Insane renting mess, help!

Silent Grape

right, here's the story, moved into a flat a little over a month ago. my friend and i are first timers at this, and from reading a bit about renting i assumed i knew everthing there was to know, i REALLY didnt.

firstly, we thought our shower was broken as the red side was actually the blue side and vice versa, but of course we didnt think of that, told the landlord of the complaint, he was on hols for two weeks and could do nothing.

there wasnt any lease, so i wrote up receipts myself for the rent and the deposit paid, i also made a note of the things that were broken when we arrived, like the fridge door and the apparent broken shower. its been a month, and i havent even met the landlord, only his daughter, so i couldnt get him to sign the receipt, or show him our complaints. (the rent is 900 a month, in case you're wondering)

our freezer door is broken so everything liquid in the fridge freezes over night. so you get lumps of ice milk in your tea. we told him, his daughter came and looked at it, said we'd get a new fridge/freezer. that was two weeks ago, but that really isnt that big of a deal.

two nights ago (that rainy night)i went into my bedroom at about midnight, to find three substantial leaks over both my bed and the spare bed. there was damp in the ceiling that i failed to notice before, because i am a FOOL.

so anyway, im without a place to sleep, as both mattresses were soaked through. the leaks were so big that every 5 mins i had to change the pint glasses underneath them. eventually i gave up, my flatmate went back to her family home, so i could stay in hers.

i texted, then called the landlord as soon as i discovered the leaks, as it was quite the emergency, i had to stay up till about 3, taking all my stuff out. a **** load of my art stuff got soaked as well.

he didnt answer, eventually cut me off, and then turned his phone off. he didnt turn the phone on again untill about 4 the next day. his daughter's phone was also turned off for the day.

eventually i get through to him yesterday, he doesnt even apologise. just tellls me he'll send someone round 'sometime'. so this morning i wake up to see a plumber wandering about. to be fair to the landlord, at least he showed up. he said the damp can be sorted, but i was under the impression that once damp is there, its there to stay.

so now my flatmate tells me she has to move out elsewhere for various irrelevent reasons. so i am stuck here, not knowing whether i should make a clean break, a little wiser, somewhere else, or struggle on here, and get someone else to take her place. it is a lovely flat in a good location, but i REALLY dont think i can trust the landlord or his daughter.

also there's the matter of the 900 deposit. my flatmate hammered nails in two rooms, and there's one in the bathroom too. only just realised maybe that wasnt the best idea. when we were talking to the daughter, we asked about decoration etc, and she said only not to use sellotape.

i reallyneed that deposit back to pay for my next place, so i dont know what to expect. does the fact that there was no lease have anything to do with the deposit? we'll hopefully be out of there by the end of october.

any advice is welcome, and i already know that im a fool, so please be gentle

ken90

SG have a look at www.threshold.ie and contact them for advice.

You may need to be a bit persistant as they are very busy.

Ken 90

samo

Agree with above advice about contacting threshold to get legal side covered but when found myself in silmilar situation a few years back, (you think your a fool) i moved into a flat where didnt check hot water worked and it didnt and it was december after about a week of cold showers and the landlord doing nothing my boyfriend got his mate to fix it. didnt charge us but did up a receipt saying he did and told landlord that rent for that month was less repair charge we had paid as we had to get fixed because he didnt.

At the end of the day he wouldnt fix it and he though twice before ignoring future problems so it could be a route to take. Other than that turned a little nasty due to tenants on other flats (who were physco's) so when we tried to leave before tenancy up he wanted to withold deposit. We had realised after a few weeks that he was fiddling esb so threataned him with dept of environment, co council, esb and everyone we could think of and soon got deposit back so if theres any suspicion at all that anything is slightly dodgy use it to your advantage.

A house later we rented had a renters handbook that said that rented houses must be inspected to make sure complys with certain requirements etc so sounds like your place isnt, whether this is true or not I dont know but if it is it could be grounds that he has defaulted on an agreement.

At the same time get as much legal advice as you can from threshold and make sure you have rent book etc to back you up. It's not a nice experience but it stands to you and makes you wiser for the next house, dont stress about it it will be sorted.

Hope works out well

samo

just reread your orig post, if you have no lease or no rent book. He's in trouble big time AFAIK, again threshold will confirm this but tenants have a lot more rights these days and do recall it being soemthing that he could get a lot of trouble for.

Victor

I thought about this and I think this is one of the situations where you need to walk away. Ask for your deposit back and make sure you get it when you go. If it's not forth-coming mutter about solicitors, small claims court, reporting him to the council and the revenue.

Silent Grape

thanks a million for your relies, we have given in our months notice,i contacted threshold, (they're so sound). inn our letter to him we asked for our depostit to pay for october.

hopefully hopefully itll all work out. i have three weeks to find somewhere else to live.. here's to looking..


thanks again

sceptre

Silent Grape wrote:

hopefully hopefully itll all work out

Hopefully so:)

Good that you contacted Threshold - at least you'll have a starting point for advice should it all go less than well.

Gillo

My advice (not that it will sort your initial porblem), get a mate who has rented for a few years to go around with you. I'm trying to find somewhere to rent for the first time and am bringing a mate aroung with me.

It's kinda like buying your first car, yoou need someone who has already learnt the hard-way.