Like old soldiers, whenever tenants unlucky enough to live in the UK’s broken private rented sector get together, we show our battle scars and compete for the worst story. It’s no surprise four out of 10 British homes aren’t up to standard, according to Shelter.
In among violent illegal evictions, sexual harassment and assaults, there’s the tenant whose flat, his home, the one he pays rent for, has had a leaky roof for six years. The landlord shrugs off the damage caused to his property, reasoning that water is absorbed by insulation installed and subsidised by government funding. There’s the tenant whose kitchen wall was collapsing and dangerous. The landlord was compelled by council inspectors to make it safe, but immediately issued a notice to quit, because he was miffed but also because he could – a perfectly legal practice often referred to as “revenge evictions”.)
My own worst experiences involve a potentially lethal gas boiler, eventually repaired by the landlord’s outraged friend, who called him to scream: “What’s wrong with you? Your daughter lives there and this could kill her.” (I lived there too, but hey.) Or the slimy sinister “cousins” of one rentier who arrived to install a shower bringing wine, suggesting we should “partay”. They left rebuffed, but unbeknown to us also donated bare wires encased in damp plaster to the household. When a council officer ordered our landlord bluntly with industrial language to make it good, we, his endangered tenants, were referred to as “bitches”.
It’s the inaction borne of entitlement that frequently causes problems. The owner is entitled to profit, and balks at spending minor amounts for repairs for their “whining tenants”, even when the home is ankle-deep in water from a leak. This can lead to cases such as the tragedy of Thirza Whitall, electrocuted in a bath by lethal faulty wiring.
Thanks to Shelter’s excellent report Living Home Standard, we know that nearly half of rented properties are substandard. What this means is they are infested with vermin, leaking, insecure in tenure, damp or cold. And tenants feel unable to complain since they can be issued with notice to leave on a whim. Most renters have extreme tales, but it’s the everyday misery of no security and the possibility of no-fault evictions that cause major woe.
What can be done? Well, ideally, fresh laws can be introduced, similar to those recently introduced in Scotland banning no-fault evictions, preventing landlords from exacting revenge by turfing tenants out whenever they see fit. We need new strictly enforced legislation, so that errant rentiers forfeit the property and must pay damages when properties fall into such disrepair.
It’s also about education. Smaller non-institutional landlords should receive training about their responsibilities, such as the notion that proper maintenance cares for their investment, meaning tenants stay longer, thereby avoiding agency fees for finding new occupants when residents give up and leave. This would prevent anyone from imagining that letting property involves sitting back and raking-in enormous stacks of easy money while doing absolutely nothing.
It gets us tenants down, you see. Cold, wet weather is coming, and many of us know that inefficient heating systems need looking at. This increases our energy bills, so we sit huddled on rickety furniture wrapped in a thick layer of woollens, blankets, hats and gloves, fingers and noses frozen – because why should the landlord indulge our childish demands to have a properly heated home?
Sometimes the letting agent is at fault, employing in-house repair teams to shock landlords with extortionate plumbing costs, until owners refuse to spend any money at all on their investment. It’s also down to a question of renting culture, where some owners regard tenants as beneficiaries of their largesse, not hard-pushed adults paying to live in a decent home, which should be of an acceptable standard.
Another way forward may be for tenants to unite and organise. This is already happening nationwide with campaign group Acorn, and in Scotland with tenants’ union Living Rent. I attended the AGM a few weeks ago, and signs were hopeful. Scottish tenants do not pay upfront agency fees and restrictions on rent rises and an end to no-fault evictions were included in new legislation.
I hope that within a few years, older tenants will gather at Halloween in candlelight (for effect, not because the lights don’t work) to scare young people with terrifying stories about the bad old days and what they did in the tenant wars: how they fought and won. This situation can’t go on. We need safe, warm, secure, long-term housing, not freezing rat-infested hovels. The new Shelter living home standard doesn’t demand gold-plated taps flowing with free champagne, simply the right to a safe, affordable property we can treat as a home. When you remember that homes can also be lethal, it should be obvious what needs to be done.
