Coleman Court Accommodation

thanlon2704

I am a previous tenet at one of these accommodation apartments and I strongly insist you look elsewhere. These apartments are extremely damp, so bad that mold grows back after a week from washing it. The apartment was just a place to sleep in and make some dinner after college but even that was unsatisfactory, I used to wake up in the morning with my face wet with the condensation and walk into the house feeling colder than I was outside. They had storage heaters which you might know are extremely expensive to run. For some reason the electricity bills are unusually high, we were students so we were out of the house from 9 to 5 most days and I worked till 12 three times a week after that. We also went home on the weekends and holidays and never turned on the heat as we knew we could not afford it. But after 2 months we still ended up with a bill of €102.71 and we don’t know how that was possible. We knew there was a standing charge of €30.00 for the heaters even when not used but we were not allowed to check the meters ourselves as they were locked up and we were not allowed in. The location is not very secured as you will see some front doors to upper apartments kicked in. I was always fearful of coming back one day from college to see our stuff burgled. There is no internet as advertised as we tried to get it installed but were told that the wires in the building were too old and badly damaged. The ultimate thing which made living there hard was the landlord. He always seemed to be in a bad mood and never in the humour for his tenets. When we were moving out we had a bad feeling as a mate of ours who also lived in the apartments and who also moved out to a better location said he treated him terribly and tried to take as much of his deposit as possible. When I found a better residence I tried to contact him but he was never there so I left a note for him during the week. When he came over to inspect the place he was very insulting to me and start blaming us for the decay of the place which shocked us as over the course of the week we cleaned it spic and span and also angrily commented on how we are moving out suddenly even though we never signed a lease. He looked for everything he could to find a reason to insult us. He then said he needs to get a cleaner and a painter in to fix the place even though I had before and after picture of the place looking the same, to be honest the after looking cleanlier. He then tried to take all of our deposit and when I told him I thought he was being unfair he then refused to give any our deposit to us. I told him I would report him and contact my solicitor and he soon changed his tone but still refused to give what was owed to us, I had a feeling he was doing this to us as we are students and young. I was advised to take what I can and then take my recordings of the conversation, photos and write a letter to the council about him. All in all it was hard time dealing with him, we always paid our rent in on time, handled the place right and never caused any trouble so to be treated that way was unbelievable. We picked the place in September as it was our first housing after moving out so we were starry eyed but trust me there are superior accommodations in Cavan for cheaper and better quality.

unclebill98

Paragraphs are your friend.

lycan238

The first terraced house I lived in which was in Ballyjamesduff had electric storage heaters and I found the ESB bills high (even with household benefits package) my bills were over €100 every 2 months.

Regarding the apartments mentioned in Coleman Court I would never rent anywhere without going through an estate agent.

I know this advice is not much good now but when I moved in I took digital photographs of the house (same house that had the storage heaters) and got the landlord to sign and date the back of them thus agreeing that what the photograph showed was the condition of the house any damage etc.

Re: mould growth not suggesting this is what happened but were windows opened at any stage? A certain amount of fresh air would help to alleviate this problem although if walls are damp already it wont do much good.

you mention in your original post 'we never signed a lease'. I find this quite strange that any landlord would rent out an apartment and not sign a lease.

Not saying you should not contact your solicitor that is up to you but perhaps report this to the PRTB as I can see numerous alarm bells reading your post.

thanlon2704

We knew of the place from friends who lived there at the time and we wanted to move up to Cavan as soon as possible in time for college. It's our fault on that one as we were inept at renting place's and thought going to the landlord itself would be okay.

I took photographs before and after with the place exactly the same condition just in case.

The place was extremely damp even if you aired it out and washed the walls it would be come back the next day, it was nothing I've ever seen before. We couldn't open the windows all the time as the place was in a extremely bad part of town. The place had terrible insulation. We would have a portable gas fire going for hours but the heat would disappear after only five minutes.

Looking back we should of been suspicious why there was no lease but we thought that was the situation but we now know why as the place took rent allowance and let some really sketchy people stay there.

We let it go as I'm really busy with my studies and work and didn't want to get involved in a legal row, we only lost €140 which seems minuscule but for a student it's massive. I put it down as a learning experience on choosing accommodation. The Landlord was old fashioned and thought he could treat people anyway he wanted, those type of people forget about word of mouth and the internet. I want to help future students or new comers to accommodation and let them know there are far better places in Cavan, they might cost extra but you pay for quality. I just don't want other people to fall into the same trap we foolishly did.

hmclough

Hi, what was the exact spot of this accommodation, is it over a pub at the corner?

thanlon2704

No it's near the bus station and it's around the corner of a casino place called the Side Pot. It's right next to a petrol station and across from it is a nice apartment block called stonebridge.