Buy To Let Landlords And Tenants From Hell

Date Published:

06/06/2008

Renting can be a perfectly pleasant experience for both landlord and tenant, but this is what happens when it does all go wrong.

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'We always knew our landlord was dodgy, but on the day we moved out, he really tried to stiff us. We ended up leaving earlier than planned, meaning that our BT line was still connected. About a month later we get the bill from our former flat and it's for hundreds of pounds more than we expected. Our lovely ex-landlord had decided it was a good idea to use our phone to call his relatives in Afghanistan. We then had to fight to convince BT that none of us knew anyone in Afghanistan.' Peter, London

'I was living with two girlfriends in a shared flat, and our old landlord would just arrive unannounced, let himself in and use the loo whenever he felt like it.' Alison, Birmingham

'My old landlord would put up the rent every six months, arguing that the demand was so high that he had people queuing to rent the flat. He made it sound like Xanadu or something when there were hookers on the corner and dealers in every shop front. He also made us use gas and electricity meters which cost an arm and a leg.' A.M, Manchester

'Our landlord lived upstairs, and was just LOUD. He once had a party completely unannounced, which ended up with about thirty people Irish dancing above our heads at 3.00am. When we moved on he tried to charge us for the damage his party had done to the ceiling plaster.' Alba, Liverpool

'Our old flat was above the letting agents, who were all real Alice-band Sloane types. When we moved out they insisted that we have the carpets washed, which was a bit cheeky, because they were in a good state and they certainly weren't cleaned before we moved in. We agreed anyway, and the head Sloane said she'd get a quote from a local company. The quote came back as nearly £500.00. We told them to stuff it but they withheld our deposit until we had the work done. In the end we bought a washer/vacuum thingy from Argos and did the whole job for about £80.00.' Carmen, South London

'The loo in our shared flat just stopped working, so we contacted the landlord. He came to look straight away and said he'd fix it, but not to let anyone else touch it. A week later and he still hadn't. Two of the girls just went back to their Mum's but luckily I knew the people in the flat next door who let me use their loo. When he refused to get off his backside and do something about it we told him we wouldn't pay any rent until he did and wouldn't pay for the time that the flat had been basically uninhabitable. He still didn't do anything and started making threatening noises. Two weeks later, we all moved out. Then the idiot took us to court for the rent he said we owed him. The judge threw out his complaint, made him pay our legal costs and asked him how he dared waste court time.' N, Egham

'When we decided to rent this flat it had way too many wardrobes, especially as it had this really cool, really deep walk in wardrobe for storage. We said we'd take the flat as long as we could have some of the wardrobes removed and the landlord agreed. On the day we moved in, the wardrobes were nowhere to be seen and the flat was just as we wanted it. Until that is we opened up the really cool walk-in wardrobe only to find the landlord had stuff all the other wardrobes in there.' Pritti, Brighton.

'I went to look at a flat where the landlady lived on the same floor. She was from a show business background and a bit eccentric, and I had a sneaking suspicion she fancied me, but it was a nice flat so I arranged a second viewing. When I got there she'd covered almost every flat surface in the flat with books open on pages of either dead or naked, sleeping people, and kept insisting on me looking at them. I didn't take the flat.' Chris, Derby