No Kitchen for 18 Days - Barely Any Compensation?

lookstraightahead

Ms_Chocaholic wrote: »

Why can't you move the microwave to another room - bedroom, dining room, lounge and have soup or microwaveable meals. Water you can get from a bathroom tap.


When we had our kitchen redone we were without a kitchen for a number of days, can't remember exactly how many but we managed and we had children living at home at the time.

Totally missing the point. I presume you chose when to have yours done and controlled the work?

anselld

18 days is a ridiculously long time to fit a kitchen, however ...

You mention this is a five bed HMO, therefore it must be Licensed. The local authority housing standards department should take an interest in the living standards provided.

Unfortunately if the work genuinely needs to be done there are few alternatives except doing it quicker or offering a more reasonable compensation.

[Deleted User]

Sorry if I missed it but have you definitely clarified with the LL that the fridge etc will be thrown out before the new ones are installed? Ask him if you can put them somewhere else temporarily and FIND a space to keep them for a couple of weeks. There has to be somewhere/something you can move around temporarily to fit a fridge freezer in for a couple of weeks. Its what I had to do when my kitchen was refurbed (Sofas squashed against each other, not pleasant but it enabled me to have a small food prep area). Place looked a mess, I hated it but had to be done. Its amazing how small a food prep area you can put up with when its temporary. I sort of enjoyed finding ways to make sure life carried on as normal, maybe I am weird lol.

While its not ideal, microwave food is perfectly ok for a couple of weeks. Add lots of veg to microwave meals of your choice, its relatively healthy. You definitely don't have to live on soups (although they can be quite hearty and healthy, I often choose to have soups). Or if confirmed you will have a fridge freezer available, batch cook some things you like in advance (or ask a friend to store them for you frozen) and reheat as you want to. This is one of the things I did when I had the infamous kitchen refurb.

I think the price you quoted for laundry was a service wash? Think you will find it an awful lot cheaper if you do it yourself. Get a cheap shopping trolley if carrying it is a problem (then use it for shopping afterwards). Walking is healthy etc, bit of hill walking might improve your fitness lol. You might even find you can wear clothing twice if not dirty without washing lol. You might find a quick rinse through of sports items is quick and easy to do in the bathroom.

I suspect because this is being forced upon you, you are looking at worse case scenarios rather than seriously figuring out ways to minimise the inconvenience as much as you can.

silvercar

anselld wrote: »

18 days is a ridiculously long time to fit a kitchen, however ...

You mention this is a five bed HMO, therefore it must be Licensed. The local authority housing standards department should take an interest in the living standards provided.

Unfortunately if the work genuinely needs to be done there are few alternatives except doing it quicker or offering a more reasonable compensation.

It may be that the local authority has required that the kitchen be updated!

sal_III

First of all I agree that £50 is a joke, when you pay £550/m rent. Unfortunately it might prove difficult if not impossible to get the LL to cough up more. So I will offer mitigation steps.

For the laundry, don't you have friends/classmates that live nearby that can let you use their washing machine? I was doing this all the time during my student years.

Similarly for cooked food, if you can use friends/classmate facility to cook meal(s) for 3-5 days. Microwaved meals are more expensive than cooking from scratch, but you still need to pay for the produce of the latter, so you can't expect the compo to pay for the full amount. Speaking of which, ASDA has a huge variety of 3 for £6 ready meals, not £3-6. There are even cheaper alternatives elsewhere.

Bottled water is cheap enough and can be ordered online in bulk, if carrying it from the local supermarket is an issue.

Ask the LL to temporarily put the old fridge in the living room or other communal areas alternatively, just put a box outside on a balcony/window, the weather is cold enough.

None of the above is ideal, but such is life, sometimes we have to deal with unfortunate circumstances.

paddyz

That’s shocking, such a long time too, ask for more money for the disruption and extra costs I think £200 will be more suitable, many years ago I was a council house tenant and they gave me a choice to put my family in a hotel for 2 weeks or 2 weeks free rent for a disruption allowance to put central heating in and rewireing the house and that was years ago

They are just greedy landlords I’m thinking about putting a new kitchen in but will set up a small kitchen in one of the rooms and give a big reduction in rent that month for my lodgers

SensibleSarah

I had a similar situation when I was lodging in someone's house years ago - so I had less rights than someone in a HMO. No kitchen for more than 2 months whilst it was being renovated (fridge and microwave moved to another room but nowhere to actually prepare food etc - washing up had to be done in bath). No discount offered on what I paid to lodge there when I asked. Half way through the works, she actually tried to put up the rent.

I moved out the following month. We're actually still friends and I've been back to the house since - kitchen now looks amazing - but it always takes me back to the horrible 2 months when I see it.

Murphybear

When my husband and I bought a house some years ago it had a fully functioning bathroom but the kitchen was a large room with literally nothing but the kitchen sink.

While we were doing it up we had a kettle, microwave and toaster. Microwaves aren’t just for soup and ready meals, you can cook lots of things from scratch. I made one of the best chillis I have ever made in that microwave. It is easy to do jacket potatoes, lots of toppings and very cheap. Depending on your microwave some can do other things such as grill

Plenty of cookery books in the library or a gazillion recipes online.

JuzaMum

I don't know about the legal ins and outs but your landlord is an !!!!!. In the area I live there are many 'soup' kitchens. They provide good hot meals everyday in different locations across the town. You don't have to be down and out to use them. They are visited by all sorts including families in B&B accommodation. The one nearest me also gives out sandwiches to take away to you can have another meal later. A list of food kitchens should be available from social services, Big Issue office and food bank providers.

lookstraightahead

Murphybear wrote: »

When my husband and I bought a house some years ago it had a fully functioning bathroom but the kitchen was a large room with literally nothing but the kitchen sink.

While we were doing it up we had a kettle, microwave and toaster. Microwaves aren’t just for soup and ready meals, you can cook lots of things from scratch. I made one of the best chillis I have ever made in that microwave. It is easy to do jacket potatoes, lots of toppings and very cheap. Depending on your microwave some can do other things such as grill

Plenty of cookery books in the library or a gazillion recipes online.

Although I know you are being helpful here we can all find ways of surviving but that really isn't the point. It's ok eating from a microwave when you have a bigger picture but quite honestly this landlord will be sitting in their own comfy kitchen with a big warm oven while this tenant and others pay to go without. It's appalling and I would not put up with eating zapped food from the wrong room when it's not even my choice.