Touch the rental market — landlords. Jeez! Very rare you find a Gem,
based on our experience. Between 2001 and 2014, we stayed in 4 places.

  • The first landlord was a thorough gentleman. He gave us a brand new flat. A year and a half later, he sold. Except a general wear and tear, he was surprised how immaculate the house was, despite the 7-years old lived with her parents at the properly. He returned the full deposit.
  • Second landlord was ok and not too bad. She did take 25% off the deposit, despite the flat was professionally cleaned by her own appointed cleaning services. The inventory check out was all ok.
  • Third was a nightmare. Cleaned professionally and we got a clean chit from the inventory check out. He refused to pay. The issue dragged for more than a year and half. There was nothing we could do. Finally, we gave up and he offered 50% deposit.
  • Fourth was similar to the third case. He started harassing and nit-picking us, despite the estate agent told him formally that the house was kept in a great shape. The agency advised us to move as they were also sick of dealing with the landlord and closing the relationship with him. He refused to return the deposit; he had no reason to hold the deposit. Finally paid after keeping 25%. The funny part was he could not find a tenant for almost a year! 😁

Glad, we have a roof of our own since 2015. We keep telling our daughter to get even a single bed as her own roof as soon as she starts her core training and scale up as she grows with NHS. With the NHS salary, she keeps asking how ? 😔

    LMSC in situations like this it is worth pursuing through tenancy deposit schemes. If the property was left clean condition with no damage above reasonable wear and tear you’d have your deposits back in full.

    mailto:kafar@btinternet.com

      I’ve bought on Ebay for Donkey’s years for stuff ranging from £1 to £1,500 and had no problems, never once having to send anything back or had something that wasn’t as described or arrived damaged. Only recently sold a few things (Gaggia, Brasilia grinder and Sage grinder) and again not had a single issue. Guess I’m just lucky.

      Got to admit, after looking elswhere on the web I always check on Ebay for the same stuff and in doing so I’ve saved a fortune over the years.

      7 days later

      OK, because I am now officially a curmudgeonly old git, I’ve started reading news articles more carefully. Which led me to make an IPSO complaint, as I am fed up with the continual deception and misleading articles in the news media. For your delectation here are a couple I found particularly egregious and felt the need to complain. Remember we will all get old and we will probably all have to own an electric car, enjoy:

      **To:**inquiries@ipso.co.uk

      Fri, 17 Jun at 12:53

      I wish to complain about 2 articles in the express I consider breaks the editors’ code clause  1. Accuracy.

      https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1624868/ev-charging-31-hour-wait-leeds

      This article makes misleading claims that would lead people to think extended public charging times exist in this and other cities. The specific problems are:

      • The headline subheading reinforces the misleading claim

      • the second paragraph further reinforces the incorrect and misleading claim

      • It’s based on a study done by a car leasing company (of predominantly or wholly non electric vehicles), hence a conflict of interest in providing accurate, non misleading study. https://carleasespecialoffers.co.uk/

      • The entire article and wait times are actually based on to completely unreasonable assumptions

        • That no electric car owner has a charger at home

        • All electric car owners in an area try to charge their cars at once and all cars presumably requiring a full charge.

      Why this matters: The law regarding Petrol and Diesel field cars is changing, this article has the potential to incorrectly and heavily influence the decision motorists are increasingly having to make on their next vehicle. It has the potential for a significant financial impact on those decisions and may delay the adoption of those technologies.

      https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1624664/elderly-drivers-road-traffic-collision-failed-look-crash-studyThis article makes misleading claims and contains inaccurate information about the risk factors for elderly drivers. Namely elderly drivers cause more accidents than younger drivers as they fail to look properly.

      • The headline subheading reinforces the misleading claim and in facts states “half” even based on other statements later that say 4 out of 10

      • The second paragraph relating to the PA study could be easily read as 4 out of 10 elderly people don’t look properly. This doesn’t take into account those involved in a collision that was not their fault, it is not grouped by age so there is no valid definition of “elderly” except to say over 70. This data could be massively skewed by drivers aged over 85! In needed to be in the context of age groupings 70,75 80 85

      • “The analysis of the DfT data showed that the mistake contributes to 42.6 percent of collisions involving drivers over the age of 70. The figure stands at 35.7 percent for all other ages.” This statement illustrates the extent of the deception, as by not setting an upper age limit to the study and just saying over 70…all drivers over 70 are only going to have an increased risk factor of “failing to look properly” of 7%, not the 42.6% implied. e.g. out of all the drivers under 70 if 100 had an accident 35.7 drivers would have not looked properly as opposed to 7 drivers more over 70

      • Such a clear difference at 70 is unlikely, but again the implication is at 70 than number jumps by 7, this is extremely unlikely

      • It neglects to mention that the vast majority of accidents of all types involve younger drivers, giving the clear impression elderly drivers are more likely to have an accident. “The research added that elderly drivers are more likely to cause a crash”. This statement is blatantly untrue, even correcting for miles driven.

