changing the locks

clutton_2

the letter is the paper trail she will need if she decides to leave the tenancy early - she still has legal responsibilities to pay her rent - and if she does decide to leave before the end of her tenancy this letter will be evidence in court if her LL sues her for rent

PasturesNew

princeofpounds wrote: »

Yes. But it's not actually a crime, believe it or not, unless entry is forced, anything taken, or various other activities are involved. Just entering a property is not a crime.

It is a crime in the landlord/tenant law though.
Tenant harrassment.

Randomly letting himself into any tenant's property, on a whim, whenever he chooses, to freely roam about and poke about, abusing his position .... for what? for the good of the tenant? for good purposes? No, his behaviour could not ever be for good reasons.

belisha-beacon

A quick update - I changed the locks on our house, making sure I took 'before' photos in case I get accused of damaging the door. It was really surprisingly easy - locksmiths quoted over £100 on the phone but advised me to try to do it myself and that cost £8 - the staff at my local DIY store were incredibly helpful explaining what I needed to do and even said they'd come round after work to help if there were any problems! When I eventually buy a house of my own I'll be in there for everything DIY related that I need!

The whole 'what was the landlord doing' question is very puzzling, and it's been going round and round in my head but I really don't know. Obviously, I don't know if he would have gone upstairs but I think that if he had really weird motives he would have gone there first and he didn't so that at least reassures me.

The weird thing is that it sounded like kitchen cupboards that were opened and I can't think of any reason why you would do that, especially not because all the stuff is ours so it couldn't even be an OTT 'well, I'll have an inspection' sort of thing. What freaks me out most is the confidence that he had when coming in. There was no hesitation, no checking to see if we were around, it was straight in and through several rooms then opening cupboards, which is why I had assumed that it was my boyfriend as noone else would be so blatant. It makes me sure that he was completely confident about not being caught, it did feel like he had done it before. Even when he left, he didn't apologise or say "Oh, sorry! I'm here by mistake!", but sped off - perhaps he thought that if I was in the bathroom I wouldn't see him and might think that I'd only imagined hearing someone. If it was the kitchen cupboards that he was in then the only plausible thing that anyone has suggested is a friend who said that because he knows that we weren't thinking of staying long-term, he might have been trying to damage the units in a way that we wouldn't see so that he could claim for replacements when we leave so that he could make a profit. Or perhaps it's just a control thing - maybe he just likes knowing that it's his house and we can't stop him going in and seeing our things.

More worryingly, it could have been my one of my living room cupboards where my passport, bank details etc are kept, but I have checked and they all seem to be there and I do think it sounded more like the kitchen but I can't be sure as I was so stressed. I think I've read that you can put a warning on your own credit file so I'm going to do that, and I am making sure that everything is recorded in writing both to him and to the agents so that if anything untoward happens in future then I can demonstrate to police that he would be a strong suspect. I don't think that I am going to report him to the police formally as I don't want to make the time I have to stay here any worse but I do think that I will have a quiet word in case any other tenants have concerns that would tally with mine. I've also made sure that the neighbours know the situation so that they can let me know if they see anything odd like him trying to get access, and I hope that that helps to protect future tenants as well - our area is quite gossipy!

Someone asked what has moved before - part of the problem is that it's one of those things that happens sometimes and you just assume you're imagining it so I don't remember exactly what made me think about it every time. The main ones that I remember are similar things - nothing really weird or freaky, but things like our recycling box being moved. We usually keep it in front of a cupboard that we don't use much and I've found it in places where it is in the way. Sometimes chairs seem to have been moved, or books piled up on the bookcase don't seem to be exactly the way that I remember them. It could all be stuff that I'm imagining or stuff my boyfriend has moved and then forgotten about - it's just that it is nice to have the confidence that I definitely must have imagined it! I'm not so sure now.

hobgate

Seriously I hope he isn't a Perv and HASN'T installed any of these:



:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:


Good on you for fitting some New locks!! :T

poppysarah

Nice staff at the diy place.

Fidget

My landlord's agent used to do this when I lived in Manchester. I would come in from work and there would be work tools laying around but he had never rang to arrange to come. I put a months notice in to leave the flat (I was pregnant and needed to move as my partner had left me) and people started to just randomly turn up early in the morning to view the property without any warning.

About a week after I had put our notice in, my knee brushed against the dressing table stool that I had rarely used and it tipped up and the leg fell off in a way in which it looked like it had been snapped by bending and twisting then propped back up. I naively thought "how weird" and put it down to just "one of those things". Then I stuck it back together as best I could. When the time came to get my deposit the guy went straight over to the stool and said it was broken and that he was taking the entire deposit of £365 even though it was old and rubbish. He wouldnt possibly have know the stool was damaged (as it was hidden by the upholstry of the seat) unless he had had something to do with it. I argued with him rather timidly (we were alone in the evening in the flat) and he called me a lying cu next tuesday. I found this rather on the harsh side for a pregnant woman he had just stolen a large amount of money from.

I later sent a letter to him explaining that I would be taking the matter to a small claims court but he then started to ring my mum's house and say threatening things. With the pregnancy and everything else I never did anything more about it. To this day I could still get lost in a daydream about getting my own back on that horrible man who probably had done the same to many others. I wish I had had the guts to follow through with action against him at the time.

I'm hoping with new tenants rights that have been put in place since my experience that this type of thing has become a thing of the past. Hopefully this weirdo hasn't done anything to sabotage the property in a similar way!