Introducing Our International Bizarre Landlord Stories Series

“Be alert to neighbour complaints”

Nobody is going to complain about the neighbour that could set a tiger and alligator on them! 🙂

A few stories from my archives.

Dirtiest (unless you know better) is a tenant of 12 years who we all call the “Dirty Bugger”. His flat is filthy, the bath is full of cobwebs and it is suspected that he has not washed since taking up the tenancy, it certainly smells that way. He has never changed his clothes, his lavatory is black, the walls of his property are covered in black mould, the kitchen is covered half a centimetre thick with grease. Cleaning is a word not in his vocabulary. Last week he asked for a new flat as his flat “was in a bit of a mess”.

Lamest excuse. I am sorry I cannot pay my rent as my lizard was ill and I had to pay the vet.

Daftest. Can you get a plumber as my toilet is blocked was the periodic request from a lady who refused to flush her loo. When she left the whole flat had to be steam cleaned by a team wearing protective clothing. (This one is a close contender for dirtiest but since she has left it would be cheating to count her.)

Meanest is the tenant who only has one light bulb and takes it from room to room.

Most drunk is the one seen eating his take away fish and chips which he has spilt on the staircase and hurling abuse at everyone who passed by. Later he crawled up the stairway covered in blood presumably from falling over. Or perhaps it is the one who crawled up the staircase in soaking wet trousers having spent £300 in the local pub, a bonanza from some casual work.

Craziest request was from a tenant who called environmental health to complain that she had no fixed heating. She has a studio flat in which she has piled all her possessions from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. The environmental health officer’s comment was “Just where do you expect your landlord to fix a heater?” Her bath is used as a wardrobe and she shares her space with nine cats (pets are not allowed but what can we do about it) – come to think of it she is also a contender for the dirtiest tenant. We have installed positive pressure ventilation in the corridor outside her flat to minimise the smell.

Most destructive was the individual who deliberately put objects down the manhole and blocked the sewer casing foul water to flood the whole flat. The sewer cost £10,000 to dig up and remove the obstruction, one of my tools which he had purloined, which was lodged firmly in the trap under the road. The floor had to be replaced at a cost of some £5,000. All the furniture had to be moved upstairs whilst the floor was being replaced and it was then that we discovered that all the upstairs internal walls had been demolished and the resulting debris left on the floor. Whilst my family and I were doing the work the tenant hurled a brick at us through a closed window shouting abuse because we had failed to rehouse him while the work was being done. It is a great pity that Landlord Referencing was not around at the time, however it would have made little difference as the tenant was rehoused at Her Majesty’s pleasure.

Curious. I have never broken a light switch or socket in my life but it is normal for such items to be smashed when a tenant vacates. How do tenants manage to damage electrical fittings with such regularity? I had one tenant complain to environmental health about the state of the electrical fittings which he had broken and in some cases removed entirely.

Landlords revenge. All the sockets in the common areas of my flats are MK non standard sockets. A special plug, superficially the same as a normal UK plug, is required to connect to them and they are very expensive, many times the price of normal plugs and sockets. This stops tenants from using communal electricity for their own purposes – or so we thought. One day a kettle was plugged into the corridor socket, someone had hammered a normal plug into the socket, in the process destroying the socket. As it boiled a tenant poked his head out of the flat, obviously to retrieve the kettle. “Is this your kettle?” “No nothing to do with me”. Not only did the landlord get a new kettle but also a nice cup of tea with the hot water.

Most dangerous was the bypassed electricity meter where all the wiring had been done with earth wire (green and yellow) and in one part with bare wire. The electricity company took photographs for their archives as they considered this one of the most dangerous by pass they had encountered.

