Tent thread

mynameisdave

The petition is pre moderated to the point where you have to click the link in the email you give as your address.
Rigsby never received an email to the give naddress.

But seriously look at the most popular petitions on the site...


Ban a football ref, call the next battleship USS Enterprise... I mean, really, why not pick the site Ivegotagodawfulpetitioniwantyoutosign.com

dopester

I've got a new version of Ignorant Landlord 4 on YouTube.

Originally a person used a video camera to record their own television whilst a BBC Regional news item was being broadcast to that region.

That person then uploaded their own video to Photobucket and gave a link on a forum to invite people to view their video. I've now used a digital recording device (digital camera) to record my own computer lcd monitor as their video happened to be playing.... and uploaded my own video to my YouTube account. Confusing eh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0Te_UJV16E

Not very good quality, sorry (especially the first part in the studio).

I'm backing out of this now for a while. It's too irritating for me to cope with.... all the ignorance out there, away from this thread. The way the media have approached this... I fear an increased risk tenants being hurt, tenant's children being hurt, or even landlords being hurt if they press the wrong tenant's buttons with pressure / harassment ect.

Shakethedisease

I fear an increased risk tenants being hurt, tenant's children being hurt, or even landlords being hurt if they press the wrong tenant's buttons with pressure / harassment ect.

I reckon it's only the start. God help those that have their LHA cut soon and have to look for increasingly difficult to get places to rent due to the competiton (with others in the same position) within their area..So they can keep their jobs.. ( remembering that most LHA claimants actually do work ). There will be a lot of vunerable people and families out there accepting what they are given and made to feel very grateful for it.
Even if what they are given is treatment like this tenant had to go through.. mainly from accidental landlords who haven't the foggiest idea what they are doing. Think it's ok to roll up unannounced every week or so to 'check', collect belongings, berate the tenant for being a bit 'untidy' or roll up with a few tv cameras to shout abuse. Issue ludicurious contracts with 'late fees'.. and worst of all, think that it's ok morally to just get the property back whenever they feel like it..by whatever means, even if that includes harrassment in the extreme.

Landlords like Ms Butler are the thin edge of the wedge IMHO. Especially with mainstream media backing them up to the hilt.

mynameisdave

Anyone wnating to get a good download quality video add this little plug-in to Firefox

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3006/

Should allow you to grab so many videos from the web and upload. No need to record from tv/phone etc...

lily_livered

Pepzofio wrote: »

She also said in one of the interviews (I think it was the first GMTV one) that she was planning on sleeping in the tent in order to spend some quality time with her son, as up until then they'd been staying in different friends' houses because nobody could put them both up...? How much extra space does a four year old take up !!!!!!?

As for the school thing - I just checked the Brighton & Hove Admissions Guide and she would have submitted her preference form by 5th February and received confirmation of a school place by 5th May (IF she followed correct procedure of course!) so I don't think the school thing comes into it.

Unless someone had grassed her up for falsely claiming to live within catchment/close to the school of course... A suspicious mind might raise an eyebrow at the tenancy start date being conveniently one day after the admissions deadline...

On GMTV she said "We're homeless we're spending two, three nights a week in a tent". By the Radio 5 interview it'd changed to "we decided to spend five days in the tent just to be together and tried to make it fun".

Good thinking on the school admission, she mentioned schools on radio 5.

I've typed up relevant parts of her interviews to highlight these points and the time line discrepancies. ... = irrelevant parts skipped.

6th February: Start of tenancy.
25th May: Contract extended to add 6th July - 5th August.
6th June: Alleged first missed rent payment (for the period 6th June - 5th July).
6th July: Alleged second missed rent payment (for the period 6th July - 5th August).
7th July: A section 8 should have been served on second missed payment but wasn't.
28th July: Invalid "Letter for tenant for eviction" asking tenant to vacate within 5 days.
5th August: Suzy removes a tent and mattress from the house. The police are called.
5th August: End of the contract extension.
6th August: Alleged third missed rent payment (for the period 6th August - 5th September).
6th August: Section 8 notice served (a month later than it could have been).
7th August: Argus article "Hove mum faces sleeping tent after "squatters" take over home" appears.

A mother and her young son may be forced to live in a tent because “squatters” have taken over their home.
...
The dispute has meant Miss Butler relying on the charity of others and ruined her dream to move to Spain to give her son a better life. Now she fears she cannot outstay her welcome any longer.

She said: “We are facing the prospect of living in a tent in a friend’s garden.
...
Although Miss Noble was supposed to leave the property in April Miss Butler had to wait until her tenant was two months in rent arrears before issuing an eviction notice, which she did yesterday. This gives the tenant two weeks to leave the property or the dispute will go to court.

9th August: Metro article "Woman forced to live in a tent after squatter takes over house" appears.

A charity worker has been forced to live in a tent by a squatter who took over her house while she was abroad helping homeless people.

10th August: Campaign mentioned on jeremypdunmore's twitter.
10th August: Suzy on BBC South East Today. With comment from Tessa Shepperson.
11th August: Suzy is on GMTV.

" We're homeless we're spending two, three nights a week in a tent, the rest of the time is in between family and friends houses."

11th August: Suzy is on ITV news 6.30pm.
12th August: Suzy is on GMTV, for the follow up report. With comment from Philip Rainey QC.

