Be Excellent To Each Other

I have just got my house back for renting out, and the fuckers have done a bit of damage the fuckers.

I will list it later, just about to move the last load of stuff from my house....

The Bathroom:-
The shower mirror is broken, had to replace it.
The wash basin is not fully attached to the wall, it was before.
The tiles next to the bath have been damaged.
The Shower rail has been broken where it fits to that wall
The Shower head has been damaged and placed in the bottom of the airing cupboard.
Holes have been drilled in the bathroom
Bathroom cabinet pulled off the wall

The landing:-
Something has been glued to he wall and removed leaving large sticky mark.
There are nails all over the walls
Paint has been chipped back to plaster.
Mirror removed.
Light fixing removed (found damaged in the shed).

Main bedroom:-
Holes behind the curtain rail and mounts moved.

Lounge:-
Blind broken as it was not fixed to the window properly. (it was when I fitted all the blinds)
Big scratch on the wall (4 to 5 inch)
Glue on the wall.

Dining Room:-
Paint removed in 4 big areas.
Wall light removed (found damaged in the shed).
Stained curtains.

Kitchen:-
Nails in the walls.

Fuckers.

This weekend I'm going to be sticking my head into my flat for the first time in about five years so it'll be curious to see if there's any surprises waiting for me. The letting agent still needs to do the final review against the inventory and all that jazz next week though so I'll let them take care of it for the most part and, if there is anything, I assume they'll take it up with the ex-tenant.

2 damged lights (found them in the shed)

Bathroom,

Broken shaving mirror.
Broken tiles
Sink away from wall slightly
Cabinet pulled from wall.
Broken shower head
broken shower rail.

They are not getting deposit back.

I've just spent £300 on a new oven for my house up north, as the glass "fell out" of the current one...

Don't think you can do that, Kov. You can deduct reasonable costs for repairs and expenses from the deposit, but you can't withhold it completely.

The estate agent recommended withholding all of it. If I was to rent it out again it will take a lot of work.

Only in the bathroom though, maybe they just had a really bad curry one night.

I have not listed the rest of the house

Go on... Is it worse than the 100 carrier bags of dog shit in the back garden, and a kitchen that they used as a dog kennel and let the dog piss and shit on the floor whenever it wanted?

Current tenants are ok, but I hate being a landlord.

I thought mine were ok.

They are all ok, until the time between the last inspection and the time that they actually leave, it seems.

Why don't you sell up then? I'm sure someone else would love to get their foot on the ladder, rather than 90% of property being owned by the 1% like you. Capitalist scum.

Because the house is worth less than the mortgage, a situation caused by you socialist bastards, no doubt. It would have all been ok if everybody just kept spending money they didn't have.

Provided it will cost you the full deposit amount to get all of the work done, fair enough.

If not, then your estate agent is a lying scumbag.

Actually, that goes without saying really doesn't it?

Broken fencing, repainting most of the house, etc

Of course the socialist view is to increase the level of properties to rent, you fascist.

edited op

That actually happened to the oven in the flat I rent. It's a cheap piece of shit and a retaining clip just sheared away.

That also happened to an oven door that I used to have in London. It was a nice Miele oven that I was very fond of, but one day the glass door just fell to the floor. It was blinking scary as it was hot at the time, and wall mounted, so fell from a relative height.

They were very good and replaced it quickly, though, and offered me an alternative style of door if I wished, too.

It's annoying as i'm 250 miles away so can't go check myself, I've had a local maintenance guy go out and take a look and he has said the oven needs replacing as it can't be fixed.

£200 for a new oven, £100 for him to buy it, fit it and take the old one away.

Considering it would cost me £100 in fuel to get up there and back, and it still might need a new oven after that, and someone to fit it if I couldn't pick up one locally on the day I was up there, £300 to get it sorted and end up with a new oven under guarantee isn't awful.

Assume you had some sort of bond that you can use to help cover the damage???

yes sorting that out now

Make sure you take photos.

i have, thanks

Not of you in a dress.

dammit...

I can sympathise Kovacs. I retook possession of my house this year after 3 years of tenants, and didn't quite appreciate the extent of the damage until I'd had a closer look.

Highlights:

Missing bathroom cabinet which they'd replaced with a mirror. Initially they were confused as to what happened to it, and then said they thought it might have been damaged when they took it off the wall to have the bath installed (which I also part-paid for). Wall-mounted toiler roll holder also disappeared in the same event. I charged them 50% of the cost of a new cabinet (don't know why I was so generous).

Bedside table disappeared. Eventually admitted they might have taken it 'by accident' and offered to bring it back after I'd already been down to clear my stuff out.

Dyson vaccum similarly AWOL. DC07 model, which they then replaced with a refurb DC01....

They'd put all of my decent crockery and kitchen furnishings in the loft, and on moving out dumped it all in the upstairs bedroom, filthy, instead of cleaning it and putting it back.

Oven and hob a true nightmare. Months of burned on shit that had to be removed with a bladed scraper. Rest of the kitchen a complete mess - they'd just taken all their shit out, dumped anything they didn't want to take with them and didn't clean the insides of anything. They didn't even think to pull out of the free-standing fridge to hoover behind it. It was gross.

