Landlords/letting agents you have had your life ruined by

[Icehaven]

Am I reading this right? The posh landlord is asking the tenant to do up the flat before she leaves?! Fucking hell

Yup. Think the technical term is trying it on big-time. My colleague has absolutely no intention of doing any of it though thankfully, and while she's obviously going to leave the place clean and tidy she's also assuming she's not getting her deposit back, so if she does it's a bonus. I forgot to mention in the first post too that the landlady also smugly said she'd spoken to the letting agents and they'd told her she could probably put the rent up quite a bit, as if she'd been doing her a favour letting her live there for peanuts (which it really wasn't) Her rent has gone up a few times over the years she's been there anyway, it's just the landlady/letting agents seeing a chance to grasp a bit more out of the next tenants. I'm sure having the place spruced up at the previous tenant's expense would help a bit too.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Took our landlords out for lunch today. Felt very wrong, even though they paid.

[doppelkorn]

My landlord is called Bill and he is gonna help me drill a big bike shackle into the garage wall.

The last please we rented it seemed like the agency forgot we existed for about 3 years so we kept our gobs shit.

[king_tubby]

I'm a landlord myself now

Mmmm.

[Sebastian Cobb]

The best landlord I had was Mr Chow. A jolly Chinese albino septuagenarian. He rented us a house that didn't look like it had been furnished since the mid-70's. Faded burgundy and brown were the main colours with a heavy dose of artex. The sofas were this colour of mustardy-yellow that you also see coming out of a dogs bum if you feed them bonio. He offered us the house for 600 quid originally, but my mate offered him an extra 50 a month to smoke in it. 8 years later we were in it, he'd bumped the rent by 50 quid twice and it was fucked. One lad asked him if we could have a dog, he said 'will it be big?' and he replied 'nah it's a puppy', 'ok'.

He came round about 3 times in the whole time, twice to bump the rent and once to say he wanted to decorate or to offer us the chance to do it ourselves and charge the materials back to him. We did the latter; I can now competently paint glosswork. He also let the housemate with the dog throw laminate down to him and send him the bill.

His wife was a bit less nice, she could be seen skulking about behind him cataloguing him a dossier of every mark on the wall which he'd dismiss as wear and tear. 

[Mrs Wogans lemon drizzle]

Mmmm.

?

[mippy]

The arsehole who insisted I cleaned the oven before I moved out, despite it never having been cleaned since before I moved in. He stood over me while I was going to do it - I get really, really uncomfortable when people hover over or behind me, even if they aren't being an arsehole - and when I asked where the stuff was, he said "you should know how to clean an oven." I just wanted to get away from him, so I refused to do it, and he knocked £100 off my deposit. Mr Mippy actually phoned him up and had a go at him when he found out.

The flat was miserable - the other people there never spoke to me, even when I tried to get to know them, and would just go straight to the landlord if they thought I hadn't wiped down a table enough- and I actually warned people who came to look round to take the room, even though landlord said he'd sue me for "breach of contract" if I moved out without filling it. It had mice (landlord denied it, despite me seeing not just evidence of one but one wandering through the living room) no heating in my room (which was an attic room accessed by what I think was a metal fire escape) and he ranted at me for having...too much stuff on my shelf in the fridge, despite me explaining that a) it was just on my shelf, where's the issue b) I worked shifts, I wasn't able to buy food on the day I planned to eat it.

He also photographed my belongings on moving out day, and when I saw and asked why he was doing that, he said 'No I wasn't, I was just testing the camera." At least own up to being a tosser. I also broke my foot in the middle of moving out, so that was fun, particularly as he insisted I move out a week before my new place was ready and I was due to stay at a friend's in the meantime.  The annoying thing was that he kept a room in the house, so we were technically all lodgers, meaning there was fuck all I could do to take it further.

God I never ever want to have to go back to housesharing. If Mr Mippy and I consciously uncouple, I'm taking custody of the tent.

[Man With No Sheds]

I was put off letting agents by the one time I had to use them.

I was looking to move out from a terribly house share and saw an advert either in the paper or pinned up where I was working and went to see it. Lovely basement room in the city centre, close to my work place. The sweet landlady was hard of hearing and would not be easily disturbed by comings and goings. We got on well and she offered me the room but I had to go through this agency first.

Well, no hidden fees I was assured, just pay the deposit, first month's rent - oh, and a fee for us please. Well, I was keen to escape my current hell hole, and the lady at the end of the phone wanted references. Handed a few numbers over, but asked her to be careful with the landlord as his wife was currently in hospital in a critical situation. She (the person on the phone) seemed disturbed by that, and by my questions about why am I paying the deposit and stuff through them and not directly to the land lady and other issues I had in mind. I was told that she was elderly and a little confused and I shouldn't take any notice of what she says. She doesn't understand how these things work... Very dismissive.

I went back to see the landlady as she arranged and she declined to rent me the rom because the agency thought I sounded 'dodgy'.

I was tempted to confront the agency but it was a bit of a distance - an outlying suburb and I am a coward. I also thought about putting a mole killing smoke bomb through their letter box but considered there were probably upstairs lodgers to think about. Ah well.

So I have never gone through an agency since. Not the most exciting of stories I admit, but I tend to learn.

[Sebastian Cobb]

The oddest rental experience I had was for a cheap flat in one of the shittest bits of Aberdeen (Balnagask). When I got there there the place felt moody and there were feral kids running about. The guy said 'yeah it's a bit of a rubbish area but if you keep yourself to yourself I'm sure you'll be fine', then he said he'd have one month's deposit with a credit check or two without. Finally he did a bit of an unconvincing 'I got a phonecall this afternoon with someone putting a blind offer above the asking price, what would you be prepared to pay.

