Rein In Those Wilsons.

I’m battling with feeling peeved that it took some media outlets years to wake up to the fact that renting is frequently horrific. I’m pleased for the publicity, feeling vindicated, but equally certain that so much of this new outrage stems from publicity surrounding the vile ,self-satisfied, smug, greedy, pompous, self-entitled, self-justified Wilsons and their ‘…but we have to raise the rents.’

I often wonder, why must rents rise. Is it necessity? Is it the expense of running and managing property? No. It’s done because of high demand, which is blatant profiteering. But you can’t get away with it everywhere.

Rents rose fastest on an annual basis in London, where they increased by 4.4%, followed by the south-west (3.4%) and the south-east (3.2%). Rents fell by 5.5%, or an average of £42, in eastern England, 2.8% in the West Midlands, and 2% in the north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber. Most of Scotland is falling in real terms, too – except Edinburgh

They’re not rocketing up where unemployment is high, is the basic fact here. So here’s the issue, the mammoth in the room - rent control.

Rent control is what we need. Labour are against it, as are Shelter. But rent control is essential, to stop rentiers thumbing their noses at reason, and indulging their rapacious acquisitive natures. The odious Wilson’s insist it is their feudal right to charge as much as they see fit, not because of their own costs or any justifiable need, but because they want more money. Rents rise because of a degenerate, over-arching desire for profit, not because of the need to cover necessary prices involved in letting homes – not even interest rates, and rises outstrip inflation.

Before the usual suspects whine that renting was stagnating in the 80’s, that was because of the large amount of owners and the reasonable price of home-owning – more owner-occupiers means less tenants, so lower rents. Buying the first of several homes cost just 2.5 of the average income, and wages were higher with bills much lower in comparison.

But here’s the point. These buildings are homes. Vital, essential, necessary homes for people to live in, not holiday cottages, or your pied-a-terre in the city. It’s a home.

When people can’t afford a home, or worse- nobody will let to them, then where will they live? The streets, that’s where, and homelessness, actual rough sleeping is on the rise.

Certain property ‘professionals’ are delighted by the rise in rents. They forget that increasing rents because of demand is profiteering. When house-building gets under way the likes of the Wilsons will get their richly deserved come-uppance. They lord it over people’s lives, masters of their security, peace and fate. Worse still dubious, flaky wealth-on-paper has made them judgemental. They don’t understand that they benefited from state ‘hand-outs’ – the Wilsons are the scroungers, not their benighted tenants.

Meanwhile note to the odious, rent profiteering Wilsons – local housing allowance is paid one month in arrears, even before Universal Credit/Cockup is introduced.

But then, those Wilsons resemble Edward and Tubbs from The League of Gentleman, which keeps me smiling. I take my fun where I can at times like this.

http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/feeling-validated.html



http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/why-do-rents-rise.html

http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2008/05/rents-are-rising-or-are-they.html

http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/think-of-number.html

The Fear

I started blogging when I lived in Dovecot Towers, a new but accursed, prematurely decrepit and chaotic apartment block which now seems like a bastion of sanity and comfort.

I remember the trials of life in that building: there was a murder, after all, and I witnessed the aftermath of a man taking his own life. There were drug dealers, prostitutes, burglaries and assaults. There were evictions, repossessions, thefts and frostiness and distance replaced neighbourliness, not to mention that the building was falling down.

But nothing is as fearful as reading my own statcounter – the tool allowing me to view what search terms used to find me.

And it’s horrible. Every other question shows real fear, with the words ‘I’m afraid of…’ followed by a varying and increasing list of terrifying eventualities and dreadful possibilities. Flatmates, are (as I wrote previously: see links) increasing menacing, especially when they are unavoidable, and claimants (remember, most housing benefit claimants are in work) are paid only enough to share.

Then comes landlord terror, refined and honed, adding phrases like: my landlord is visiting unannounced, scared my landlord will evict me, I can’t pay my rent, they won’t renew my lease, won’t let me stay. Then there’s I am afraid of benefit cuts, I am afraid to move, afraid to go home, afraid of the future.