      Why this matters:  Insurance rates, elderly driver confidence, perception of elderly drivers by other road users are all negatively affected. The article could easily encourage age discrimination and aggressive behaviour of other road users to elderly drivers. All of this based on a distortion of the data and an omission of the true accident statistics.

      Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have further questions about either article

      Contact me

        Saw this toda

        Which expert? A blind one

        Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

        DavecUK I am now officially a curmudgeonly old git

        What makes you one “officially”? (I mean, what makes “one” one, not you specifically - does ability to officially get a pension qualify? If so, I’ll join the club)

        I do understand the annoyance, at both. EV infrastructure in the UK actually annoys me in general - I live in a town of 12,000 people, with 6 public charging points (and my house front is right out on the street, with double yellows so there is no way I can install a private one).

        FWIW, the first article assumes an “average charge of 50 minutes”. A Tesla supercharger will provide ~80% of an 85 kWh battery in 40 minutes, but the public chargers installed are normally far lower capacity than a supercharger… and a 50 minute charge doesn’t sound unreasonable as an average charge duration:

        I took the stats of 127 chargers in Leeds from Google Maps - average capacity among those is 23.1 kW. 50 minutes is just a shade under 20 kWh - ~50% of a “smaller” EV battery, and ~25% of a “large” one.

        Only reason for mentioning this, is that I think that complaints are always more effective if they cannot be dismissed on trivial grounds (“presumably requiring a full charge” - well, that is not what one gets with 50 minutes, but how many people actually time their vehicle’s “regular” recharge on that basis? More likely to be the average time in the shopping mall…)

            DavecUK Well done, as another “curmudgeon” of remorselessly advancing years, I have found “news” sites becoming steadily more like free-to-view tv …. poorly done, lowest common denominator crap dedicated to the stupid and gullible. And advertising sales.

            I don’t hold any hope for improvement, it seems that we’re in a bit of a downward spiral with smarts these days.

            But maybe that’s just the curmudgeon taking, lol

              I had a problem with the downstairs toilet…27 year old ball valve for quite a few years now has been causing vibration banging, really loud, to the point I was worried about my pipes. Finally I got fed up with it and the 1lmost 90s plus of noise that accompanied a flush.

              Got meeself the old Skylo bottom entry float valve.. Looked good, compact, no more float arm and ball and just enough space to miss the jetflow (Ideal standard flush unit), another pile of dog do, but that’s another story, waiting to happen when the membrane finally fails..

              So far so good, drained cistern, removed old ball valve, put a new little fibre washer in the service valve…slung it in and screwed it up from underneath nice and tight. It used a rubbery cone shaped bung to fit in the hole of my cistern….good idea I thought, much better than the flat rubber washer that I had previously. Had taken the grand total of 10 minutes to get to this point.

              Now the nightmare begins, opened service valve filled cistern a bit, leaks from bottom of fill valve, tightened nut, still leaked, I kept tightening this plastic nut until it stopped leaking and it was a toss up whether the nut fractured or the leak would stop. Lesson, not all holes in ceramic cisterns are made equal….

              Massive ball ache that made the job take ages…..works nice though, delayed fill, almost silent and quick as well….just hope that plastic nut stays OK.

              Delayed fill = prevents it filling whilst the toiler is flushing to save water.

              Why oh why are the simplest DIY jobs sometimes such a PITA

              Contact me

              3 months later

              Something else that really really gets on my tits.

              When you want to buy an honest to goodness genuine product, are willing to pay good money because a fake product is just so much hassle.

              Kitchen gloves (marigold) on Amazon, they have sizes types and packaging that marigold themselves don’t even have. My limited experience with kitchen gloves has been that they either develop holes in a few days…or become like sticky chewing gum after a few weeks.

              Contact me

                There a con to with covid. We used to pay £3.50 per box of 100 for the good ones, they went up to £18 a box and the ones we used are still £12.99+vat

                Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

                Only ten seats in the GP surgery???? Our surgery used to be heaving but you could get an appointment in a reasonable time. Now the place is literally dead and you have to wait at least 6 weeks for an appointment whilst A & E is like a battle field.
                The irony I found is that when you have a planned operation or visit A & E, no masks are required and no Covid testing is carried out and yet the other half of the country is still in first gear and “??working” from home because of ?? Covid.
                Someone seems to have pressed the snooze button.

                  When you make 3 espressos for work later and leave in fridge for couple hours before work and then realise half way to work that, the coffee is, indeed still in the fridge😫

                    What makes me particularly angry is when I see a dictator full of warped ideologies and misplaced nostalgic, thoughtless Putinism ideals, that is lost in an opaque vision of totalitarianism that is about as opposite and contrasting as can be ,to the bravery of Ukrainian people whose spirit and determination can only but inspire. Got that one off my chest.