Most ungrateful. I was approached by an individual who wanted a flat for two weeks while his property (in the same building) was being refurbished. In the two weeks he was there he destroyed a studio flat. All the furniture had to be dumped, that is what remained after he had stolen most of it. All the fittings had to be replaced, the whole flat re-plumbed and re-wired, the smashed windows replaced and the walls re-plastered. Were it not for the fact that this was a small property he would have won the most destructive prize. Curiously he did not pay any rent and even claimed to the police that I owed him money.

Craziest utility company reaction. At one time we had an empty flat which was used as a store room. Our electricity consumption in this flat was about 10 pence a quarter as power was only used for a light and that only very occasionally. Every six months or so the power company insisted on changing the meter, a key meter registered in the name of the management company, and having the old one tested because they could not believe that any property could use so little. This saga went on for many years until the flat reverted to residential use.

Best tenant. Let me end this mini saga with the tale of an elderly tenant who has only been with me for six months. In that time he has decorated his flat, replaced the bathroom (I paid for the fittings) and kitchen and has made a palace of his small flat. In six months he has created an environment fit for a king where others create a slum in a week. His rent is paid on time and his flat is immaculately clean, but there is no point in recording him on any database as he will be with me for the rest of his life.

I could write a book on my experiences as a landlord and perhaps recording these anecdotes will give me the impetus to start writing.

As I wander virtually through my properties more and more incidents spring to mind. The first pair are only vaguely related as they occurred at different times but in the same flat.

Cat and Rat. Two young tenants ‘did a runner’ and it was only when their council rent was not paid that we realised they had departed. Unfortunately they had left a pet rat in residence, presumably too much trouble to take with them. The poor creature had chewed its way through everything not made of concrete or metal, the insulation on the water tank, the upholstery on the chairs, the mattress; it had even gnawed the wooden furniture. Eventually, probably through lack of water it had died we think in the mattress. A complete refurbishment of the flat was necessary. Sometime later another tenant left two kittens in similar circumstances. We discovered these in time, before they died but not before they were starving hungry and dehydrated. A large tin of cat food was proffered and consumed within thirty seconds; a second tin took little longer.

Inanimate copulation. Large arrears and an obviously absent tenant (we have an electronic key system which records every usage) prompted us to clear a flat and put the contents in store. A month or two later I received a call from someone claiming to be a friend of the tenant demanding his ‘stuff’ back, allegedly worth £3,000.
“You the F****g landlord, I f****g want my f****g stuff f****g back. You’ve f****g got no f****g right to f****g keep my f****g stuff . . . “ The call continued in this vein for a few minutes. Eventually I said “I don’t know you from Adam” I knew that the poor lad had not had a Christian education when his immediate response was “Who’s f*****g Adam?”. . . . . . Eve perhaps?

Blowing in the wind. One Christmas a top floor window was blowing in the wind, something has to be done to prevent the rather decrepit structure from falling. A forced entry, not the first by any means, was necessary and we picked our way across the floor to close the offending window and immediately made a hurried but careful retreat. The whole flat had been used as a toilet with barely room left to cross the floor without stepping in something somewhat undesirable. Not my flat or tenant but the landlord was unaware and the tenant considered his behaviour normal.

Mother and children. Another Christmas and an adjacent flat, this time one of mine. A young mother and her children were having a good Christmas on the rent money – or so I thought. They all left in a hurry leaving all their possessions behind. Everything in the flat was stolen, all the toys, video recorder, television, games console and in particular the videos (this was before the DVD era) which were from the local library. The security tags had been torn off enabling the videos to be taken through the security system. Being a responsible landlord I took them all (two large sacks full) back to the Library where I spent an uncomfortable half hour persuading the staff that it was not me who had taken them. The rent money? Who knows for there was no evidence of any legitimate purchases in the property.

Comments on my parents. “You **** ******* **** **** ******** ******* ***** **** **** **** ***** ******* ********* ******** *** **** ****** ********** ************ **** *********** *************” said the voice on the end of the phone, “I just lost a good job because of you”. Some two years earlier I had taken the individual to court for rent arrears and, as with most cases, it was not defended so a CCJ was procured. The person concerned had applied for and been offered a job with the MOD subject to satisfactory security clearance. The CCJ had come back to haunt him. I have little doubt that it would have also affected his ability to secure a shorthold tenancy.

