room so that at least one room would be warm in the evenings!
As you can imagine, most of us ended up ill by Christmas, and we all ended up having time off in the week before Christmas. Personally I got to the point where I just could not warm up. I was wearing three layers to bed for most of December and at least three layers whilst working and at home and yet it got to the point where I couldn't warm up so I took a day off and spent it sat in front of our little greenhouse heater on full blast in an attempt to get warm! My colleagues were in a worse state than me though and had varying health problems.
We were all made redundant just before Christmas and would be leaving by the 5th of Jan, last day being the 2nd. On the 26th of Jan our heating went off completely and didn't come back on before we left.
The second thing is a charge that has been made to each person of £100 for 'cleaning costs' which is what we've been told by the HR of the place.
Now we suspected that we'd have deductions due to 'parties' that we had in the two weeks leading up to Christmas. At the second some of my housemates were dancing in the kitchen and knocked the cracked wall I mentioned earlier, it then fell out. It was a stupid moment obviously, but it was accidental, and it certainly was not a party as they made it out to be, it was two people from work who needed a place to stay after the Christmas party when their person turned them down last minute, and then the same two popping round to take one of the housemates to the cinema (they ended up staying apparently 
). Now, these same two girls were told that, should the weather turn sour, they would have to stay at the staff house so that they could get to work the next day. It's a little hypocritical.
But anyway. A few days before we left the front steps of the house, which had always been wobbly but over Dec had been glued together by ice, fell apart. Quite literally. One of our managers discovered this before any of us did when he stacked it up them whilst we were at work!
So that's two bits of damage we know of, one quick plastering job, which they have on on-site builder full time who told us he could do it, and a normal bit of wear and tear on the two steps leading up to the house.
We left the house in a good condition, cleaner than it was when we all arrived! And they charged us £100 each for cleaning bills. Times that by the four couples that they undoubtably charged and it's £800. Then add the two couples they should also charge but probably didn't and it's theoretically £1200 to clean a house. That is what we're angry about. And the fact that we all specifically asked before we left and were always told that it probably wouldn't happen, or that it shouldn't, and yet we have £100 each taken off of our paychecks.
Can we do anything about either the conditions of work (cold/mold) or the money?!
We also had a couple round on Christmas day, they were fired three days before Christmas with no where to go, no family in the country, etc. We believe that the heating was turned off because of this as the bosses certainly knew that they'd come round and were quite vindictive with us all towards the end.
Sorry for it being so long! I didn't want to miss anythign and/or try make it look like we're angels. We're not, we're young human beings, we do silly things and have accidents sometimes, but we aren't stupid enough to believe it takes over a grand to clean a bog-standard house!