Letting agents? I am afraid if I ask for repairs, then they will give me notice, scared they will keep my deposit. Scared they will discover I lost my job…scared they will blame me for the stain on the carpet… scared they will find my cat.

Benefit cuts and rising rents mean tenants have not choice but leaving their home (rising rents in the South, or benefit cuts everywhere) and they have need a payday loan with crippling interest to cover another deposit, while they wait for the other one to be returned after the now traditional dispute about what is reasonable wear and tear and what is vandalism.

When did renting start resembling a horror film? Why are tenants living in constant fear? There is mounting insecurity, a feeling that nobody is on their (our) side, and that we have nowhere to go if things go wrong, and had better move as demanded without a murmur.

Research by the World Health Organisation on sound intrusion has shown the detrimental impact of stress on well-being, happiness and health. Perhaps I am over-interpreting data, but any fool knows that feeling constantly undermined and insecure, being afraid all the time makes people ill, since it has a deleterious effect on the immune system (it’s one possible explanation for the premature death of those classed as financially poor.)

I’d love to see a study of the health of long-term, perhaps lifelong tenants, with regard to mortality rates and longevity, as I am certain it wouldn’t be a pretty picture (evidence required, obviously, but that’s my hypo-deductive hunch…)

But the most regularly occurring and consequently, the most upsetting, worrying and sinister search-term, is rarely refined, or re-defined – it’s simply: ‘Really scared of my landlord.’

Another popular term, meanwhile is this heart-warming gem: ‘Tenants are scum.’

I'm Afraid For You.

I’ve written previously about the device I use which shows the keywords used to find this blog. Apart from the usual queries involving rubber gloves (still strikingly popular) recently, I’ve noticed a disturbing development.

There’s been a notably increased amount of phrases such as: “I’m afraid of my landlord.” Or “…my landlord comes round unannounced.” Worst of all was “My landlord threatens me.” Along with “Is my landlord entitled to go through my underwear drawer.”

No.
He isn’t.
Complain.
Loudly.

This might sound crassly obvious – but it’s horrible to live in fear. For most tenants, the next few years will be lived under a palpable sense of nervousness, as we ponder the perennial question: whatever will become of us? With increasing reliance on private rented housing, the regulation of agents and landlords has been ruled out, and – judging from some of the comments/keywords/comments I’ve seen, the other measures supposed to protect us simply do not work.

People are scared. Large scale private investors are looking to do what those individual buy-to-let investors did: build loads of news homes, and then decide who lives in them. Occupants (i.e. tenants) are not now, and never will be consulted about their needs, or even what they’d like from a home. And landlords…ah landlords…

They argue on a loop claiming to endure restrictions so tight they can barely breathe, let alone their sacred right to evict renters randomly at will and throw their belongings out on the street…(Oh, I’m being bad I know, but it’s a right they cling to.)

It is a paradox – most tenants like the freedom of renting a house: not feeling so tied down, living a life of short term contracts matched by short term living arrangements. But the downside is a life of insecurity: wilfully encouraged by landlords and letting agents, who delight in undermining any hard-won semblance of security.

But this philosophy is pernicious. It seeps and infects your life: tenants never know when they will have to move and are treated like mould in the bathroom – tolerated briefly and then eradicated.

And now we are scared. Some of us are terrified. Landlords are flexing their muscles, and in certain distressing cases - are behaving badly. Judging by the recent onslaught of questions about personal safety reaching me, it’s only a matter of time before something really bad happens.

So please: if you land here because you are being threatened and/or intimidated – please use more the helpful sites on the blogroll to the right of the page, especially the wonderful Shelter.

And remember this: you have rights. You are not vermin. You are a human being, paying rent to live in a building which is a home (not the physical embodiment of another person’s luxurious retirement bungalow dream) and you should not live in fear. Remember this when you are being terrorised: slipping away and not making a fuss is tempting, but if we don’t fight back, it’s going to get worse, and worse.

