'Try and sue us? Get fired instead': College students left in the cold get back at their absent landlord

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
May 22, 2024 5:00 PM EDT

Would you rather your house always be too cold, or too hot? Depending on the way your house is heated or cooled, you probably already know your answer. It's hard to get your home to the perfect temperature for everyone, since some people are always wrapping themselves in sweaters, while others are sweating it out. However, these college kids had to experience the worst-case scenario: having a freezing house for a whole winter, and being ignored the whole time. 

These poor college students just didn't know what to do about their icy house, as u/thotello shared in their tale of malicious compliance. They and their three college roommates moved into a home together, but they used an agency to snag the place: that was their first mistake. They weren't sure how to report the faulty heating issue, and it's a shame that they had to wait so long to get any results at all. It seems like these kids had to grow up quickly in order to have a positive living situation. Living in the cold for months on end is just inhumane. 

Next up, these terrible neighbors kept parking their car in the next door neighbor's driveway, and then were shocked when that car got towed. 

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  • 01
    'We were fed up, and decided we wanted out of the new contract' 107
    via Aiden Craver on Unsplash
  • 02
    Try and sue us after up? Get fired instead First post, debated where this story belonged before deciding to post it here. It's a long one since there is a mess of detail, tldr at the bottom (If it belongs in a different subreddit let me know! Standard apology for formatting since I'm on mobile)
    via u/thotello
  • 03
    When my second year of university rolled round, I was living with three other friends in a property we rented through a letting agency (which had a ridiculous pun for a name but go off), and the house initially was perfectly fine. We moved in at the beginning of August and had no problems for a while. When they asked early on whether we
    via u/thotello
  • 04
    wanted to sign a contract for next year we said sure, and signed a new contract in November, due to start the next academic year. We know this was a hindsight but we really didn't in think we'd have serious issues.
    via u/thotello
  • 05
    However, when it started getting colder in winter months after a mild autumn, we realised that our boiler was absolutely god awful. It would fail about once a week, barely heat the radiators and wouldn't heat rooms, and would need repressurising each time it died. Being students and not too
    via u/thotello
  • 06
    wise about renting, we just put up with this at first, dutifully emailing the agents every time it broke and waited for them to send someone out. In the meantime, the busted boiler meant that the hot water was dodgy, sometimes cutting out, and that the house was FREEZING. And, as such, the
    via u/thotello
  • 07
    monthly utility bills were through the roof (one was almost 1.5 times that months rent!) since the boiler was essentially now a very expensive kettle and we needed office heaters on almost constantly so we didn't get frostbite. We could constantly see our breath and practically needed to be fully dressed to
    via u/thotello
  • 08
    sleep. This caused issues, constant colds for one guy, mould growing in the bathroom since we didn't ventilate well as to not lose the little heat the house retained, and being unable to dry our clothes (we didn't have a tumble dryer, just clothes horse). We were fed up, and decided we wanted out of the new contract.
    via u/thotello
  • 09
    Because we went through an agency, we had no direct contact with the landlord. Every query and contact was through the agents. This is important to remember for later. The agents, while very polite over the phone and in person, were flakey and bad at fixing problems and it took
    via u/thotello
  • 10
    months for them to send a gas man over, and even then it was just to renew safety certs and he didn't even do his job right, so a couple weeks later another guy was called out when it broke again! The landlord even comes for this visit to make sure there are no more ups, and this is our first time meeting her. She
    via u/thotello
  • 11
    was a bit of a soccer mum type, but she seemed to be sorting it, and the issue was kinda fixed (as well as an ancient boiler that really needed replacing could be fixed). This was the last time we talked to them directly.
    via u/thotello
  • 12
    Through this whole process, my parents had been helping us document things, my mum being a solicitor and my dad a landlord himself so they knew their stuff. They were grumbling about the agents from the start but for us it was easier to just put up with most of the bs since uni work was stressful enough without all this. Taking the offhand advice
    via u/thotello
  • 13
    given to us by the agents at the beginning of the tenancy we kept great records and pictures of every document, email, and letters we received, and took pictures of problems and work being carried out for record keeping. We eventually figured they'd try and shaft us in some form sooner or later, so evidence was needed.
    via u/thotello
  • 14
    We email them over the break officially saying we wanted out of next year's tenancy. They were amiable, and said that if we could get someone else to take it, sure, but were very adamant that if we didn't, we had to keep paying rent for that contract. We have house viewings and we advertise for months but we get nowhere. At this point tensions are rising and my mum has taken our challenge as a personal hobby to sort out legally.
