Advice needed - Landlord isn't helping regarding bugs in property

bambam789

Yes I do understand. I know it would be easier & it would get the situation sorted much quicker. I guess I'm about principles. If we didn't pay rent next month or only payed some I'm sure we would hear back from them very quickly. So the contract matters when it's in their favour but not ours it seems. I personally find it very difficult to do something for them when I'm already giving them £1000+ a month. What else do they want for their money!?

Grumpy_chap

bambam789 said:

why should we spend our money & time on something that in our tenancy agreement is the responsibility of the landlord. 

if we go down that route we may as well mend their boiler next time it goes wrong or pay for a plumber when the water is playing up. It is in the contract which they have signed to deal with bug infestations etc. It is in black & white in a legal document.

Have you actually checked your tenancy agreement?

It's just this is not the sort of things that people need to know as a default so I looked at an agreement we have, and it covers dealing with infestations as the tenant responsibility to take such reasonable precautions of a householder to prevent infestations and to rectify any such infestation.  I don't believe this tenancy agreement is particularly unusual.

Ksw3

Can you go to the letting agents in person?

anselld

bambam789 said:

Yes I do understand. I know it would be easier & it would get the situation sorted much quicker. I guess I'm about principles. If we didn't pay rent next month or only payed some I'm sure we would hear back from them very quickly. So the contract matters when it's in their favour but not ours it seems. I personally find it very difficult to do something for them when I'm already giving them £1000+ a month. What else do they want for their money!?

What does the contract actually say about pest control?

_Penny_Dreadful

bambam789 said:

Hi,

As per the title I need some advice. I've been getting bugs in my rented property for the past 6 months. After letting our landlord know they sent a pest control company round who confirmed they were Biscuit Bugs. The pest controller couldn't establish where they were coming from but between us we were 90% certain they were from the loft. Long story short the pest controller treated the area in our property & said see how you get on. 

We gave it 2 months & no change. We raised the point again & after chasing/pushing for a 2 weeks they sent someone round again. This guy went into our loft & said he thinks they're coming from there. He said he would recommend to the landlord that the loft needs clearing out as there is some old junk up there (not ours). This was 2 weeks ago now. 

Since then we have chased 3 times to see what is going via our maneging agent who keeps fobbing us off. They don't seem to care that we are having bugs crawling over our kitchen unit & some in our bed occasionally but still expect us to pay rent (which we are doing).  Our rent has ironically gone up this month too.

Is there anything else we can do? It's draining having to chase up something that they should be on top off naturally. It's like they don't care at all.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

When did the tenancy start? If the biscuit beetles have been there since the start of your tenancy then I agree that the landlord should resolve the issue however, if the beetles started appearing some time after your tenancy started then you introduced the beetles and it is your responsibility, not the landlord’s to have them dealt with. 

If it’s the former, that the beetles were there at the start of your tenancy then you need to write to the landlord, at the address for the serving of notices given in your tenancy agreement, to report the remaining presence of the beetles. Then if the landlord fails to do anything about the beetles you can escalate the matter to environmental health. The law gives you some protection against revenge evictions when you’ve reported repair issues whereas withholding rent is a sure fire way to get yourself evicted. 

Repairs and protection from eviction are topics covered in the How to Rent booklet you will have received at the start of your tenancy. 

bambam789

Thanks all. I'm at work today but will copy the exact text from our agreement later & post on here. I know it states that the landlord is responsible for bug infestations etc but I want to get it exactly right.

We have lived here for 6 years with no problems but the bugs have appeared this year. First thing we did after the pest controller said they are biscuit beetles was to check all our food in the cupboards but there were zero there. The pest controller confirmed this. 

They are crawling down from the loft but we have never been up there once since living here so nothing has changed in our life. Only other thing I can think of is we are in the middle of flats either side & from what the pest controller said there are gaps in the loft between us and our neighbours either side. Only thing I could think of is they could be linked to one of them & crawling through?

MultiFuelBurner

Well that is more information.

If you have been there for 6 years and they just appeared this year then yes it is very likely something else that has changed.

So any new neighbours in the flats either side? 

bambam789

MultiFuelBurner said:

Well that is more information.

If you have been there for 6 years and they just appeared this year then yes it is very likely something else that has changed.

So any new neighbours in the flats either side? 

Yes new neighbours next door about 2 years ago. That is the only link that I have found that has changed. The bugs didn't appear until a year after they moved in though. I was thinking it could be linked to them & they are crawling into us via the loft then down into our storage cupboard. That part I'm 99% certain on - that they are coming down via the loft. The pest controller in his report even recommended boarding up some gaps in the top of our cupboard as there are gaps from the loft downwards.

We did think it could be the neighbours but that makes it even tougher. How do we prove it's them? How do we potentially report them?

spoovy

If it were me, I'd go round and ask them if they're having similar problems. Based on what you've said so far they may well have. Sounds like there's a food source somewhere up there that needs finding and removing.  This shouldn't be difficult to sort out really.

You may well be right in principle that the landlord should be sorting it, but while you wait for your landlord to do the right thing, you've still got beetles in your biscuits. And waiting for landlords to do the right thing is like waiting for it to start raining £50 notes. In my experience as a tenant it usually made sense for my own mental and physical health to just sort these things out myself.

propertyrental

Sounds like the bugs arrived after you did, so not really the LL's responsibility. They came from somewhere, for some reason, either because of you or the neighbours.

The terms within the tenancy agreement are unlikely to mention bugs, and if there IS a clause I doubt it will acknowledge the LL as responsible.......

Yes we have considered going to environmental health. The only reason we've held back is the fear of being kicked out because we've 'reported' them in their eyes.

That's why the Deregulation Act was passed. To prevent 'revenge' evictions.