Lodging A Complaint

The idea of being a lodger still sounds dull, and seedy - redolent of rationed hot water, sneaking upstairs to hide ‘guests’ and terrifying battle-axe landladies. Don’t worry - by lodging I don’t mean boarding houses, but renting a room in someone else’s house.

Lodging is now officially encouraged: the last government even gave tax breaks to people letting out a room. And on the surface, it seems like a great idea – owner-occupiers are in trouble, and so many people bought two bed flats (dovecots) that they might as well let one room out.

If only it was that simple. First of all – who gets the en-suite room? Might seem petty, but these are things that lead to simmering white-faced resentment. A friend lodged as a student, renting a room from a testy, bitter couple both forced into low paid jobs and saddled with an unwieldy mortgage. Taking in a student must initially have seemed like a grand idea, but the situation grew nastier day-by-day.

First of all, they grew increasingly proscriptive about when she could use the kitchen. Then her allocated shelf-space was shrunk, and that precious allotted time in the bathroom was shortened. Remember she was paying rent, money they were relying on to stay solvent (maybe that’s why they were so tetchy – they resented the power unwittingly wielded).

They were stunned and hurt by her explanation for leaving: “…but you were a guest in our house.” That surely is the nub of the problem – lodgers are treated like couch surfer friends who have outstayed their welcome, rather than people who live in a room as of right, paying handsomely to so. I know of people who take in lodgers and appreciate the delicate power balance, and have the decency to treat their tenant more like a flat-mate than an irritation.

Another friend rented a room from an eccentric woman who collected cats (no – she was not called Mrs. Cliché) until the house was overrun with moggies, their hair, fur balls, and their spraying. She was unable to voice her anger as lodgers live on a licence, and can be given an hours notice on a whim for imagined slights. The upside is they can usually move immediately - as my friend did here.

Lodgers walk delicately across thin ice, which is carpeted with egg-shells. If owners don’t wash up, or leave their laundry mouldering for months in the machine, that’s their prerogative, and lodgers must smile sweetly and ignore it. They have no sense of ownership - no ‘purchase.’ Lodging twists the natural tenant relationship: everybody must be on their best behaviour, as lodgers can leave whenever they want, and landlords can give lodgers the push whenever they feel like it – just because they want to. It’s like having a landlord as your flatmate – tenants/lodgers must be understanding about repairs, and in turn they will see the effect of the good (and/or poor) management when owners sit opposite them in the lounge (that’s if they let you use it.) It’s a miracle that lodging based violent crime doesn't make the news on a daily basis.

A Potential Death Trap

Whenever I write about bad landlords, the good landlords get angry. They pout with indignation and claim to be doing a great job, while assuming that I am exaggerating, rabble-rousing or lying. They are, they insist tormented to the edge of ruin: “Tenants trashed my precious flat,” they say “…and then they did a runner!”

Sorry; it’s not the same at all. Bad landlords are dangerous, but you probably think that’s over the top.

I once lived in shared flat where the landlord’s daughter was a fellow tenant, so you’d think we’d be treated well. Not a bit of it.

We told the owner that the ancient combi boiler was temperamental and that we could smell gas, but he just sneered, stating - somewhat oddly, I think you’ll agree:
“Don’t come that communist nonsense with me – all property is theft and rubbish like that. And don’t try and boss me around.”
“I’m hardly stirring up a revolution,” I replied. “But that boiler’s dangerous. Would you please fix it?”

He ignored me, so I energised him with an enormous estimate from a registered repair firm. Eventually, he sent round his friend, a gas-installer, who took one look at the appliance and turned white with rage.
“You stupid bastard!” he shouted down the phone. “Get your arse round here right now and you’d better bring the money for a new heater! It could blow up any minute! It’s like a bloody bomb!”

Outraged, he continued: “Your daughter lives here! For crying out loud, what’s wrong with you?”
The landlord was unrepentant, and frankly, a bit miffed. I left soon after.

Landlords do their worst in ramshackle shared houses, where tenants move in and out like renting yo-yos. In one HMO, the ancient shower broke; the landlord agreed to replace it, but only after accusing us of “....being heavy with him, when he’d been nice to us.”
Being nice, by the way, involved him once turning up late at night expecting “…coffee.”

