poor student housing, dodgy landlords and support in manc
Dec 27 2005 18:15
whatever your opinion on students 
we all need somewhere to live and the housing situation is getting increasingly worse.
MMU faced a serious crisis this year with not having enough support or housing for all the students it had accepted onto its courses. That meant that a lot of students had to be bused in from crewe in the first few weeks of their course, a lot were left homeless at the start of their course, many couldnt get the right support from either the university department or 'manchester student homes' and a lot of us were forced into the private sector in our first year (suffering at the hands of letting agents a lot of the time)
at the moment im effectivley squatting the place i started renting when i moved up, with my housemates, as the place has been bodged so much that its a serious threat to our health and its about time our landlord was put in his place
we're starting the process of taking our landlord and the letting agent to court, now weve done all the right things of getting photos,surveys, medical reports ect ect so we've built up a good case
we could easily just cancel the contracts and move out but whats shocked me is the amount of other students who are suffering the same type of poor student housing and not really knowing what to do about it, so i guess we feel we should do something because they'll just screw over the next tenants.
Weve had reports of people ending up in hospital because their damp/mould problems have got so bad, landlords evicting them without notice when people complained, dodgy contracts, dangerous boilers, unsafe housing ect ect
the big problem seems to be that theres little communication going on, students arent hearing of the problems, many dont know their rights (and the landlords are using that) and the support from the uni doesnt appear to be there.
has anyone else had any bad experience with local letting agents? (im especially looking for experience with a certain one that could help us with our court case, they have a big office on the oxford road with a coffee bar n net cafe in withington to and they think they have good homes for you 
) but experience with others would be really helpfull so we can get an idea of which ones should be avoided at all costs
Is anyone having any trouble with their landlord?
Does anyone know if there are any squatting groups, housing groups, activist groups interested in fighting this side of things where me and my housemates can get some support from in manchester
or do you lot all live in wicked accomodation with 5 star service and cleaners? 
Dec 28 2005 03:21
#2
Kidda wrote:
MMU faced a serious crisis this year with not having enough support or housing for all the students it had accepted onto its courses. That meant that a lot of students had to be bused in from crewe in the first few weeks of their course, a lot were left homeless at the start of their course, many couldnt get the right support from either the university department or 'manchester student homes' and a lot of us were forced into the private sector in our first year (suffering at the hands of letting agents a lot of the time)
Haha, sounds exactly like what's going on at my uni (University of Sussex)! 
We've had loads of problems with housing - my house doesn't have hot water between 11am and 4pm (if it ever does - for the first week we had none at all!). Host families that people have been put with haven't been checked out (one mate of mine was kicked out of his flat after two weeks and ended up sleeping on a friend's floor!). It also takes ages for the housing office to fix anything in our flats (it took them two and a half months to fix one of our toilets, leaving us with one toilet between eight people - this toilet was also in the same room as the shower, so if someone was washing their hair, you couldn't take a shit! 
). We've also got asbestos in our walls!!!
Anyway, all this (and everything that you're telling me) is in contravention of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 (section 11) - link is here if you want to look over it or go to your local Citizens Advice Bureau about it (though it sounds like you already know this stuff).
At my uni, we're starting a campaign against it (well, housing is one of quite a few issues which are being discussed at the moment) which is backed by the student union (though they're really dragging their heels on it and I've already crossed swords with a couple of the union folk). We've submitted a document of demands to the university council and we may well be going on strike alongside admin and teaching staff (who have their own grievances regarding pay and cuts) next term. It was also suggested (by me 
) that we should also try and organise a rent strike on campus. Of course, at the moment its still a pipedream but its not unprecedented with students at Cambridge holding two rent strikes in the past six years (briefly mentioned on the newswire here).
Me, some Socialist Party and Autonomous (read: anarchist) Students people are also producing a newsletter to try and promote the strike. I think the Socialist Worker Students might also be involved but I'm not sure.
Would be cool if you lot in Manchester also kicked something off. Maybe try and join things together? Spread the struggle and all that. Hmm, wonder if the Norwich Anarchist Students could bring anything to the table on this.....
Oh yeah, and they're also planning to knock down the cheapest section of campus accomodation next year and replace it with top-end residences with en-suite facilities etc. The plan is to use them out of term time to provide accomodation for (and thus make money from) people attending conferences in Brighton and Sussex. Of course, this means that the general price of accomodation for students will go up, forcing us in with shitty private landlords, shared rooms or just shelling out more cash for our own room. Cheeky fuckers!
