My first problem was trying to fit my entire life into a bedroom. I had done a sterling job of reducing my 'junk' over the years before moving and in my temporary storage unit I thought I had done really well, apparently a suitcase or two would have been better. At £55 per week for storage I applied for a council garage, problem number 1, I was not entitled to a council garage as I was only a lodger. Thankfully my landlord heard my phone call conversation (this would become an issue) and he said he had a garage as his house was council. He simply called the council and 'pulled some strings' and got me a garage, voila problem solved, my £55 per week storage unit was cleared and put into the garage which was a much more affordable rate of a mere £27 per month!
Problems 2-about 500. The state of the house. My bedroom was filled with fruit flies, when I say filled I really mean it, they were everywhere. The problem was my landlords obsession with buying everything in the reduced aisle of Morrisons, cramming it into the fridge and leaving it there to rot. The fridge was like a path lab at Porton Down.
Some comments on this photograph from my Facebook friends;
"What the f**k is that?"
"there is life Jim but not as we know it ...."
"Wear a bio-haz suit in there..."
So I had nowhere to keep food, yet another expense, I bought myself a desktop fridge, kettle and toaster to store in my bedroom. I couldn't use the kitchen, it was filled with leftover food and bubonic plague, this chilli had been there for 3 weeks, surprisingly there was no mould, perhaps even mould was too disgusted to grow there?
So I took up glamping in my bedroom and lived off Super Noodles;
So now you know what the kitchen was like, here is the lounge, a place to kick back and relax;
Some more Facebook comments;
"How do u sleep on that bed?!"
"Like a bat?"
So back onto the garage, a few days after I moved my bits n bobs into the garage I received my confirmation with a covering letter which stated I was entitled to the garage as I was co-habiting with my partner. My partners name was my landlord! Freaked out I asked my landlord what was going on and ohhhh my goodness he flew off the handle, at that point I realised my landlord had a few mental health issues. Terrified I took myself in a taxi to my boyfriends house for a few days.
I called the council and put them straight that I was not his partner, I was a lodger and did not know him and certainly did not like him. Problem number.... 50? 167? 3,412? The house was council (well local housing association), he was not allowed to sublet. For several weeks I thought I was going to be homeless but thanks to a very kind lady at the council she realised I was in a terrible situation and wrote a letter to me and my landlord as confirmation that he could sublet. What my landlord did not know was that I had every intention of leaving ASAP and had been searching for a new place since day 1 of moving in! The council knew this and they were happy that I would be out soon and as soon as that happened they would disallow him to sublet in the future, they really were fantastic and very understanding towards me.
Over time there were many many issues. My landlord would open the door and walk into my bedroom from 5am till gone midnight. I asked him if I could fit a lock on the door and again he flew off the handle. One day I opened my bedroom door to find him walking up the stairs in just his underpants grinning at my like a deranged idiot. I shut the bedroom door and he tried to open it, I was scared. I was continually looking for somewhere else to live but the same issues kept coming up, I was on benefits and no-one wanted me, I was treated like scum.
Eventually I found out the problem about me being on benefits, there were, as I found, 4 types of people.
1 - Thinks anyone on benefits is a scrounger and despises them for "stealing their money"
2 - Doesn't want to declare a lodger to avoid tax on the money and an increase in council tax, me being on benefits means they cannot get around this
3 - Doesn't like the idea of someone being in the house constantly as they don't work, thinks I probably deal drugs
4 - The rare type who doesn't mind
I have also discovered that there are 2 reasons why people want lodgers;
1 - They are desperately in need of the money
2 - They want their own personal slave
Landlord Number 1 was in serious money trouble, less than 24 hours after I moved in bailiffs came to the door over him not having a television license. £145 out of my wallet later and they were sorted. He did not take the money off my rent as he said he didn't have a television, that presumably included the 2 televisions in the house that were his which he watched every night.
Back onto the troubles with Landlord Number 1. He stayed up late into the night watching pornography at an audible volume. I invested in ear plugs.
He frequently became aggressive with me and constantly asked me for extra money and an advance on the rent. If I said no he would threaten me with eviction. One night he locked me out of the house and I had to call the police.
He constantly told me he knew my boyfriend and his family and said he was trouble and no good for me. He would come into my bedroom, sit on my bed and beg me to leave my boyfriend. I spent many nights with my boyfriend as I was too scared to go 'home'. It wasn't a home, it was a living nightmare.
One day when I had had enough I weighed up the cons of just fitting a lock without his permission. My boyfriend came over to do this and my landlord seemed mildly agreeable especially when I stated he could keep my deposit, a hefty £450.
2 days later I came back from the shop and my landlord had unscrewed the door lock and hidden it. At that point I had bought a motorbike for transport so I went to Toolstation and purchased 3 more door locks and simply put them back on when my landlord removed them. I had had enough at this point and was going to look at rooms all over the place and literally begging people.
One day I found a really nice but tiny room, it was a converted single garage. The landlord seemed lovely, despite his advert stating absolutely no DHSS (FYI to discriminatory people, DHSS doesn't even exist anymore, for several years, so get your facts right!!), so no DHSS but he waived that as I loved animals, he had 3 cats and I also loved gardening and he seemed happy to take me on so I had found somewhere to live, I was shocked, excited, happy and ultimately scared about how Landlord Number 1 would take it.
The answer to that was BADLY. Items were thrown around, he was screaming, shouting, then crying, he literally fell to the floor crying, grabbed my leg and started to beg me not to go. I did still feel sorry for him, he was a very messed up guy and deep down I know he was a good kind person, he was a very lonely old man being screwed over for money by some Russian girl he 'met' on Facebook, he was literally sending her almost every penny he earnt on a promise that she was coming over to marry him, I really did feel dreadfully sorry for him.
The next day he was angry man, the day after he was even angrier man, he became threatening and started to slam doors and just randomly shout "RARGHHH" around me to intimidate me. At my wits end I decided that maybe I should be angry myself. I shouted out everything that I had to put up with as a PAYING lodger, I put him down, insulted him, call him every name under the sun, said I was leaving and that's that, he's walking away with my deposit and he should be grateful I was not involving the police. He told me that he would leave me alone if I left him with an extra months rent to give him time to find another lodger. I agreed and handed it over in cash the same day, I was that desperate. Originally it was going to be a month before I moved into the new place but my landlord moved that up by 2 weeks.
So 2 weeks later my boyfriends Land Rover was once again loaded up and I moved in with Landlord Number 2, it was the end of May 2012, I had lasted 4 months there and trust me when I say it was 4 months too long!
To be continued...
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