To our dismay some ‘cousins’ arrived. They let themselves in unannounced with a spare key, and swaggered around, saying things like: “Hey – ladies, time to paaarrrtay!” After clocking our surly expressions they left in record time, but at least we had a new shower.

Some time later I heard a scream - my terrified housemate had suffered a serious electric shock, and was genuinely lucky to be alive.

The sodden plaster had been partly washed away, exposing bare wires embedded haphazardly in the wall. We called Health and Safety, who confronted the landlord, ordering him to get it sorted, or else.

His response was petulant and unapologetic:
“…you know what girls are like,” he said. “Always nagging and whining.”
The word bitch was used.

As you might have realised by now, I am writing this post in anger. Here’s why. Thanks to the excellent Nearly Legal (see blog roll) for alerting me to this case from Cornwall. To any landlords out there who are feeling betrayed by calls for regulation, please remember this: bad landlords are a minority, but owners can be lazy, negligent, callous, defiant and stupid. The worst landlord is a killer landlord. In a bad way.

Report by The Residential Landlords Association: “A young mother was electrocuted by bathroom taps at a rental home. The coroner said he found it inexplicable that whilst gas safety checks and annual gas safety certificates are a specific legal requirement, electrical checks are not. He called it a loophole.

The woman, Thirza Whittall, 33, was found by her five-year-old daughter Millie. The young mother died instantly when she was hit by 175 volts when running the bath.

Heartbreakingly, the little girl said a prayer over her dead mother’s body before taking her two-year-old brother, George, out of his cot, locking up the house, and walking down the street into a shop to get help.

A series of electrical problems had combined to make the bathroom a death trap, the inquest heard. Mrs Whittall was electrocuted after she part-filled the bath with water and touched the taps with wet hands.

The home had not been professionally rewired or inspected electrically for nearly 30 years. The landlady, Hilary Thompson, had it rewired in 1981, and it had then been checked by her husband. Since Mrs Whittall’s death, the property has been rewired, at a cost of £4,000.

Mr Whittall, a builder, said: “I remain deeply concerned that there is a gap in the legislation which permitted this incident to occur and which puts others at risk. “Whilst landlords of rented properties are obliged to provide an annual gas safety certificate, no such regulation applies in relation to electrical wiring in rented properties.

“As we have learnt to our cost, a fault in an electrical installation is every bit as dangerous as a faulty gas supply.”

The Electrical Safety Council, a charity, is now calling for basic checks to be carried out on rental homes and has published a new guide – the Landlords’ Guide to Electrical Safety.”

Anyone out there still think I’m being unfair?

http://nearlylegal.co.uk/blog/2009/07/shocking-lac/

http://www.esc.org.uk/business-and-community/guidance-for/landlords.html

Battered By Butterflies

There’s a proverb suggesting that apparently insignificant actions can have disproportionately large consequences: a butterfly flutters its wings and on the other side of the world, a million people die.

Throughout my time in Dovecot Towers letters were stolen from the communal post-room. My landlord seemed extremely sympathetic, but to be honest, I was never sure if he took the problem seriously.

Earlier this year, I tried to withdraw cash but my card was declined. I had no phone credit, no food and no fare to reach my friends and ask for help. It was a nightmare. I couldn’t pay my rent. I emailed my landlord explaining: my post-box robbed, my cheque book stolen, my bank account emptied, then a debit-card was taken despite banning my bank, or anyone from sending post to my home.

This might still look bad on my part, but remember that William’s side of the ‘pay rent – maintain property’ bargain is habitually broken. Previously, he admitted that he wouldn’t want me to leave, acknowledging that I’m a good tenant. Even so, he didn’t bother to get his arse into gear and organise repairs. However much he needed my money, I think he was overwhelmed by the demands and responsibility of managing property.

