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Is it time for landlord shenanigans?
5 months ago
General
DragonStuff.exe has begun.
Title.
The answer at literally this moment is, "I don't know".
What happened?
Well, our landlady we signed with has developed dementia and has been relieved of her duties by her son & 2 daughters, and I've been in contact with the son for the year or year plus since (Honestly can't remember), and it's been fine.
A few weeks ago, I got a text saying oh we are having some folks in to look at the windows, see which ones need replacing. Ok, cool. Dude comes, dude measures, dude goes.
So we live in the upstairs flat part of a house that was split into 2 flats (badly). We've been here 8 years and 3 months now, and the only time we "missed" a payment is when the landlady changed bank accounts and didn't tell us >.>;.
Well, the actual dudes doing the window swaps went downstairs and worked like busy bees for 2 days. On the second, I come down and ask - oh how much space do you need to do your job, when are you coming, etc? Basic courtesy questions, so I can make space, accommodate, etc.
Well they said, about 1 meter from a window. Oof I said that's difficult with how full this place is with our stuff, so I asked the guy to come look around & the only room they literally can't do anything with is hard packed to the brim and not even tetris will fix that issue.
He said ok, I can see that, I'll talk to the office & see what could be done.
That was yesterday, about 3-something PM.
Today, 8:51 AM, I get this text from my proxy landlord : "[My name], I need to discuss what happened with the window installation yesterday and the tenancy in general. Can you give me a time convenient to discuss please?"
Rapidly descending into panic because of a couple of factors below. I'm not sure what he meant by "what happened" yesterday. Does he think "Can't possibly be done" means "We refuse 2 of your 7 windows for no good reason lol" ?
I didn't tell the guy "Ah shove it, too much hassle", after all - truly, my best guess is they think our situation is interfering with them in some way and we have suddenly become a nuisance with something so small. We don't host noisy parties, we don't make trouble, we pay on time and 8 years of that consistency gets you what I suspect will be "Ah ok you gotta go now" at best.
Why do I think so?
Here are those factors.
1) The original tenancy didn't allow pets. However, our dog Daisy lived with 2 at the time capable people. Since, one of them fell ill with terminal cancer and has passed away while the other (*months* away from a serious heart surgery, I might add) took care of her as she did so. On mentioning this to the actual landlady we signed with, she agreed to let us keep Daisy up here. This may or may not be a problem, but I'm guessing it either is, or will be painted as such (All I have is a verbal confirmation :-\)
2) The rent has not moved an inch in those 8 years and 3 months. Especially if there are upgrades being done for this place (And it very badly needs it), my guess is they want to be able to get more out of the tenancy. We are paying 625 GBP a month for our apartment, and my guess is they will give us a figure like 750 (Minimum) 825 (probably) or 900 (Ugh) a month or they will void the tenancy. They have a financial interest in getting rid of us.
I don't like the tone of incoming "reprimand" in that text, personally.
But because this country offers renters close to zero protection, we went from safe to at their mercy at the drop of a hat. I'm not quite sure what to expect at the moment, but if they are going to tell me tomorrow (When they apparently show up live) it's X or move out, that'll strain our already bad finances quite well :-\.
Reality won't change for the window people who can't install windows in that room either. Yes, the banging, noise, dust, sawing and drilling is a hassle - objectively - but we aren't trying to stand in the way of them doing this. The room is just impossibly full of crap.
So I'm going to have a full fun day of worrying my ass off because if they do tell us to go, well we sure as fuck aren't finding rent this cheap, even for a badly done up place like this.
Plus, you know. The panic and hassle of having to organize boxing up things, paying hundreds to get moved, new services, new contracts.
Oh and naturally *finding a place to rent* which is absolutely not guaranteed. They are only obligated to give us "at least 2 months notice". The irony is we are already trying to find a place to move - have been trying for months - so putting a timer on that is not going to help things there, either.
Fuck me.
The answer at literally this moment is, "I don't know".
What happened?
Well, our landlady we signed with has developed dementia and has been relieved of her duties by her son & 2 daughters, and I've been in contact with the son for the year or year plus since (Honestly can't remember), and it's been fine.
