Adrian and I were enjoying our morning coffee in Costa, when he screwed up his face. 'Look at this,' he said, 'another person going on about landlords and this time blaming us for neighbour nuisance!' He handed me the newspaper, and I read the following, which was the star letter (the writer was going to get a free Parker pen):
Make landlords responsible for the anti-social partying that makes life hell!
Here we go, a slight change in the temperature and the parties start: broken sleep, idiots screaming and using foul language, music banging; who is there to protect decent residents?
Dial 101 you might say; well as long as it’s Wednesday to Sunday at specific hours you may just have a chance of a night’s sleep. But if it’s Monday to Wednesday or after midnight on Sunday you are on your own. Go it alone and you take your life in your hands - you will more often than not end up facing a barrage of expletives.
There have been many cases when decent people are pushed over the edge and react, especially when there is no form of authority to come and deal with it, and who ends up in court for threatening behaviour against a group of drunken louts who will not listen to reason? You guessed it: the hard-working man who is trying to protect his family. I know violence is not the answer but if you have not endured this form of torture that puts your nerves on edge you will not understand, so just consider yourself lucky.
I spoke to a local councillor about it, not just complaining but providing a solution which she thought was excellent. But nothing has yet been done. It is very simple, not rocket science. I would like landlords to provide a contact number to give the ordinary person a means to communicate with the source to stop these matters escalating.
I’m certain if their peace was disturbed on Nob Hill they'd be more responsible for their properties instead of turning up once a year to clean up the mess ready for the next lot of idiots who need educating. If this is encroaching on their peace then maybe every time a complaint is recorded with 101 they should inform the landlord and make it law that after three strikes the landlord gets a fine. Make them pay, they are getting off scot-free. They escape the expense of paying rates and we are left with whatever mess year after year.
Mrs D Perkins
'What a cheek,' I said to Adrian, 'You should write in.' 'I'm not writing. I'm too busy,' he said. 'You're the writer.' Mmm. I walked up through town, the peace of my Saturday now disturbed. There was nothing for it; I'd have to do something. So I sat down and wrote for half an hour before clicking 'Send.' I doubted they'd print my answer – sometimes I feel that landlords are viewed like Jewish people in an anti-Semitic society (although thank God, we have democracy and the uncivilised elements aren't allowed to take their hatred any further). Given that there are apparently 1.5 million people renting out at least one house in the UK, it’s surprising that the landlord’s voice is so rarely heard. Anyway, surprise, surprise, two days later, my letter was there in black and white, also as we sat down in Costa. I felt a bit excited, to tell the truth:
It’s not so easy being a landlord, especially when the tenants turn bad
The letter from Mrs D Perkins suggested that when tenants are a nuisance and landlords don’t manage to stop them, that landlords should be fined. How we, as landlords, have a magic wand and can stop our tenants behaving as they do, is beyond me. How I wish we could – then we wouldn’t be faced every year with damaged houses, thousands owed to us in arrears, court cases and so on.
She knows that the council is the only body which has any power to enforce action against neighbour nuisance, but she suggests that if the council fails, landlords should be punished. As landlords we are, of course, used to being blamed and vilified, but it’s still not nice.
She thinks landlords all live on ‘Nob Hill’ and are somehow protected from having nuisance neighbours. This is nonsense; we also lived near druggies who played loud music all times of the day and night and received no help from the council. As it was an owner-occupied house, should we have suggested that if the mortgage company didn’t sort it out after it had been mentioned to them three times, that they should be fined, as Mrs Perkins suggests should be the penalty inflicted on landlords?
Bizarrely, she suggests landlords get off ‘scot-free.’ In fact, we pay heavy financial costs when our tenants turn bad. We have had druggies, alcoholics, paedophiles, suicide attempts, ex-partners smashing our doors down... all sorts. If Mrs Perkins thinks we get off lightly and should therefore be fined for other people’s behaviour, over which we have no control, then she is very wrong. She has no idea what life is like for a landlord. She obviously thinks we just pick up the rent and sun ourselves on the Italian Riviera, instead of often spending weeks cleaning up other people’s filth after having paid to keep a roof over their heads.
I believe it’s time landlords’ voices were heard for a change, instead of people seeing us as an easy target. But I suspect many people would prefer to just carry on attacking us and blaming us for all society’s ills.
Rebecca Lynch
Good. I felt better after getting all that out. Sometimes it’s relentless, having to defend landlords against illogical attacks. It wasn’t the end of it though, as a whole stack of letters appeared on the letters page over the following weeks with repeated blaming of landlords, for stopping young people from being able to buy their own homes etc. I wrote in again and someone answered that; the majority of the letters chosen were anti-landlord, of course, but I felt pleased that the general public would also be reading the landlords' side for a change. Who knows? Maybe the tide will turn one day and we’ll just be seen as normal people trying to run a business.
For anyone interested in this subject, my ebook is available, free to download for the last time on Saturday 18th of May from amazon, onto kindle, an IPAD or a PC (I can't give it free after these dates, because of amazon's rules). The link is: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00BJO2TU0
And for those who have already read it, can I ask that you please post a review on amazon (thanks to Tamara for kindly reviewing it).
My latest adventure with a truly awful tenant is also now available – you won’t believe our bad luck with this one and all because of one stupid mistake… The link is: http://www.amazon.co.uk/house-Evicting-tenant-Landlord-ebook/dp/B00C3LSVZK
And it will be available at the reduced price of £1.99 this Saturday only.