House Troubles

[jenepel]

This is a rant, and I just want to preface this by saying - only in London.  Well, maybe that isn't true, but I so feel like it is.

So, as you may know, I moved into my new place last weekend.  It's kind of a weird situation, because it is massively under construction.  She took the chance to renovate when all but one of her renters (my friend Andy) moved out, and it's a pretty big job.  All new kitchen, taking all the carpets out and varnishing the original wood floors underneath, new lighting in most rooms, painting all the rooms, etc.  I'd say at this point it is about 75% done.  The whole time it's been being worked on, Andy has been working on getting new people to live there - he's done all the work, she hasn't put out any ads or contacted anyone at all.  So the understanding was that he was going to manage the place (with slightly reduced rent) and then just report to her about everyone.  Fine.  And that while it was still under construction, we weren't paying rent yet - which is a pretty sweet deal, I must admit.  But Anna (A's gf), David (A's bro) and I needed a place to move in as of this week, so that was okayed by the landlady.

So a ton of things have happened this past week.  Most importantly, landlady had a fight with the builders about how they were skiiving off, not really working as many hours as they said, etc.  Nothing to do with us.  So she changed the locks on them and refused to pay the rest of their money.  So then it comes about that she doesn't plan to hire more builders, just have herself and her partner finish the job, with help from us.  This is happening toward the end of the week, and I go home to my parents' for the weekend since I have these concert tickets in Norfolk.

Andy calls me today to say "don't bring anything else up to move in, we're having problems with landlady".  Riiight.  First of all, she tells him we have to pay rent starting on Monday.  Let me emphasize at this point that my bedroom isn't even ready yet.  David (who I met last week) and I are sharing a room that also has all the crap in it from two of the other rooms that are being worked on.  He is very kindly giving me the bed and sleeping on the floor, but still.  So, full rent on Monday.  Then she tells him that we can't have five people living there as we wanted to (for lower rent) because she wants to use the 4th bedroom as storage.  Notice I said 4th bedroom, not 5th.  She wants access to that bedroom, and then she wants to charge us rent on a 4 bedroom house when we would only be renting 3 of them (Andy and Anna sharing a room) plus she wants to do it through a management company which hikes the rent more.  So we are looking at about £150 more a month then before.  For you Americans, right now that's a $300 increase.  It means that I would pay almost $1200 a month for a ROOM in a house plus a shared kitchen, living room and one bathroom.  Riiiight.  She also says that we aren't helping out with the renovations enough - the woman wants us to pay full rent for a house that isn't even ready yet and also paint, clean and sort it out for her?  CRAZY.  The worst thing is that almost every demand she is making is a renig of an older agreement with Andy about the house.

So, he has a discussion with her about all this, and she pretty much doesn't listen to anything he says.  Andy is a really level headed guy - very calm and rational, always easy going.  So he's a good person for this confrontation.  But she just won't listen.  So he's written her a letter for her to get today with our side of it all.  To whit, we are willing to pay half-rent until it is completely done, we will live only four people to the house and let her use the storage room, but only if the rent is reduced, he will manage the house for her as agreed before (saving her 17% in agents fees btw), and we will even help out with the renovations if all this is agreed on.  To me, it's quite a decent deal.  And if she's not willing to at least work with us, then we are going to have to start looking for a new place.  What a pain in the ass.

I really hate house-hunting.  And I was just happy that we had everything sorted.  I had house-mates I was happy with, the place is nice, it's near a tube that's a decent commute for me (35-45 mins), etc etc.  The price was more than I wanted to pay, but I was willing to live with that to live with friends and not have to look any further.  So now we have to maybe start looking again, and not only that, but it's harder to look for a place all together like this.  So I might end up just renting out a room somewhere random on my own - totally not what I wanted to do.  UGH!  I just can't stand people who go back on their word like this - you shouldn't have to make people sign a statement every time they make a comment about how things are going to be.  And she says we are trying to jerk her around?!  Whatever.

Updates on this whenever I next have info or the energy to write it out.

Comments

[adinarj.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry, Jenn. That's a really sucky situation. May it calm down and work out to your preference soon.

[jenepel.livejournal.com]

Thanks :) I am hopeful that we'll get a good response to the letter. If not, well, we are going to try looking for a place as a group, so that's positive at least.

[pink-hammer.livejournal.com]

What a bitch this landlady is! I guess one of the problems is that she sounds like she could continue to be a pain if you continue to live there. I guess once there was a lease in place though, there would only be so much she could do. Good luck!

[jenepel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that is another consideration. Andy has been dealing with her for about two years now and he says she's just really unpredictable. I think he may be ready to be done with her now.