An anonymous resident of the house came to Vision to speak about his term from hell, claiming that the landlord left the five bedroom property with just “one habitable bedroom,” sent abusive text messages, allowed a downstairs street-facing window to remain smashed and unprotected for two nights and took tenants’ personal property into the garden.
However, the landlord has also voiced his grievances over the behaviour of the tenants and their treatment of the house. He told Vision that he disagrees “strongly” with their claims, and that there was “damage caused by the tenants to the front and rear of the property, living room, bedrooms, firedoors.”
The anonymous student claims that the only damage caused to the property was “a nail in the wall,” however, the landlord has provided Vision with photo evidence of the state of the house, including smashed locks, a broken stair rail and the lighting in the living room being removed and replaced with a “UV lighting effect for parties.”
The house was originally let to five students, however one moved out during the autumn term after leaving the University. The resident claims that “the remaining four tenants agreed that the landlord could undertake renovation work in one of the bedrooms so long as it was finished before the Christmas holidays,” however, they returned to find work being done in two of the bedrooms, with another two being used for storage, leaving just one habitable bedroom.
Tenants were forced to sleep on the floor in the living room because of the state of the bedrooms. “My room, as well as other rooms, was full of furniture from other rooms in the house,” the student told Vision. “I didn’t have a bed, so he just threw a base and a mattress in there.”
The landlord has also begun work in the living room. “In the last few days he’s come in and re-floored the lounge with no consent,” he said.
However, the landlord claims that the work he is doing on the house is agreed work, which took place out of term time.
“The work stated was agreed, in writing, in advance, outside term time,” he told Vision. “The agreement was that if the tenants vacated over term time the outstanding arrears would be written off. The tenants returned early and partied in the living room with work going on around them. [The anonymous student’s] room is in the state it is in because of him, no one else.
“I have had to get my family into the property to clean the kitchen over two days, over christmas, because it was so foul.”
Vision spoke to the landlord of the house which was let by the student and his co-tenants during the 2011-12 academic year, who described them as “the worst nightmare of any students I’ve had; absolutely horrendous.
“Doors were knocked off and I had to have a new bathroom put in because of the state of the tiles,” he said. “There was human excrement on the walls.
“I am still trying to put the house right now. It all started from day one.
“The tenancy finished on the 1st August and I didn’t get [the student’s] rent until the 7th. It should have been paid three months prior.”
The student responded via email: “The door of the old house came of on the second day we moved in, it was lose and he came aqnd replaced it willingly and put a lighter more suited door on, it was comming off when we moved in and he new this and did not complane at the time. and we are still trying to get depposit back from that house, there was no mentiron of human wast on the walls when he wrote to me and he is complanning about the mold on the tiles, wich was thereas he did not put an exstrackter fan in wich he promised. The old house did not have a fence in the back garden, despite constant promises from the landors to put one up, we where l;eft completerly oped to the nabures and they too complaned to the old landlord about it, The old rent was only a month, he was informed it would eb late and didnt mind at the time.” (sic).
The tenants have been in contact with Adam Bennett, the campus based letting agent through which they rented the house, the City of York Council and the Police about their issues with the property and the landlord, but the student does not feel the complaints have been taken seriously enough.
“We feel abandoned by the police,” he told Vision, “we were left with a smashed window for two nights, it wasn’t a secure property at all.”
The problems started arising at the beginning of this term: “After Christmas it started escalating extremely fast,” said the resident; “we had to go to the police as we were getting quite concerned about his behaviour.”
He went on to make further claims about the experiences of him and his house mates at the property. On January 5; “there was an argument between the landlord and my house mate,” he said. “My house mate was taking photos of the uninhabitable rooms on his phone and the landlord stole his phone and ran down the street with it. My house mate started chasing him and the landlord’s mum, who was also there, was shouting at him to give back the phone.”
He also told Vision how: “I was in the library for one hour and I had loads of missed calls from him,” whilst he has also received several personally abusive texts. These texts include: “Answer the phone you dick,” “I hate you cun” (sic), and “Stop taking drugs, pay your rent and don’t destroy other people’s property,” whilst another refers to a housemate as “that Canadian fuck.”
The student continued: “he’ll be really calm and then completely and utterly crazy. He told my friend ‘you personally smell’ and you’re the worst person ever’.”
He went on to describe how on both January 12 and 13: “I got back to the house and found my bike had been moved out of the cupboard and chucked in the garden. It’s not at all secure out there. It’s not acceptable that he can just throw personal belongings outside.”
Landlords must be vetted by the council and go through CRB and fit and proper person checks to secure a licence for a three storey property such as this one. The house appears on the council’s website as a licenced property.
“The Citizen’s Advice Bureau are also good sources of advice.”
YUSU Welfare Officer Bob Hughes said on the matter: “If any student has any complaint similar to this, or even just about the conduct of their landlord, we would encourage them to speak to YUSU and the University’s support services to get advice about how to proceed as these can be incredibly tricky situations.
Rather than rely on the Housing in Multiple Occupation Licensing scheme which yet again appears to be ineffective and just another funds way of raising for City of York Council, landlords and tenants would be much better getting proper references before entering into any agreements.
Paragraph 13 has enough spelling and grammatical mistakes to completely undermine the university’s credibility as an academic instiution. The majority of primary school children could avoid making many of those mistakes!
If it was a joke to mock the quality of the Vision editorial process then I think it is worryingly correct.
@Paul M: That’s a sic comment man (sic).
I’m guessing (hoping) that the poor spelling in the article (NOT the comments section) comes from a foreign student.
Or perhaps a mathematician.
Paul M, it may be the case that the person who made those comments is dyslexic, and gained a place at uni for their intelligence regardless of their ability to express themselves in an email. Snobbery from people like you is far more likely to undermine the reputation of the university, and exclude academic talent.
As for the story, the landlord sounds like a complete swindler.