Tower-Hamlets-Citizens-Report-FINAL-use-this

LANDLORDSA large part of our community live in private rented homes, but when surveyed 21% of private tenants told usthat they do not have a good relationship with their landlord. The main issues that people have with theirlandlord are difficulties in contacting them and delays in responding to maintenance and repair requests.‘My landlord took 3 weeks to fix our broken boiler, so myhusband, 9 year old daughter and I had to shower at our One lady in Shadwell told us how she, herneighbour’s homes for nearly a whole month’husband and her nine year old daughter hadAnonymous Resident,to shower in their neighbour’s bathrooms forPrivate Tenant, Shadwell, 06.03.143 weeks whilst they waited for their landlordto fix their broken boiler. This is unacceptable;a broken boiler should be treated as anemergency. Why should we put up with our lives being disrupted in this way because our landlord is too lazy totake responsibility for his tenants’ safety?Apart from long and unnecessary delays, we are also fed up with the quality of the jobs they do. One family,from the Teviot Estate in Poplar, told us that when they asked their landlord to fix their broken cooker, hereplaced it with a second-hand model that had been used by another family before them. Once this oven broketoo, he told them that it was their own fault for ‘cooking too much’!Another mum, from Bethnal Green, told us that the cupboards in her flat had not been sanded-down properlyand there were jagged edges coming off the doors. After asking her landlord to fix this, he came and paintedover the wood. But this didn’t fix the problem and her daughter ended up with splinters in her hands. Somelandlords and agents just don’t seem to care about the needs of their tenants and disregard our concernswithout a thought for our children’s safety.But this assumes that they actually respond to our requests. 28% of respondents told us that their landlord orlettings agent is not easy to contact when they need them to attend to maintenance or repair jobs. Tenantshave to call up their landlord several times just to get hold of them. This takes up a lot of our time, which wecould be spending on more important things, meaning we have to put our lives on hold whilst we wait for areply.We spoke to a woman from the Collingwood Estate in Bethnal Green who told us that her landlord neverresponds to her requests for repairs at her home. Time and again she has asked for leaks to be fixed and thedamp to be sorted out, but he refuses to help her and has threatened to evict her if she keeps on complaining.In fact, when we asked people if their landlord or agent pays for repairs and maintenance at their home, 27% ofprivate tenants said no, they never do.66%Agree withthe idea ofa LandlordRegister‘My landlord never responds, I have leaks anddamp in my house. He uses the law on me andtells me that I’ll be evicted for making a big dealout of nothing’Mum of Three,Private Tenant, Bethnal Green, 27.03.14