u/Adept_Razzmatazz1145

Hi, I'm very new to this and looking at options for adding some smart features to my place. I really like the variety of things Tapo offers and in particular I hope to buy motion and door sensors, as well as a door camera.

But right now what I really need is something to smart-ify my heating controls and I can't see any nice option from Tapo. Can anyone share what they have done? (preferably using only this platform and not using an integration with Home Automation or any others)

Currently the heating is controlled by a very simple and old analogue APT clock timer.

Does the BER number submitted to RTB on registering a tenancy matter?

Property is E1 ~300kwh/m2/yr but they have put it down as 150, which would be C1. (Recent date of 2024 on BER cert)

Is this a sneaky way to get around rent setting rules or am I overthinking it?

ok I know the answer has a lot to do with the market and landlords or agents don’t have to prove themselves in a market that is oversaturated with tenants. But a few recent interactions have left me thinking I wish I could verify this person with their previous tenant.

It‘s the kind of thing that would just get you instantly disqualified if you asked for it but if it was legislated that they had to present you with a referance or at least contact details of the previous tenant when asking for your tenant references, it would avoid finding out down the line that they are totally nuts, overbearing, made zero effort to fix things, made issues about deposit return, tried illegal things in relation to termination of tenancy.

I know in a market like we currently have most people wouldn’t be able to rule out a place because of a shitty landlord or agent but I’m sure there are some of us that would rather wait and verify than be stuck with a nightmare for 12 months or more.

Like why is it a one way street?

Just having a bit of a vent as a rental that seemed like it would work for me fell through, and we're going to have to continue living in Airbnb until we can secure something.

Have been in airbnb for getting on for 7 months now and I worry as the good weather starts to arrive, the prices will just go way up, out of what I can pay. My whole salary is going on Airbnb currently and luckily we are surviving with what my partner is earning but it can't continue forever.

This particular rental had lots of red flags and actually wasn't perfect by any means but in this current market you have to just keep moving forward with caution, even when things don't feel 100%. Was offered the place a few days after viewing but it all did seem a bit shifty; the owner would make the decision initially on who would get it, but then somehow wasn't really involved, and we would never meet them. It was also unclear how the person showing the place was connected with the owner but also wasn't an official letting agent. A Google search reckoned it would be a good and reasonable idea to ask for some documentation showing they were acting on owners behalf and for them to show proof of identity along with that, when we were going to hand over the money. This caused them to blow up at us and then basically it all fell apart.

For reference, we've only been trying to secure a more permanent place for approx. a month, and although we have viewed a number of places, and are not exactly picky - but yet do want to make sure the place will work for us as we will be committing to 12 months or more, but the amount of places we have seen that are absolute dumps, dealing with scummy unprofessional agents, trying to dodge scams, as well as the astronomical prices of places; it is just an absolute horrible place to be looking for accommodation in this country right now.

Difficult to keep your head up in the face of all this. With all that being said, we both have good jobs and are exactly what most landlords want in terms of tenants and are still finding it this difficult, I can only imagine what it is like for those in this country that are less fortunate. What an absolute mess.

Looking at a private rental from daft, a private individual with a gmail address. Viewed property but was shown it by a private individual that was not the owner and will not get to meet the owner.

What are some things that can be done to make sure I don’t get rightly scammed here?