Student housing
I did make a post about this earlier however I didn’t go into much detail due to being a work, I’ve now had the time, we also pay around £2500 a month not including bills and have rather a large deposits with the landlord and yes, we did view it before moving in however student viewings are very short and the majority of issues where not visible
We moved in three days ago, on the 1st of July, and have found the following problems, all of which were present before we arrived:
Mould was present in almost every room, including but not limited to bedrooms, showers, kitchen cabinets, and curtains. We spoke to the landlord about this immediately before even moving our stuff in, which led to a visit from the landlord, where they seemed understanding of the issues and stated that they would be able to fix them as soon as possible. One of the tenants' parents was present, and the landlords seemed extremely polite towards them, which led us to assume they would properly address the issues. However, after one of the tenant's parents left, we cannot say we were greeted with the same understanding for our concerns.
After noticing the property was not maintained to a decent standard, we decided to email pictures to the landlord to create a paper trail. We had concerns over the property not being properly cleaned before our arrival, as we were greeted by copious amounts of dust, clumps of previous tenants' hair, and, to our surprise, the majority of the previous tenants' belongings scattered throughout the house. The landlord stated that the property had received professional cleaning from two different cleaners. As you can see from the photos provided, I cannot believe that to be true.
We asked the landlord to visit the property the day we were moving in, as we did not want to move into the house due to the mould, they became extremely avoidant to give us a time that they would be arriving even when we told them the situation . The landlords did not understand why we wouldn't want to do this, showing no compassion whatsoever. On discovering the black mould spreading throughout the property, particularly in bedroom one, where it was so moldy that every single curtain was stained, including mould on the windows and behind one of the desks, leading us to believe that there could be more mould that had been purposely covered up. I took it upon myself to move the wardrobe. This wardrobe is an Ikea Pax wardrobe. I happen to work in the Ikea customer service department and instantly saw that this wardrobe was not structurally sound at all, with the backboards (the main point of stability) loose, taped together with the screws falling out, causing it to sway when items are put inside or when touched. Almost immediately, I took pictures of said wardrobe and another piece of Ikea's future, which was also not in a safe state, and got advice from Ikea customer service, who confirmed my worries. I then sent pictures and evidence to the landlords, who stated in an email that these would be 'sorted'. Just for a timeline, this all happened on the 2nd of July. Also, on the evening of the 3rd of July, we noticed that the downstairs bathroom tap was leaking constantly. We reminded the landlord that we are actively paying for this, as we do not have bills included, and would need this fixed as soon as possible.
On the 3rd of July, we received correspondence from the landlord stating that a cleaner would come to the property. On arrival, the cleaner stated that they could not clean all the mess within the hours requested by our landlord, further leading us to believe this was not cleaned twice before we moved in. The landlord also came with the cleaner and became extremely patronizing toward one of the tenants' girlfriends, making comments such as "the cleaner will try her best" in a very different tone and with a very different presence than he did toward our male housemate. While the cleaner was there, she cleaned a little bit of the house and, in doing so, pulled out the dishwasher to clean it as it was filthy, leading to not only grime and dust becoming present but also bugs, as seen in the photos below.
Today, the 4th of July, another issue arose: we could not turn on the dishwasher and discovered a leak, which I can only imagine is dishwasher mold buildup from lack of use by previous tenants, judging by the extremely foul smell. Immediately, we contacted the landlord to make him aware of this issue and, hopefully, have him fix it, while also reminding him of the other issues around the house and requesting that he give us dates for the biohazard, such as mould. We were greeted with an email telling us that we are responsible and that we should not have moved the dishwasher. To remind you, it was the cleaner who moved the dishwasher. All things considered, we moved in 3 days ago, and the issues we have are the result of long-term neglect of the property.
As one of our tenants uses an inhalour, to help with her breathing we are particularly concerned for her and would like some advice.