My landlord was new to the game. I was her first tenant, it was my first time renting. On moving day in she said: “oh my god it’s an honor! I’ve been stressing out about your apartment with my husband, wanting to make it as if it were my own kids moving in”…
When I got in, the floors were covered with plaster dust, the windows were grimey and the bathroom window was jammed open… Worse yet? The bathroom door didn’t close because the door frame didn’t have the latch hole.
In the weeks following moving in? The flat (she owned the building) above had a shower leak above my only electric heater, so I emailed her, asking her to fix it. She said a workman would come the next day. He didn’t. In the end? I took 2 fucking weeks to get someone to fix it, despite all the electrical fire hazards.
The following month, the kitchen sink developed a leak over the electric hot water heater… Again, I alerted her to it, and a workman took 5 weeks to come over and fix it, after many many emails.
To top it all off? My neighbours flats living room backed onto my bedroom. He was also a selfish dickhead who had a gigantic sound system in his flat. It was so loud you could literally feel the bass through your feet at the opposite end of the apartment. My landlord did fuck all about it, and eventually he started doing it during the night too.
Her workmen would dump piles of discarded wood in the main stairwell, which I’m almost certain is illegal for fire safety reasons. This junk would be there for 4 weeks before being cleaned.
Just before I left… The stairways for the flat access were made out of metal. Think those fire escape stairs you see in the alleyways of those old buildings in New York. The bottom step was above the concrete stairs toward th cellar… one day I stepped on the bottom step and it fucking bounced. I realised that it was cut off at one end, it clearly broke. So I spent time making fliers and hanging them all throughout the stair well to warn everyone. Talking to all the other tenants if I could. I then rang my landlord. It took 5 days to fix, even though it could have killed someone.
When I left my apartment in immaculate condition (cleaner than when I moved in), she had the absolute fucking nerve to charge me £300 for “cleaning fees” (my deposit was 500). I asked her what it was for, and that I could find her cleaners far cheaper… but also what was such an awful mess, esp after the deep clean I gave it.
By this point, I had joined a tenant union. I spoke with them and they advised me to get back in touch with her, asking for an itemised bill of precisely what needed cleaning and restoring and why. And that I was talking to my tenant union. No response… 2 weeks later? I got my deposit back AND an extra £100. Take that, landlord scum.
Remember: there’s power in a union. Also? Don’t forget to try and keep all your communications with your landscum on record. Anything they say off the record? They can escape accountability from. Plus, if legal action occurs? You’ll have a nice long paper trail of evidence to fuck them over with.