Wind. On a dead calm summers night an almighty row was heard in one of my properties. The ensuing fight (between a man and a woman) ended with the front door frame being pushed forward four inches (100 mm). The police were called and statements taken but no prosecution made as the tenant claimed it was a gust of wind which slammed the door causing the frame to detach itself from the wall. Unless I could prove that a gust of wind could not have caused the damage the case would not succeed in court.

Fire alarms. For three years the fire alarm had been activated several times a day. All through the day and night the fire alarm was set off and often the fire service attended the scene. There was never a fire. Whilst a fire risk assessment was being undertaken the alarm was set off eleven times, a record even for our block. We had our suspicions but no proof. Then there was a real fire, more smoke than flames and the culprit was caught. In the three years since she was arrested and later convicted there have been no false alarms.

Revenge. In an act of revenge against a tenant who had upset them the local vandals knocked a few bricks out of our perimeter wall and threw them at the double glazed windows of a flat. The tenant moved out and the landlord was left with the bill (over £1,000). Subsequently the local vandals, over a period of five years, have gradually demolished 140 meters of the perimeter wall. The replacement will be steel reinforced engineering bricks.

Sleep tight Then there was the tenant caught sleeping on one of my beds (home made, very distinctive and tenant proof) in another property who on the advice of his solicitor said he thought I owed him money (I did not). That was enough for the CPS to say the case would not succeed. After six months the police released the bed which meanwhile had been replaced and I had nowhere to put the old one.

Failed TV. We have a communal TV aerial with an amplifier serving 100 flats mostly let to young healthy DSS tenants receiving Jobseekers allowance. Recently the amplifier failed in the middle of the morning and within 10 minutes the caretaker had 28 missed calls. All seeking a job via the television? There is no greater penalty for a miscreant tenant than to remove his TV signal – and it’s legal.

Racist. There was one black tenant who played the race card every week when asked, politely, to pay his rent. Eventually we discovered his Achilles heel, his ’rod of iron’ mother who achieved in a single phone call what we had failed to achieve in many months of cajoling.

Copper and Coppers. The recent increase in the price of scrap metals prompted one tenant to remove the copper cylinder. Unfortunately for him he was caught in the act as he forgot to drain the system first, in fact he forgot even to turn the water off. Naturally the police were called but there seemed to be little they could do because he had been unsuccessful in his theft. The damage of several thousand pounds from the resulting flood and ruined tank and pipework was a civil matter as there was a tenancy agreement in place (I believe that this is an incorrect interpretation of the Criminal Damage Act).

Lead us into temptation. One our roofs leaked, a minor problem but one which needed attention. The builder discovered that it was because most of the lead had been purloined. The builder took a large sheet of lead to the roof level (12 meters up), a single piece weighing 75 kg, destined to cover an old Victorian chimney which had long been capped. The next morning, thanks to the scaffolding now in place, not only had the new lead been taken but also all the remaining lead from the roof. We now have a lead substitute which has no scrap value.

The Iron Age. One of our manholes is missing, or more correctly the cover is missing, another scrap metal related incident and this one is hot off the press. Thieves have stolen one of our manhole covers leaving an open hole.

Chemical Poisoning. The tenant who complained of Carbon Monoxide poisoning when his electric water heater malfunctioned.

Gas safety. A misguided tenant took legal action against his landlord for failing to provide Gas Safety certificates and a Carbon Monoxide detector in an all electric flat. I have some sympathy for he had only had three years to determine that there was no gas in his flat or indeed in the whole building. The absence of a gas bill should have given him a clue!

If you feel like taking up baseball after reading this remember to always carry an appropriate ball to prove you have the right intent.