Lodger didn't move in on date agreed - tricky Q - can anyone help?

DVardysShadow

bundly wrote: »

....
Having slept on it my preference is as follows:

1. L3 - the MD who will only be here 2-3 nights a week and out at work all day.

2. L4 - the woman.

3. L2 - the recent grad, aged 24.

4. L1 - the man who has broken our agreement to start paying rent on 1st May.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Not meant to influence you in any way. I did hear somewhere that the Chinese pictogram for 'contention' or argument is built up from primitives representing 2 women under 1 roof.

Seanymph

but then she would pick her own socks up off the bathroom floor

bundly

DVardysShadow wrote: »

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
the Chinese pictogram for 'contention' or argument is built up from primitives representing 2 women under 1 roof.

There are no "arguments" here, because this isn't a houseshare but one owner/landlady/boss (me) and my word is law.

I've been letting three rooms here for 12 years. I've had every permutation of gender balance. About 90% of enquiries are from men, but I favour women where possible, so probably 30% of my lodgers have been women.

I favour women because I have had far more problems with men when it comes to late rent, not cleaning up after themselves, noise, irregular living habits (e.g. a nine-to-five office worker cooking his dinner at 3am) and general untidiness. I have found that women are more willing to co-operate and share stuff whereas men don't -- for example, women will club together and buy a bag of 12 loo rolls, men will each buy 6 and keep them in their own bedrooms, bringing one roll out when they use the loo then taking it back to their room afterwards.

While we are on the subject, I might as well tell you that the foreigners I've had tend to be more respectful, more unassuming, less cocky and less confrontational than the Brits. Maybe because they are slightly wrong-footed by being on foreign turf, or maybe because they are brought up more strictly.

bundly

My lodger problem might be solved. I woke at 4am and heard one of my current lodgers making noise in the kitchen, and when I eventually went in there at 8am I found the oven on (presumably for four hours?) and all inside (frozen beefburgers and garlic bread) dry and burned. I am going to wait till he gets up, ask him how long the oven has been on, why he left it on so long and burned his food, and why he's cooking at 4am (he is a 9-5 worker). I suspect that the answers he gives me will cause me to give him his 2 weeks notice. (I've had other trouble with him but thought that he had finally got his act together.)

Then I can have L2 AND L4.

Problem solved!

bundly

lostinrates wrote: »

For the record, I did not give or intend to give you a ''dressing down''......mine was a genuine misunderstanding.

Apologies for upsetting you, I was merely trying to help.

THANK YOU very much indeed for the apology, which is warmly accepted. I really am very grateful to EVERYONE who bothers to reply.

For the record, the reason I described your post as a "dressing down" was that instead of saying something like, "If it was his bedroom window he ought to be allowed to open it", you went on about it for five lines because you jumped to the conclusion that it was his bedroom.

If I had meant it was his bedroom window, I would not have said that he left "a window" open all night, but "his window" or "his bedroom window."

Anyway, thanks for the retraction, and for trying to help me :-)

bundly

Me again!

Would anyone be so kind as to read this email and letter I am sending to L1 and check that it's OK? Thanks in advance.

Dear XX

I write now to inform you that, as you have failed to pay the balance of your deposit and failed to pay rent as due on 1st May according to our agreement, you are in breach of our contract.

As your deposit is held to cover me for any rent owed, to compensate me for the loss of rent that you agreed to pay me from 1st May I am deducting £10.71 a day from your deposit for each day's loss of rent until I have secured another lodger for that room.

I have given you ample opportunity to put things right. I have held the room open for you since 1st May. You haven't even bothered to respond to my email of five days ago or to answer the questions contained therein.

As you have shown yourself to be unreliable, disrespectful of our contract and seem to think you can change our agreement without consulting me, I not longer have any trust or faith in you as a lodger. Therefore I am no longer prepared to let you move into my house.

Having waited five days and still getting no reply from you, I am aware that time is running out for you because you must vacate your flat on 16th and therefore I am writing today rather than waiting till you reply (if you reply) in order to give you ample opportunity to find other accommodation.

Yours sincerely

suited-aces

Haven't made it to last page, so apologies if this is a repeat, but any advertising costs are not attributable to the non-lodger. You have a perfectly valid free way of readvertising the room (https://www.gumtree.co.uk), the non-lodger should not have to subsidise your more expensive choice.

BitterAndTwisted

I would remove all mention of contracts or breaches thereof. This isn't a tenant and you are free to change your mind for whatever reason you like.

bundly

suited-aces wrote: »

advertising costs are not attributable to the non-lodger. You have a perfectly valid free way of readvertising the room (www.gumtree.co.uk), the non-lodger should not have to subsidise your more expensive choice.

I've tried advertising rooms on gumtree and other such places and the ad runs for weeks and weeks without a single enquiry. I have had an advert on spareroom.co.uk for six months (it's still live) and have only ever had ONE enquiry in all that time, from a man who subsequently failed to turn up for a viewing.

When I place a £15 advert in the local paper I get loads of enquiries and usually let the room within a week. This is because MOST people looking for a room in my town look in the local paper and NOT at gumtree or any online site. The 57 yr old woman that I am about to let to isn't even on the internet!

I would not therefore call the local paper an "expensive choice". Quite the reverse. NOT using the local paper is the expensive choice, because I lose money from having the room empty for longer. In all likelihood, a room would lay empty forever if I relied on online letting sites and gumtree!

Have you ever heard the expression "false economy"?

suited-aces

"If I want to start again it costs £15pw to advertise. If the 6 weeks for the price of 4 is still going, I'll pay another £60"

So if you usually let it within the week, why are you intending to charge the lodger for 6 weeks?