I'd let them repaint and paper all the rooms, on the understanding that they'd be obligated to revert them to neutral colours on move out. They just ripped their shitty paper off the wall and repainted with a single coat at night, making it look so completely shit-handed. Didn't take any care with skirting boards so they were also covered with paint. Carpet also paint-stained.

They went predictably nuclear when I told them I would be taking up to £300 for the cost of missing items and cleaning, and I was ridiculously fair and precise when it came to the cost of replacing things with like for like alternatives. Generally because I knew things were old, I was being *far* too relaxed about much of it, and I deeply regret not taking their entire damn deposit.

Finally, they'd laid carpet over my laminate in the lounge, but assured me at the time it 'just lifted off', so I was fine with that. Except it didn't lift off, it was fucking glued down, so the attempt to lift it merely resulted in lots of glue + fluff all over my laminate. Not wanting to face the job of trying to get a glue thinner to clean it up, I put the carpet back down. Turns out they'd also removed the beading from around the edges of the room and thrown it in the shed, so if I had lifted the carpet there'd be a gap all around the outside of the laminate between the wall. I realised this only after they'd moved and part-deposit had been repaid.

I made a point of not being the typical 'say no to everything' landlord because I hate those rigid twats that don't let you make a place feel like yours by not letting you put so much as a pin in the wall. I now regret that, and should I have the unfortunate necessity to rent anywhere out again, I'll be as strict as anyone else, and have no fear in taking the full deposit where things are left a mess.

This is why I never rent my house to anyone...not matter how long I'm away for.

I know it's not economically sensible but I can't bear the ball ache and nagging fear about what they are doing while I am away.

Had a look at my flat this morning; I hadn't set foot in it for about five years beforehand. It was gratifyingly spotless and had all the stuff in it that I'd left it with. Granted it only had a single tenant in all that time but still, she was obviously awesome as it looks almost exactly the same as it did when I first moved out. When I move in I'll want to get the a few things sorted (new carpet in the bedroom which it needed even before I moved out; new lino in the bathroom to replace the cheap shit I put in there previously; get A Man In to just repaint all the woodwork as it hasn't been done since before I even first bought the place and is thus understandably needing retouched) but aside from that it's good to go and I'm gobsmacked by how conscientious the tenant has been. Even the initial sets of bedding I'd left for her (which I'm guessing she never used) were waiting in the bedroom in a neatly folded pile as if no time had passed at all. Sorted!

In your faces, other landlords!

Good tenants are worth their weight in gold. My landlady knows about that, and offered me £60 off my rent on renewal just to make sure I didn't try to go anywhere

While it is tempting to spread faeces all over the walls, I have so far managed to resist.

Make sure to smear "ONLY £60?!".

I also had to somewhat insist that she protect my deposit, required by law, and even then she failed to do it on time. Pros and cons....

Actually we currently have no signed paperwork for my continuing lease, which puts her in a much weaker position than me. Ho hum.

My tenant just renewed for 12 months. The inspection by the letting agency used the words "clean and tidy", which can't be bad

Is everyone on this forum a landlord? Crazy...

I suspect the housing market crash created a lot of unwilling landlords as it left people with properties they literally couldn't afford to sell so when a life event (e.g. moving locations for a job; moving into a different place with a new partner) takes you out of that property you either start renting it out or resign yourself to losing loads of money every month. In fact technically the latter isn't even viable as buildings insurance will typically require that the property isn't empty for more than a month at a time (or some such period) so someone needs to be in it or you're taking a massive risk. The whole situation's pish and makes me want to kill people.

Indeed. We were very much unwilling landlords and still are. We were in a 2-bed semi which was fine for the two of us plus MiniPaz, but when MicroPaz came along, we had to move. After 6 months on the market, we had no offers and pretty much had no choice. Luckily, we had enough to finance the move without the equity from the house sale, but it's meant for a very tight few years.

If the tenant hadn't resigned for another 12 months, we would've been looking to sell again. It's just not viable to keep an empty house dangling.

Right?!

Yep, same deal. Not worth selling at the point I wanted to move. I'm just finishing up selling it now but it hasn't been a cash cow.

More like rationalising it wasn't the world's best buy but fuck it, and moving on with life.

Heh, the thought of my house being a cash cow...
Even when it is rented out it costs me £400 a month, when it isn't rented out it costs me £900 a month.

My tenants moved out in January... mortgage + council tax (Manchester city council, the fucks, only give you one month free if it's unoccupied and unfurnished with no other discount, not even single persons!) + basic electric bills for 6 months... yeah, that's not the most financial fun I've ever had.

All of this. With the added insult of the immediate neighbours waiting for the estate agents to leave then going outside and telling prospective tenants what a rough area it is and how vicious the neighbours dogs are etc. Now have to take a day off work to have a meeting with area housing officer about harassment. Ugh.

The fuck? That's an awful thing to happen. I'm really sorry to hear that. I hope it gets sorted. And soon.

Thanks Mali, it's been quite stressful recently. May bore you all with the full story at some point for my own catharsis.

Yeah do, who are these meddlesome bastard neighbours of yours? Sheesh.

Selfish, small minded, nothing better to do with their days than watch JK and meddle in other people's business type people unfortunately.

\
They're watching me again!

The tenants have admitted the damage etc, and are willing to give me 50% of the deposit. Teh estate agent seems to think that is fair...

Surely it comes down entirely and only to how much it would cost to get the damage fixed? Get a quote from someone and that's your number.