Lodger harassed by live-in landlady

elephantrosie

i have yet to confront her about her unethical (well, seems most of you guys said what she did was legal, so i am labeling her act as unethical) behaviour.
its not because i am scared of her, but i am tired of the drama she has created.

as for whether another lodger is hiking up the electricity (someone asked this)- i do not know and do not want to know because i just want to move out. i do know that when the girl next door moved out last month, she left a fan heater in her room. i am not sure if that was hers or provided by the landlady.

if shes making sure the temperature is comfortable, no lodgers would want to hike up her electricity. i know when the temperature went down to 2 degrees and she did not switch on the central heating, no one complained about it. even when the toilet bowl was stucked, no one said anything to her.
but anyway, these are not important to me now....

moneyistooshorttomention

elephantrosie wrote: »

while i was away, she came into my room and looked through a few things on my table. in fact when i could not find my passport momentarily yesterday, i panicked... but i did eventually found it.

where can i get advice on a lodgers rights? i am aware that lodgers have fewer rights than tenants.

Try Shelter - I would imagine they would know.

booksurr

assuming you are in England or Wales (not Scotland or N Ireland) then read this:
http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/sharing_and_subletting/lodgers

you have no contract so there is nothing in writing setting out notice periods for either party. You may therefore leave having given "reasonable" notice which is all that is required under law. Reasonable is not defined, it is whatever is reasonable in the circumstances, although a court may view less than 24 hours notice as requiring strong justification (eg fear of physical assault). Equally it can be argued that reasonable (where there are no other factors in play such as relationship breakdown) would be tied to the frequency with which you pay rent.

you have decided to stop paying rent. Has your LL noticed that yet? How do you expect her to react when she does given her behavior. If your deposit equals 1 whole month's rent and you are happy to write it off then you can leave anytime you want between now and the day before your next rent payment would be paid. If you consider it "unfair" for her to keep your deposit then both you and she will need to go to court as only a court can decide on lodger deposit disputes

BTW it is not "unethical" for a LL to enter a lodgers room, it is her legal right and is a very important difference between a lodger and tenant. It is "unethical" for her to go through your things (and mad given you could accuse her of theft - although proving it may be hard!)

moneyistooshorttomention

Actually - given that she does this illicit snooping - do store important stuff somewhere else safe for the time being (eg your passport/jewellery/money/paperwork generally).

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I've had lodgers before (many years back) and have never been aware of any law stating I had the legal right to go through lodgers private belongings. I very much doubt there is a law allowing that.

There's no law allowing people to spout ill-informed nonsense on websites either. As pointed out in the post immediately before yours, had you bothered to read it, what matters is whether there is a law forbidding this.

coffeehound

ScorpiondeRooftrouser wrote: »

I am not surprised it no longer bothers you but I think you should rethink your charge. If your bills have jumped by an appreciable amount, you have fixed on the wrong cause. Is another lodger running something else which is now getting paid for by this one?

Written with admirable restraint; I was about to put it in less diplomatic terms. Lodging with a LL is money for old rope: you pay their mortgage off while being treated as a third-class citizen. Even squatters get free utilities laid on.

OP you could consider looking for a bedsit/bedsitter in future. Still far from ideal, but at least it is your own space for a similar cost. You will have shared bathroom facilities but hopefully your own little kitchenette.

michelle09

ScorpiondeRooftrouser wrote: »

I am not surprised it no longer bothers you but I think you should rethink your charge. If your bills have jumped by an appreciable amount, you have fixed on the wrong cause. Is another lodger running something else which is now getting paid for by this one?

It might be something else. We normally only have one lodger who has been here since we moved in, so I doubt they have changed anything.

It may be an unreasonable charge, but the rent was only £300/month before that so they are still paying far below the market rate for London. To be honest, they take two obscenely long showers a day (we've waited through 60 minutes of running water before) so we're actually hoping they'll find somewhere else fairly soon...

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

michelle09 wrote: »

It might be something else. We normally only have one lodger who has been here since we moved in, so I doubt they have changed anything.

It may be an unreasonable charge, but the rent was only £300/month before that so they are still paying far below the market rate for London. To be honest, they take two obscenely long showers a day (we've waited through 60 minutes of running water before) so we're actually hoping they'll find somewhere else fairly soon...

Electric showers? That would do it. They will use, literally, 1000 times more electricity than running a noisemaker. A standard 7.5kw one (which isn't big) would cost about a pound a day if run for 2 thirty minute sessions.

marksoton

Stop procrastinating and just get out.

elephantrosie

Thanks all for the replies.