The tent's still here but we're actually not in it anymore, we've got a friends mum's flat for a couple of months.

12th August: Suzy is on Radio 5.

...Peru... We decided to rent the house out for six months to go over there and then go to Spain where we're thinking of relocating and opening a charity office as well.... When I came back I noticed she hadn't paid a months rent in ... Last Thursday I had to retrieve a tent and a mattress as I had nowhere to stay over the weekend....

When was the tenancy agreement actually supposed to end Suzy? It expired last week, last Thursday.... I've been staying with friends on sofas and floors for a couple of months now, there's only so long I can really do that with a four year old. He's due to start school in September and it's very difficult as we don't have a fixed address so getting into a school is going to be very difficult...Last week we got to the stage where there was no where we could stay together and I was desperate to be with him as he'd been staying at various people's houses on his own while I stayed at other peoples houses on my own so we decided to spend five days in the tent just to be together and tried to make it fun...

I managed to get into the house this morning very peacefully with Carmen and for the first time in many weeks we've actually sat down face to face. And I think the people pressure in the ?? that we're doing this is helping her to understand that what she's doing is wrong and as mother to mother we had a chat this morning and I've asked her to leave today. And said if she does then obviously I won't be talking to anybody else about the situation so long as she leaves calmly and she gives my house back. And she said she'd like ten minutes to think about it so I've given her ten minutes just to think about what she can do...

13th August: Suzy is on GMTV, for the second follow up report, live on the sofa.
13th August: Tenant moves out, landlord moves in.
13th August: ITV Meridian Tonight reporting Suzy is back in the house.
2nd September: Hove mother will fight for landlords' rights

A mother who was forced to sleep in a tent because a tenant refused to move out of her house has launched a campaign to fight for landlords’ rights. Suzy Butler found herself locked out of her own house earlier this year after returning from a charity trek to Peru because her tenant would not move out. It took five months before she was able to fight her way back into her own home, during which time she relied on the charity of friends and even slept in a tent with her four-year-old son.

Also from Suzy's facebook:
"Like I said previously...I was hoping to relocate to Spain which is... why i extended the contract to ensure it didn't terminate whilst abroad! We were launching a charity campaign out there. Hence why I didn't issue a sec 21!"

theartfullodger

Anyone wnating to get a good download quality video add this little plug-in to Firefox

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3006/

Should allow you to grab so many videos from the web and upload. No need to record from tv/phone etc...

If you view YouTube in Linux (certainly Ubuntu..) the video you are watching is stored in the /tmp folder, so a swift copy of that video before you close the window and you've a permanent copy... I'm sure Windoze will have an equally easy method....


Cheers!


Artful

PS As a private Landlord, since 2000, may I state - as I'm sure many other Landlords feel - that the criminal Butler is a disgrace to Landlords everywhere, indeed to the country.. Don't think we want people who behave like her here..

sequence

theartfullodger wrote: »

If you view YouTube in Linux (certainly Ubuntu..) the video you are watching is stored in the /tmp folder, so a swift copy of that video before you close the window and you've a permanent copy... I'm sure Windoze will have an equally easy method....


Cheers!


Artful

Cheers, I just checked and they are indeed stored in /tmp. You learn something new everyday!

SouthCoast

More from The Argus readers comments. This rings true to me:

Well said! I rented a property from the father of this landlady for 6 years. Over this time the rent was increased by £400 a month. We were finally forced to leave the house when he decided to increase the rent by a further £300 a month as this is what he said he could get if he rented it out as a shared house! Unable to find a house locally within the 2 months notice period given by him, (it was over the christmas period) we sadly had to take a house over 6 miles away, meaning my children had to move schools and leave the house and good neighbours they had grown up with. Funnily enough i could never get hold of him personally as he was always abroad, leaving his substantial property portfolio managed
by other people.

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/8364301.Hove_mother_will_fight_for_landlords__rights/

tbs624

Slightly OT but here's another one who wants to "rebalance the law", this time to the benefit of OOs who have used their homes as collateral for a bank loan.

MP for Camborne and Redruth, George Eustice , has tabled legislation to curtail the powers of Law of Property Act receivers. In his own words:

"My Private Member's Bill has the not so catchy title of the "Secured Lending Reform Bill." At its heart is a simple premise. If an individual or business offers a bank a charge over their assets, then they have a special right to expect that bank to behave honourably. Among those four thousand businesses shut down by the banks in the last three months will be cases where hard working, conscientious people had offered their home as security to a bank in order to secure support. But having made this extraordinarily generous gesture they currently have no real protection under the law. Banks can and do enforce their security recklessly and prematurely, without regard for either the entrepreneur or their other unsecured creditors.
"So my Private Member's Bill would rebalance the law, making it harder for banks to enforce their security and throw people out of their homes. It will encourage and reward real enterprise and might well mean that the banks have a little less money left to waste on their Ferraris which is no bad thing."

So Suzy B wants to "rebalance" the law to get Ts with financial difficulties kicked out more quickly (and deprive them of quiet enjoyment by visiting during their tenancy with bailiffs and police) , and this guy wants to "rebalance" the law to allow homeowners in financial difficulties to sit tight for longer.

tbs624

Can anyone recommend a good LL in the Brighton area?

See also here