    via u/thotello
  • 15
    Since we had initially tried to be low maintenance tenants and deal with small issues (our contracts stated that any issues related to the property needed to be sorted by the landlords or the agents in case we caused further damage trying to do repairs) we instead decided to do exactly what our contracts said - we emailed them constantly about
    via u/thotello
  • 16
    every tiny issue we had, from a broken light bulb to a frosty letter flap. We knew our contracts front to back, the local laws around renting and asked the uni about student renting for specific detail. Getting permission to change a lightbulb became a bit of an inside joke to us at this point ("How many working days is it gonna take to change it this time?" "3-5, it's Friday night.")
    via u/thotello
  • 17
    We then made sure we complied with every single thing they asked us to do in order to leave this new contract, like advertise, accommodate all viewings, keep them updated about anyone who was interested etc. We went above and beyond trying to get some poor suckers to take this house off our hands. We emailed
    via u/thotello
  • 18
    constantly through this for a paper trail. We made sure we could document this entire thing. It was stressful but my parents assured us that things would work out and knowing we were annoying them as much as they annoyed us helped.
    via u/thotello
  • 19
    When we move out at the end of the first tenancy, and hand our keys in with explicit letters saying we were not returning for the next contract, we waited for to hit the fan. A few weeks later while I'm on holiday we all get emails, forwarded from the landlord via the agents saying that unless we immediately found new tenants or agreed to stay on, they'd sue us. Scare tactics pretty much. This was also the first time we'd had an email
    via u/thotello
  • 20
    directly forwarded from the landlord, since usually the agents just passed on any info etc in their own words. The landlord said they'd had no notification saying we wanted out of the new tenancy, that this was out of the blue and therefore they weren't able to advertise for new tenants, so we dutifully sent them a large email with screenshots and pictures of email notifications of - house viewings, emails about potential takers, the original
    via u/thotello
  • 21
    emails about us not wanting to take the contract with the date six months beforehand clearly highlighted, and waited. After a quiet period, we got an almost sullen sounding email saying that they would drop it if we paid 4 months rent from the new contract, since although there was an 'error' in communication, we still did not fulfil our end and provide replacement tenants.
    via u/thotello
  • 22
    So out rolls another long email with photos of everything the up, including agents had the dodgy gas man visit (came to learn what he did was illegal and potentially dangerous, and it was the agents job to make sure he did his job right), the fact that the new contract signing was botched in the first place due to the agents error, and one of our housemates had bought a laser thermometer to document how cold the rooms were (sometimes as low as 8 Celsius/45
    via u/thotello
  • 23
    Fahrenheit) and had taken pictures of readings, so there was a heavy implication that the house was not suitable for habitation during that time. We haven't received a single email since that, and when the bus goes past the house recently, I see that the letting sign has been changed to a different company, and the house is no longer available through the
    via u/thotello
  • 24
    original agency. So they got fired by the landlords for much. up so I feel smug every time I go past. TLDR: Letting agents try and shaft us by doing a job and not telling the landlords anything and it bites them in the when they can't sue us because we did everything they asked and it's clear that they were negligent after we dutifully document the whole
    via u/thotello
  • 25
    PN_Guin You might want to explore suing them yourself. Usually they are not entitled to full rent, if the place is uninhabitable. This obviously depends on local legislation, but might be worth to research. It's probably in the range for small claims and your uni might have some free counselling available.
    via u/PN_Guin
  • 26
    kitkat1224666 That was so satisfying to read. I hate dodgy agents!!!
    via u/kitkat1224666
  • 27
    rentacle Oh, man. Dodgy landlords/letting agents are the worst. I live in a college town and I've seen so many inhabitable apartments. One of them had no windows and the agent himself was dubious about the legality of the situation, although he assured me that someone had been living in there up until the previous month!!
    via u/rentacle
  • 28
    And after I declined (because... no windows...) I found out that someone else had taken the apartment. Right now I've found a landlord I deal with directly, and he takes very good care of his property, so I'm extremely grateful. You shouldn't have had to live in a freezing place and document everything for months just to get out of that situation.
    via u/rentacle
  • 29
    vshedo How is them being unable to find anyone to replace their current tenants the tenants fault? why the would the current tenants be locked in for another year?
    via u/vshedo
  • 30
    NeenjaFeesh Thank you for this. Always nice to see what they deserve. get
    via u/NeenjaFeesh
  • 31
    HeyL_S8_10 Everyone who rents has a story like this to share.
    via u/HeyL_S8_10

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landlord housing students malicious compliance house malicious-compliance-reddit tenant contract roommates malicious compliance reddit college
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