House Horror Stories I

The fact that I have enough material to write a series of posts on this just shows that my housemates and I had quite a few housing nightmares during our second year... This will probably be a long post.

It did get to the point where, if something could go wrong, it did. However, I will say that I don't lay the blame on my landlord, who actually went out of his way for us quite frequently, or our lettings agent, who were pretty quick to fix things when they went wrong. I think it was just extreme bad luck, and at least we can laugh about it now!

So, let's start at the very beginning. My housemates and I signed for our house pretty early on, at around Christmas time of our first year. The house that we decided on was being renovated, so when we moved in everything would be new and extended, which was very exciting. We were also promised plenty of bathrooms with large showers, loads of kitchen space, a utility room and brand new furniture in all of the bedrooms. Plus, no rent to pay over the summer months, when the property would be empty anyway. An offer we couldn't refuse.

Bit premature luv

Fast-forward several months, to the beginning of September, and we received a phone call from our landlord. He apologetically explained to me that our house was not yet ready, and probably wouldn't be ready by the time that our tenancy agreement began, but that he would keep us updated with the situation. At this point we weren't really panicking, we didn't need to move in until a while after our tenancy began, and we were told that it should be ready before then.

The next few weeks were pretty stressful. We were getting constant updates on our house and its progress, but we could tell that it wasn't looking good. Eventually, the beginning of the tenancy came around and the house wasn't ready. The panic set in as we realised that despite our best hopes, the house would not be ready for when we wanted to start moving in. But, we did still think that it wouldn't be long before we could. 

In the meantime, our landlord sorted us out some temporary accommodation, which turned out to be another house in the area that one of his friends owned. Which eased the panic slightly, as we thought we might have to stay in a hotel in the meantime. However, the house we were given as temporary accommodation had no oven, one shower, had to have a fridge and freezer put in for us, as well as a microwave, and didn't have enough bedrooms. This meant that two of us would have to share. 

Ooooh, cosy

A few days after our original moving in date, I headed up to Birmingham with most of my stuff, to move into the temporary house, and to store some of my stuff at the still-under-construction house. I don't think I had quite prepared myself for the house that I walked into. We were under the impression that the house could be ready any day now. What I was met with was a house that didn't even have a roof or walls in parts, no floors, no plaster, still to be plumbed, no electrics, and that was no where near being close to 'finishing touches'. It was quite a shock.

Luckily, my bedroom was finished. So I was able to pop most of my stuff into my room, and see how it would look. I was thrilled with how it had turned out, with new furniture, plenty of storage and a huge window, which let in plenty of light. For the next couple of nights, I stayed on a friend's sofa, because our temporary accommodation was also not ready for all of us.

We didn't have to pay for our temporary accommodation, and our landlord didn't charge us rent throughout the time we weren't living in our house. He also compensated us for the cost of moving our stuff from house to house, which we had to do in a taxi, despite them only being roads apart. But it was still incredibly disruptive. We started the term in a house which we hadn't signed up for, which we could end up moving out of on quite short notice. We soldiered on.

This is actually one of the only pictures I have of our temporary house, lol

Nearly a month after the initial phone call, we finally received confirmation that we could move in to our house! It still wasn't totally finished, and there would still be builders in and out, but we would have our own beds. It was very welcome news. It wasn't too long until they house was basically finished. A few small touches, such as toilet roll holders and bathroom cabinets were yet to be put in, but we could cope. 

Finally, towards of October, our house was finally finished and ready for us to host a moving in party! But that's another story...