Pleasure. I hope this helps you in the long run. You’re right you’ve been hard done by. I hate bad landlords. Gives all the hard working ones a bad reputation!

Jeremy

thanks again for your reply, I understand where you are coming from and didn’t realise I was coming across like that. I’m not a victim by nature, and I hate bullies, I guess I was just feeling hard done by for doing the right thing.

You are right, I should leave it all behind when I go and start afresh with new opportunities. I am looking forward to the new move and it won’t be long now.

Many thanks for your opinion, greatly appreciated it, kind of helped me set my mind for the future. :-)

Do you mind if you some advice not with my landlord hat on but more from my phychology background.

I perceive you are getting into a victim mentailty on this issue. You are wondering if he’s actively bullying you. Not just being a rubbish person who’s ignoring you. You’re seething it will be YOUR money paying for the window. Rather than the money the landlord happens to have in his pocket when the windows are paid for. Who knows where that money has come from: You, other tenants, maybe he’s a part time landlord with a full time job and the money has come form that.

And a lot of this is backward looking. Because you’ve had three years of being looked after shoddily you think you’ve created an entitlement to be looked after well now: “I want some justice in this”.

People with victim mentality are at risk of having some problems in life:
- Live in the past;
- Recover badly / long time from set backs;
- Can continue petty greivences / feuds with people

I’m not suggesting this is what you’re like, it’s risks you face in life which will prevent you enjoying things as much as possible.

My suggestion would be to accept that your rubbish windows over the past three years is as a result of two things:
1 – Your landlord has not done them;
2 – You have not had the right negotiation skills to persuade him to replace.

So it’s both your faults. Do you want to develop those skills? You might say: No. Right then, this landlord is not for me. I am going to leave him. He is going to lose a brilliant tenant. His next tenant is going to be pants, they’ll be late with the rent and trash the place before disappearing. I’m going to use this expereince to ask the right up-front questions and do the right negotiations to find a good landlord next time.

What’s been good about this house. My son got a good education from a school he could never have attended if we’d had to buy instead of rent. So in the long term, my son wil have a more ewarding career and better freinds because I stuck with some cold and high gas bills. I have endured things to provide for my offspring. I am a brilliant parent.

So to more practical matters: If you’re leaving in June and you’ve got no traction on this issue in the past three years, only you can decide how much more effort you want to put into it. But please base that decision on how much the new windows would mean to you in the future rather than how much you deserve tham because what has happened in the past.

thanks for your prompt reply, the only reason I have stayed in my property for this length of time, is that my son is in secondary school in the area and it took me a while to get him in there, at the same time we had just moved into this house, I didn’t think there would be any problems with it. My initial plan was to move on again after my son left school, which will be soon. The point I would like to make is, after I have gone, the landlord will put new windows in for someone else, but not for me who has paid her rent every month, (I wonder sometimes if it’s because I’m a single woman with a child and he thinks he can bully me? – the lettings agents is run by women too – just a thought that he might be a bit of a pig?)

I just think it’s unfair, that someone else should have the benefit of new windows when I asked nearly 3 years ago. I did write to the landlord directly with photos for him to see (in case the lettings agents weren’t passing on the message for some reason or other), I’ve pretty much been down every avenue with this.

Should I make him still do the windows and still go just to have made him do what he should have done first time I asked or should I leave it? I’m due to be moving around June latest this year.

I want some justice in this, I’ve paid the landlord my dues and he’s done nothing, is it worth bothering? Sorry for waffling on
:-)

Your opinion is greatly appreciated.

If your supermarket sold you horrible food would you shop somewhere else? If your mobile phone provider messed you about, would you switch to a new supplier?

This is a consumer society: Customers vote with their feet and refuse to use bad suppliers.

A bad landlord won’t bother to replace the window. A mediocre landlord will replace the window. A good landlord will have a plan of property maintenance (in this case regular repainting) so the window never gets bad in the first place.

Leave this house and go and find a new one to live in. I’m absolutely astonished that you’re now into your third year of letting when you think your landlord is not looking after you. Because moving is a labourous process, can I suggest that at your next visit to your letting agent you take a letter which contains photos highlighting the bad points of the window and says:
- You have had to live with this for three years and will not tolerate it any longer;
- If a new window has not be installed to your full satisfaction by date x then you’ll be leaving;
- Remind the landlord that he’ll have a void period. And no sensible tenant would move in with the window in this state.
- So the landlord’s got a choice of replacing the window now, whilst he’s got an income to cover the cost and suffer no void period or replacing it when he has no income and suffering a void period.

Don’t be scared about him evicting you. Why are you scared of being evicted from a house which is making cold and poor?

I hope these thoughts help you. Please let us know how you get on.

Thanks for replying. Are you working with TwoFour, or someone with an interest? If you are a TwoFour employee then thanks for confirming you’re not going to tar all landlords as being bad. That’s good of you.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression over what I’m annoyed about. I am not annoyed about exposing bad landlords, if fact that’s a really good thing. I’m annoyed at the probability that the format will be something like:
- Lots of pictures of some awful conditions;
- A dub-over commentary giving the back story;
- Interview with tenant, so we can see just how much misery the landlord’s heaped on them;
- Doorsetp the Landlord, who tries to escape the camera crew shoving a microphone under his nose.

The enduring image is of some dodgy looking bloke scarpering off in a big old jag.

Ask the casual viewer to summarise the half hour programme in one sentance and you’ll get “All Landlords are scum”.

But if the format was more like:
- Lots of pictures of some awful conditions;
- A dub-over commentary giving the back story;
- Interview with tenant, so we can see just how much misery the landlord’s heaped on them;
- The programme’s resident good landlord confirms this is atrocious treatment; tells landlords what they should do if they get this problem and tenants what to do to make their landlord act;
- Doorsetp the Landlord, who tries to escape the camera crew shoving a microphone under his nose.

The people who are being effected by similar problems may be empowered to act, which would be a really good thing for them. I think some of the “bad” landlords out there will be just plain ignroant / scared of doing building maintenance: They got into the industry thinking it was all about taking rent and now they need a wake up call.

No, I missed the Tenants From Hell programme. Is any channel repeating it now? Was that TwoFour, to?

I think I’ve got more chance of flying to the moon than ending up on Landlords From Hell, but I’m not going to use this post to blow my own trumpet as to why.

There will be thousands of people around the country who have bad Landlords,this programme will expose those particular individuals and it will not tar all with the same brush.
Remember the “TENANTS FROM HELL” Tv programme?

You will always have tenants to rent your house, nobody will be put off renting your property after watching this programme!

What about if us landlords made a programme about some bone idle journalists, with no idea of balanced reporting who just picked on some hard working people and demoinised them for the titilation of others.

Please don’t reply to this post to point out there are great tenants / bad tenants / bad landlords / great landlords. I know that. And that’s not my complaint. Bet this programme won’t give that balance at all.