Moth damage

bouicca21

Student child tenancy has just ended. Landlady wants them to pay for damage to carpets caused by moth infestation.

1. The initial inventory is not sufficiently detailed to show state of carapet/infestation at start of tenancy.
2. Infestation has been mentioned to landlady on her quarterly insepctions, only verbally nothing in writing. The students mentioned it because the moths were damaging their clothes; they didn't notice the damage to carpets. They did use moth balls.
3. For the landlady to have treated the infestation during the tenancy would probably have required some or all of them to vacate the premises.

Who is responsible? Landlady, students or joint?

bouicca21

I take it that the lack of response means that this question is just as awkward as I thought. LL is going to replace carpets and expects students to pay - but the carpets were old and stained, so presumably they shouldn't be paying for betterment?? Anyone any ideas about what proportion of the cost it is reasonable for them to bear?

BitterAndTwisted

The LL is going to have to prove the age of the carpeting and work out a formula for what period the tenants have deprived them of the use of them.

If you accept, for argument's sake, that the useful life of a top-quality carpet in a rental property would be ten years and the carpets were eight years old then the tenants would have to pay 20% of the initial cost.

To be honest, I would attempt to use the argument that the tenants weren't responsible for the infestation in the first place. You can't entice them or bring them in with you. They should also make mention of the fact that the presence of the moths was brought to the landlord's attention during the periodic inspections even though there is no written evidence. All this should be put in writing and a copy kept before they attempt to go through the deposit-protection scheme's arbitration process.

bouicca21

Ta, that's useful. Apparently LL thinks they should have vacuumed more and shifted furniture to do so - the infestation was mainly under divan beds. She's pulled one carpet out, thus demonstrating that the moth eggs were actually under the underlay, so I doubt more vacuum cleaning would have helped.