A few weeks ago, I got a text saying oh we are having some folks in to look at the windows, see which ones need replacing. Ok, cool. Dude comes, dude measures, dude goes.
So we live in the upstairs flat part of a house that was split into 2 flats (badly). We've been here 8 years and 3 months now, and the only time we "missed" a payment is when the landlady changed bank accounts and didn't tell us >.>;.
Well, the actual dudes doing the window swaps went downstairs and worked like busy bees for 2 days. On the second, I come down and ask - oh how much space do you need to do your job, when are you coming, etc? Basic courtesy questions, so I can make space, accommodate, etc.
Well they said, about 1 meter from a window. Oof I said that's difficult with how full this place is with our stuff, so I asked the guy to come look around & the only room they literally can't do anything with is hard packed to the brim and not even tetris will fix that issue.
He said ok, I can see that, I'll talk to the office & see what could be done.
That was yesterday, about 3-something PM.
Today, 8:51 AM, I get this text from my proxy landlord : "[My name], I need to discuss what happened with the window installation yesterday and the tenancy in general. Can you give me a time convenient to discuss please?"
Rapidly descending into panic because of a couple of factors below. I'm not sure what he meant by "what happened" yesterday. Does he think "Can't possibly be done" means "We refuse 2 of your 7 windows for no good reason lol" ?
I didn't tell the guy "Ah shove it, too much hassle", after all - truly, my best guess is they think our situation is interfering with them in some way and we have suddenly become a nuisance with something so small. We don't host noisy parties, we don't make trouble, we pay on time and 8 years of that consistency gets you what I suspect will be "Ah ok you gotta go now" at best.
Why do I think so?
Here are those factors.
1) The original tenancy didn't allow pets. However, our dog Daisy lived with 2 at the time capable people. Since, one of them fell ill with terminal cancer and has passed away while the other (*months* away from a serious heart surgery, I might add) took care of her as she did so. On mentioning this to the actual landlady we signed with, she agreed to let us keep Daisy up here. This may or may not be a problem, but I'm guessing it either is, or will be painted as such (All I have is a verbal confirmation :-\)
2) The rent has not moved an inch in those 8 years and 3 months. Especially if there are upgrades being done for this place (And it very badly needs it), my guess is they want to be able to get more out of the tenancy. We are paying 625 GBP a month for our apartment, and my guess is they will give us a figure like 750 (Minimum) 825 (probably) or 900 (Ugh) a month or they will void the tenancy. They have a financial interest in getting rid of us.
I don't like the tone of incoming "reprimand" in that text, personally.
But because this country offers renters close to zero protection, we went from safe to at their mercy at the drop of a hat. I'm not quite sure what to expect at the moment, but if they are going to tell me tomorrow (When they apparently show up live) it's X or move out, that'll strain our already bad finances quite well :-\.
Reality won't change for the window people who can't install windows in that room either. Yes, the banging, noise, dust, sawing and drilling is a hassle - objectively - but we aren't trying to stand in the way of them doing this. The room is just impossibly full of crap.
So I'm going to have a full fun day of worrying my ass off because if they do tell us to go, well we sure as fuck aren't finding rent this cheap, even for a badly done up place like this.
Plus, you know. The panic and hassle of having to organize boxing up things, paying hundreds to get moved, new services, new contracts.
Oh and naturally *finding a place to rent* which is absolutely not guaranteed. They are only obligated to give us "at least 2 months notice". The irony is we are already trying to find a place to move - have been trying for months - so putting a timer on that is not going to help things there, either.
Fuck me.
What I can't be sure of is if they wanted to increase it for ages and needed an excuse (And they can say we refused, which is wrong, but how can I prove any of that lol), or if this really is just a misunderstanding.
I truly don't like the idea of getting set on a timer to find a new place and waste a lot of money on.
It's a good deal in terms of money. The place is quite small, I'd say 2 people who will never get sick of each other can make it work, but this really is a "For one person" kind of place. It *says* it's a generous square-meterage but what it neglects to tell you is the apartment is shaped a bit like an "E". There is a connecting hallway for all the rooms that open from that hallway, so it's a lot smaller than you think. The king size bed in the bedroom literally takes up 75% of the room for instance.