I told him to get bent.

[kngen]

I got my full deposit back in the last three places I lived in London. I should probably contact the Guinness Book of Records or something.

[Sebastian Cobb]

A pals dealer ran a paper thin laundering gig as a property maintenance company. I asked them to clean my flat, and was expecting him to just send round some of the actual cleaners he had on the books. Oh fucking no, 3 terrifying scousers turned up. To be fair they blitzed it and did a better job in an hour than I would've had I spent all weekend.

[canadagoose]

The oddest rental experience I had was for a cheap flat in one of the shittest bits of Aberdeen (Balnagask). When I got there there the place felt moody and there were feral kids running about. The guy said 'yeah it's a bit of a rubbish area but if you keep yourself to yourself I'm sure you'll be fine', then he said he'd have one month's deposit with a credit check or two without. Finally he did a bit of an unconvincing 'I got a phonecall this afternoon with someone putting a blind offer above the asking price, what would you be prepared to pay.

I told him to get bent.

I had a viewing in not-so-far-away Menzies Road once. The main door's lock was broken, the place stank of damp, the carpet in the living room was manky and there was plaster everywhere in the kitchen. I didn't go for it either. £395 a month in 2010, so below market rates at the time, but still crap.

Edit: Found a pic (good old Google Photos). Note the stained mattress and shitty carpet in lobby. Dan Bell would love it.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Hahaha. Later I ended up taking a flat on Victoria Road (near the small spar) for 800 quid a month. It was plush though. But still, torry.

That Campbells bar was ok. Think it's closed now. I used to work in the bookies next to the grampian, and occasionally Oscar Road. So grim.

[kittens]

other day i organised a viewing of a single room bedsit i would never be able to afford. my boss allowed me out of work to go see it, got there on time and they didn't show up. i called them and they informed me the viewing had been cancelled and i would have been notified. i explained i wasn't notified, but they told me that i will have been notified so don't worry about it. immediately i hatched a plan and organised a new viewing. i later cancelled this viewing but i unfortunately failed to notify them. ultimate revenge. i'm sure they had a long hard look at themselves once they realised they had chosen to tangle with the wrong guy.

[kittens]

when i was moving out of my first house in bristol, landlord 'raz' told us he would be taking £200 of our deposit. we drove up to his office and said you are not taking any of our deposit. he said fine and gave us our whole deposit. cheeky bugger was just trying his luck. i'm sure he had a long hard look at himself once he realised he had chosen to tangle with the wrong guy.

[gmoney]

Aww, one day you'll be the right guy kittens.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

when i was moving out of my first house in bristol, landlord 'raz' told us he would be taking £200 of our deposit. we drove up to his office and said you are not taking any of our deposit. he said fine and gave us our whole deposit. cheeky bugger was just trying his luck. i'm sure he had a long hard look at himself once he realised he had chosen to tangle with the wrong guy.

He was only razzing yah!

We are the mods
We are the mods
We are we are we are the mods

[Sebastian Cobb]

I imagine one of the best parts of being a landlord is hectoring your prospective tenants. Powerplay innit.

[mothman]

Letting agency I used in Sussex a couple of times always required one months deposit plus £100. That was basically to cover cleaning costs and you wouldn't get it back no matter how spotless the place was left. You could even use their approved cleaners - at your own added expense, of course - and they'd still find something to justify keeping the £100.

That's the worst I've got. Sheltered life, obviously.

[king_tubby]

Scum. Sub-human scum.

[mothman]

Who? Me, or the landlords?

[alan nagsworth]

I used to live in a house that was part of a terrace, converted from an old school house. A big U-shaped building, about five houses in it, ours being the central one with the old bell tower on the roof. It was all relatively fine except the growing damp/mould in the hallway that the landlord couldn't be arsed to fix.

Anyway, three days after we moved out, the bell tower was struck by lightning and all the sockets in the houses blew out of the walls. Apparently it fucked a lot of the appliances plugged in in the other houses as well. Maddest thing. The landlord tried pinning the damage on us! Obviously we called bullshit but the dispute took six months through the DPS before we got our fucking money back. People can be utterly ruthless and vile.

[Glebe]

How do we know you didn't have a Bond villian kinda weather control machine, Nags?

[Twed]

Our big corrupt asbestos-burying, mold-denying, lead-dust-speading cover-up merchant property owners are manufacturing a fake pest control situation to give kickbacks to their preferred contractors this week.

Them, Friday: "Can a pest control person please inspect your apartment? The neighbors have reported a pest issue."
Me: "OK."

They came, I asked them about the situation and they had no idea about it BECAUSE IT WAS A LIE and kicked two floor panels on one side of the large apartment to make it look like they were doing anything.

Them: "Do you have any bug problems?"
Me: "Nope! I saw maybe two caterpillars six months ago, pretty normal."
Them: "Well, that just means two moths a few months later! Ho ho ho"

Property management, today: "WE NEED TO ACCESS YOUR APARTMENT AND PUT DOWN MEASURES TO COMBAT YOUR CATERPILLAR PROBLEMS".

Fuck off. Stay out. Don't poison my cat. Utter cunts.

This company is HUGE. They are a prime example of rampant corporatism and I am ashamed that I was seduced into renting from them by a big kitchen space.

EDIT: UGH, I have to leave work and go clean up the pizza box I left out now, don't I? Because they'll fucking claim it's bug food.