As forcefully as I could within the boundaries of carefully assertive tact, I said that if he didn’t make a fuss, if he didn’t really cause a commotion and press the management company, nothing will change. The management noted, but ignored his requests. He claimed to know them, but I don’t think they were his friends; for once in his life, I think he felt important. Emphasising that I couldn’t sort this problem out myself, I added that the situation won’t vanish of its own accord and reminded him that even if I do reach the end of my tether and leave, subsequent tenants will be equally irate and then move as well. He agreed, and offered to fit a letterbox on my front door. Remaining sceptical, I thanked him.

Meanwhile on Wall Street, vultures, not butterflies were flapping their wings. Soon, William’s many mortgages were in arrears. Interest rates had risen dramatically and he was clinging to financial life by his over extended fingertips. Along with a vacant flat elsewhere, my missing a payment had pushed him over the edge. The bank has delayed replacing my money since (I suspect) they think I am somehow complicit. Those repairs are not his fault, but most definitely his responsibility.

When William and I met up, he asked what it would take to make me stay. I think he intended to muddle through the recession, but now he knows that Dovecot Towers is thoroughly unsafe, and that I couldn’t stay even if I wanted to. William should have sorted out the post-box situation, the unlikely tipping point which nudged him towards financial catastrophe.

And so, a butterfly fluttered by. A door was broken, another remained unlocked. A post-box was crow-barred open. Life became difficult for me, while an admittedly ineffectual, but otherwise decent man was devastated. Nothing is ever simple.

(NB: This morning, there was a sign, marked urgent, on the post-room door, from our new caretaker: ‘Persons have gained access and levered open the post-boxes, stealing the mail. I have informed the police.’ Then someone delicately explained that it’s been like that for over a year. Bless him for caring, though.)

Sympathy For The Devil

I am surrounded by boxes. My belongings are all packed up and ready to go but I’m wondering about my landlord. ‘William’ is a decent man: jovial, down-to-earth, compassionate and reasonable. Admittedly, he never got round to sorting out those blinds (by the time I had completely lost patience he was obviously going bankrupt) and I always organised repairs, which, while not ideal, hardly adds up to a Rachmanite reign of terror.

William is in trouble. He isn’t stupid, but then neither does he possess a rapier-like business mind; he’s no ruthless, highly driven tycoon. He simply followed accepted wisdom: invest in property. Many others did the same, a decision which has condemned them forever, as serial investors like William are burdened with around £750,000 of debt, if not more. He’ll never repay his creditors. I understand that even when you’re discharged from bankruptcy, they never let you go.

Nor was William unhinged by greed. Like many people he realised that we are all living longer, while the state pension, upon which we reasonably intended to rely, is shrinking by the day. Sensibly (it seemed) he accumulated flats to safeguard his future. Swiftly and easily he expanded his newbuild portfolio until he owned twelve buy-to-let properties. Who financed all those mortgages? The now infamous Northern Rock, that’s who, currently the official Emperors of Repossession, despite having been nationalised.

I may have inadvertently given readers the impression that William was based abroad: he’s not. He lives in a different town, far enough away to explain why he misunderstood the dodgy nature of this particular neighbourhood. When he bought my flat in Dovecot Towers the market was booming. His perhaps cannier friend was purchasing the flat next door, but quietly backed out.

William visited just the once, and gazed approvingly at a then modest building-site opposite, before announcing his ambition to invest there as well. He appreciated that the surrounding area was ear-marked for development, but was never told exactly how many better quality blocks were planned. Obviously, the widespread and ill-timed completion of nicer ‘apartments’ has devalued his stock.

We met recently on neutral ground. He wanted me to stay. I begged him to seek legal advice and stressed the dire nature of Dovecot Towers, emphasising the troubles I’ve detailed here. He was devastated, and actually started to sweat as the magnitude of his predicament hit home. Afterwards, I sent him a formal document detailing the many problems in this building which have decreased its value, intended to support any claim against the idle and ignorant management company if it allowed him to claw something back from this catastrophe.

My compassion is currently under strain, however. William has vanished without providing the promised reference. I know there’s a lot on his mind, but it’s impossible to find a flat without such assurances, and I don’t even know how long I can stay here. The bailiffs could arrive within the next month. I was living in the devil’s own piggy-bank, and somebody has smashed it.