council house improvements

kellywelly_2

Graham_Devon wrote:

I was more trying to figure out what rent meant. Some people 'rent' from the council when infact it's all housing benefit money in the first place. Therefore it's nothing like having a private landlord.

If you rent privately from the council then I would just state it in writing, not much else you can do really.

Are the houses down the road older than yours?

I don't quite believe the 1940's kitchen though. Councils normally have a 10 - 15 year turnaround on these things, I know as my dad's company had the job of doing it all. Amazing what the tenants were able to choose and how much they complained to be honest, but thats another story!!

My cousin still has the original kitchen from when she moved into her council home, over 19 years ago, not sure how long it had been there before, she has hardly any storage space in there its ridiculous, she also has only the tiniest downstairs bathroom/toilet you can only just turn aroun in it and this is right next to the kitchen, my brother say that it breaks health and safety legislation but the council say not as they have 2 closing doors between them but as we have pointed out on many occasions the toilet door does not shut properly as it is only a sliding door.

Her council are awful, she also needs to be rehoused as she is overcrowded, she has been in her home for over 19 years and does not have room, tehy have 3 bedrooms but the third bedroom was originally classed a storage / box room in fact when she signed her tenancy agreement it was for a 2 bed home, somewhere along the line, the status has changed to a 3 bed house but this is not what her original contract states. the council say that it was just a mistake originally, pretty big mistake I would say.

The LGO cannot help ( not sure if they would ) but my brother and I have helped a few people re council complaints with the LGO and they are very difficult to win, it is suspected because most members of the LGO are actually ex council employees.

It is really hard for them as they are on top of each other, 2 large teenage boys and one 5 year old girl who shares her and her hubbys bedroom as she has nowhere of her own to sleep.

No dining room, no upstairs loo, tiny rooms, lived in teh same house 19 plus years without any fuss, but yet when they asked for help they are told sorry nothing we can do as we don't have the stock, but yet they seem to have stock to house large families who come from other than the town where she lives it is quite distressing to see her like this, but their just seems to be nothing we can do.

SmileyHappyBeing

Thanks for all the advice, I get what you mean now graham, i pay it using my rent card, no hb, not sure if it would make a diff anyway as one person i know is on hb and is getting kitchen so... just pot luck with it i guess.

Cant really break anything as there isnt much to break, and theyd prob only fix that one bit!

All the houses are the same age in the area, all rebuilt after the war.. I know that the kitchen is at least 30 years old as the old woman who lived here before was here for 27 years and weve been here for 3 years and she'd had the kitchen the whole time, so pretty old, nothing in the house had been updated, before i moved in it got double glazing and central heating put in , so was really lucky there.. but even my housing officer admitted it was a s**tshate..

Gonna try my h.officer again tommorow and see if she'll come out and assess it, wish me luck!

SmileyHappyBeing

kellywelly wrote:

My cousin still has the original kitchen from when she moved into her council home, over 19 years ago, not sure how long it had been there before, she has hardly any storage space in there its ridiculous, she also has only the tiniest downstairs bathroom/toilet you can only just turn aroun in it and this is right next to the kitchen, my brother say that it breaks health and safety legislation but the council say not as they have 2 closing doors between them but as we have pointed out on many occasions the toilet door does not shut properly as it is only a sliding door.

Her council are awful, she also needs to be rehoused as she is overcrowded, she has been in her home for over 19 years and does not have room, tehy have 3 bedrooms but the third bedroom was originally classed a storage / box room in fact when she signed her tenancy agreement it was for a 2 bed home, somewhere along the line, the status has changed to a 3 bed house but this is not what her original contract states. the council say that it was just a mistake originally, pretty big mistake I would say.

The LGO cannot help ( not sure if they would ) but my brother and I have helped a few people re council complaints with the LGO and they are very difficult to win, it is suspected because most members of the LGO are actually ex council employees.

It is really hard for them as they are on top of each other, 2 large teenage boys and one 5 year old girl who shares her and her hubbys bedroom as she has nowhere of her own to sleep.

No dining room, no upstairs loo, tiny rooms, lived in teh same house 19 plus years without any fuss, but yet when they asked for help they are told sorry nothing we can do as we don't have the stock, but yet they seem to have stock to house large families who come from other than the town where she lives it is quite distressing to see her like this, but their just seems to be nothing we can do.

hiya,

I know what you mean we have a 2 bedroom house and bathroom downstairs etc, no space at all downstairs, yet we've got a huge bedroom lol... cant complain though as its cheap rent and secure, and housing around here is expensive if you rent privately and hardly any council properties going, so lucky to have one i guess..

My point in replying was that i was chatting to my dad about my house the other day and he said all new houses now have to be built to a specific size now, and that my house is prob below the minimum requirement, just thought that was quite interesting, not alot you can do about it though!