Dec 28 2005 04:08
#3
ed i could kiss you
that all sounds wicked 8) and thanks loads for the link
we've reported our landlord and the letting agent to the council's housing department and environmental health so they should be backing us up within the next week
id give that a try too if your needing to get ure loo fixed asap
that sounds like a serious issue in ure house so that constitutes a resonable time scale of ''one to two days'' rather than the ''28 days'' recommended for less serious problems
any chance we can see the document of demands, it might give us some ideas up this end.
Manchester uni is apparently selling off some of its accomodation to private developers, so their going to make the situation shit loads worse in the city.
Its about time we created some serious noise on this.
Good luck with mate and keep us posted
Dec 28 2005 15:14
#4
Alright mate, can't find the student submission online - either the union doesn't see fit to let the students know of the demands being made on their behalf or they're just being really fucking slow. Either way, I can't give you a link. However, I do have it on my computer and if you give me your email addy, I could mail it to you.
Also, when we finish it, I could email you the campaign newsletter that we're producing.
Just asking, who's providing you with representation againt your landlord/letting agent? Coz I'm pretty certain that the Citizens Advice Bureau can do that too and perhaps (if it can be arsed) the students' union.
Dec 28 2005 19:44
#5
cheers i'll pm it to you.
we're not sure about representation yet
ive spent the past couple of days reading up on my rights and sorting some stuff out with my housemates, so we could be in a good positition to do it ourselves when we head back.
but im going to go to my course tutor and the course leader when i get back, for support as they've both got experience in doing this kind of thing (its a community work course)
im not holding out much help of the student union be too supportive but its worth a go.
Dec 29 2005 11:59
#6
Some of the companies that do student housing in New Cross are pretty dodgy, they just don't give a shit about the quality of the housing they rent out, keep deposits when they shouldn't a lot of the time, and the student unions seem pretty powerless when it comes to private landlords.
Good luck people!
Jan 16 2006 23:13
#7
From an e-mail to Ed. Far too lazy to rehash it.
Cheers for alerting me to that thread
- it's an idea we've bounced around here, but there is
nothing as bad as what people are talking about in
that thread. The student union is pretty good already
in this area at UEA, it has an approved housing list
etc. We have a similar issue with gentrification of
campus (if that's possible!) with cheaper accomodation
being knocked down and students having to use their
student loan purely on rent, which fucks up those of
us who don't have daddy paying the rent and sending us
allowances.
I'll bring it to the next meeting. We've left it a bit
late - a lot of the cheaper accomodation has been
knocked down already.
Rich
for NAS (Norwich Anarchist Students)
Jan 18 2006 21:26
#8
I was speaking to a few friends of mine today about dodgy housing stuff round Manchester and they were all complaining that they couldn't get anything fixed.
One of 'em actually knew shitloads about housing law and stuff because you used to be on the Students Union exec (before leaving because everyone else on it was weird/deluded) so she might wanna help and she'd be incredibly useful.
Jan 18 2006 21:48
#9
CAB are a good start, they can let you in on who to shop them, too altho it sounds like you're doing everything right.
Sussex, try and organise a fee strike, or at least delaying. My uni ended up offering a rebate on early paid fees because they were losing so much by people witholding them until the last moment (I pay them when they suspend me because I am not hardcore)
edit: Rents are shooting up because of buy to let wankers, they never do repairs, but they usually can be browbeaten. Deposits are tough, if they are being arsey about it all I can suggest is to occupy, but I don't know much about it to be honest.
Jan 19 2006 07:03
#10
we must be the only people in manc living in a student house with a decent landlord. in fact shes too damn good. sending kevin no nails round every twenty minutes to fix things... 
Jan 26 2006 15:13
#11
just a quick update
its taken a bit of hard work but weve now successfully got a notice of intention to take enforcement action under section 190 of the housing act 1985 to give our landlord and his agent one mighty kick up the arse
some of the work has started on the house and weve got legal grounds to take them to court now if they fail on any of the defect and repairs stated on the notice
the SU were useless so we havent had any help from them, but for once in my life i'll actually big up a council, Manchester City Council's HMO private sector housing team we're a real help.
heres to fucking over landlords
Jan 26 2006 15:23
#12
nice one!
It's not that one above the café next to Mailbox, is it?