SmileyHappyBeing

And i s'pose its better than having a downstairs loo than an outside loo :rotfl:

Anthillmob

whilst i appreciate the roof over our heads our council infrmed us 3 or 4 years ago that we would have a new kitchen, new bathroom and yes we can have a power point (plug) put in the hallway.

when i enquired a year later i was told they had sacked the bloke who had come round as he had made the same promise to every other council tenant but the council have no intention of updating anyones kicthen etc., . however the property next door thats recently been rented to a new couple has had a new bathroom and kitchen installed.

wheres the fairness in that?

and again, as mentioned above, we have no storage space.

my main gripe with them though is we are overcrowded but they dont give a flying doodah and expect us to live in cramped conditions and refuse to give me medical points because i had them when i moved here and im not getting them again.

i have an OT assessment soon (im on the waiting list) so maybe they can get the ball rolling.

astonsmummy

Report is as a repAIR THAT NEEDS DOING AND ASK FOR THE SURveyor to come round and inspect it, thats what i dont in my last house, there wasnt much that needed doing and really they didnt even have to do it as it was a mutual exchange and when you do that you agree to accept the property in the state it is in but i guess the surveyor was one of the nice guys.

SmileyHappyBeing

Anthillmob wrote:

whilst i appreciate the roof over our heads our council infrmed us 3 or 4 years ago that we would have a new kitchen, new bathroom and yes we can have a power point (plug) put in the hallway.

when i enquired a year later i was told they had sacked the bloke who had come round as he had made the same promise to every other council tenant but the council have no intention of updating anyones kicthen etc., . however the property next door thats recently been rented to a new couple has had a new bathroom and kitchen installed.

wheres the fairness in that?

and again, as mentioned above, we have no storage space.

my main gripe with them though is we are overcrowded but they dont give a flying doodah and expect us to live in cramped conditions and refuse to give me medical points because i had them when i moved here and im not getting them again.

i have an OT assessment soon (im on the waiting list) so maybe they can get the ball rolling.

Thats my point, how is it fair that jack jones down the road gets one and i dont qualify, I dont know how they decide, but a girl who lives down the road from me has a better kitchen than me, full set of kitchen sides, her sinks newer than mine and yet shes getting a new kitchen .....

Thats the thing , i dont want to seem like im ungratefull but the houses arent big, we have no room to swing a cat, the layouts off the houses are ridiculous, i know thats no ones fault, but we havent asked anything off of the council, always pay our rent on time and then after being told it should be done this yr or next (which was fine, knew it was in the not so distant future) but 3 years is ages away.. !

Thanks for that astonsmummy too, will give it ago...

Anthillmob

tbh our kitchewn at least has 2 work tops which is one more than the girl upstairs opposite us. she has one extrenely small worktop that you couldnt even fit a microwave on. when the oprev occupant there died the council didnt update anything. she had no heating for a year and a half yet the property below her recenlty becomes available and they get the kitchen and bathroom updated and also work done to make their back garden safe in the way of concreting whichwe were turned down for when i had the surveryour come round.

mind you our council repairs unit are crap. it took ovre a year for them to sort the damp in our bedroom out. would have taken longer but as soon as i took it to complaints they sent a surveyour round and a workman to mend the pointing outside (which i was told needed doing in november 2005).

maybe i should smash up my bathroom?????

accorfding to the social services peeps that i saw today they think OT would agree that we need a shower more than a bath but the bathroom is really small.

do you honestly think the council would take the bath out and fit a shower? weve tried a shower head that fixes to the taps but the water pressure is so !!!!!! that all you get is a trickle.

but, as SS said, we are in a catch 22. because we work we would have to fund most of it.

Anthillmob

SmileyHappyBeing wrote:

Thats my point, how is it fair that jack jones down the road gets one and i dont qualify, I dont know how they decide, but a girl who lives down the road from me has a better kitchen than me, full set of kitchen sides, her sinks newer than mine and yet shes getting a new kitchen .....

Thats the thing , i dont want to seem like im ungratefull but the houses arent big, we have no room to swing a cat, the layouts off the houses are ridiculous, i know thats no ones fault, but we havent asked anything off of the council, always pay our rent on time and then after being told it should be done this yr or next (which was fine, knew it was in the not so distant future) but 3 years is ages away.. !

Thanks for that astonsmummy too, will give it ago...

the thing is the council would rather we paid our hard earned cash to update our homes to standard but why the eff should we? its a council house and ill do it up as i see fit but being overcrowded and they have to move us at some point im not about to do their repair workfor them.

when the lock broke on my back door one saturday morning and mr mob was at work and would have been working that sunday i called the emergency repair line who said id have to wait until the tuesday for repair. i pointed out i was currently alone in the house (funny enough this happened the weekend mr mob was doing an annual (in his old job) overnight run to donnington) and that i was disabled and needed the security of a door that closed that they begrudingly sent someone round to repair it.

also, i found out that day that the repair medn have 'skeleton' keys to open any door in your house :eek:

SmileyHappyBeing

one of the prev posters said that she was gratefull for the work the council have done, but my thinking is, they are the landlord so its down to them surely to bring your home to a decent standard.. i dont think we should have to be that grateful when we are paying rent, if something needs fixing it should be fixed, our bathroom is carp to, but we can live with it, but the kitchen really gets us down as ppl see it when they come round, and it just lets the rest off the house down..theres no way that we could afford to do it ourselves, so looks like im just gonna have to just keep goin on at em'!

As for your keys, what if youd needed to go out, are you just meant to leave your property unlocked the mind boggles, be a diff story if it was there house!