I never did tell the rest of the story what happened with our house move, that's putting it politely, i mean getting kicked out, yes we paid our rent so don't judge ok, i hear you thinking that, but totally understand that's what people's first thoughts would be, no it's not the case. So, we lived in what was an annexe, above us was another lady, the whole layout was weird, it was like a cottage and the big farmhouse was right next door, and there was a door upstairs that was locked but was between us and the lady who lived in the cottage above us, it was like we lived in the downstairs of the cottage, and then there was an extension at the back which was our kitchen, it was an awesome kitchen really spacious, a downstairs toilet, which helped mobility wise, I'm disabled so if i was having a bad time getting upstairs at least there was a bathroom downstairs. There was beautiful views, we could look out the window of our bedroom at the back and see scotland, literally on the border, by the coast, look out the kitchen window and see cows, i love animals so was a delight to go outside and say hello to them they were very cute, and look out the front window and could see a mountain, all sounds really ideal doesn't it, that's what kept us going (i mean my fiancé and myself) and was a compromise for the absolute shit show that was happening. So, let's list all the bad stuff, this feels like therapy as it has affected my mental health pretty badly and done the same to my partner, and then affected the physical too, here we go
1. The landlord thought it was perfectly fine to let himself in whenever he wanted (it's not, and if this is happening to you, on the 1st instance, report it, record it on your phone!) this is a private landlord by the way, what if i was in the shower, that's not right or ok, we had the bedroom downstairs 1st, so the 2nd day we were there, he just let's himself in there's us wearing nothing but a smile, that's a proper invasion of privacy, so we put a key in the door, both the back and front, and he kicked off as he wanted to be able to have access to the property 24/7. The farm electrics were set up on the stairs, and they were a proper homemade jobby, looked dangerous as heck, but when we first came to see the property, the person showing us round didn't point it out, i don't remember seeing it, but we thought when we noticed it, well if it's there, the estate agents must think its safe right? I'll get back to you on that one later, its an interesting story!
2. It was a dairy farm, and sometimes they had to put the generator on if the electrics buggered up, the said generator was right up against the wall of the cottage, we could smell it if it was on, little did we know, they are supposed to be some distance from residence, so there we are breathing in whatever that generator was kicking out, wondered why i sometimes felt like i was light headed, i put it down to my meds, they very strong painkillers and another one for nerve damage and neuralgia, so thought it was them, so, if you are reading this and it sounds familiar, fight it, i wish we would of sooner! So, going back to when this generator was on, sometimes that would be at 2 or 3 in the morning, and they didn't politely knock or ring the doorbell, it was Continuous thudding, and ringing the door bell, now if i was upstairs, it wasn't quick for me to get down the stairs, plus, I'm drowsy off my meds, and the panic would kick in wondering if there was a fire, or emergency, and they needed an ambulance, they basically wanted access to the property 24/7 for the electricity, but that's not a home, and not settling, how are you supposed to relax, plus we have 2 cats, they are both indoor cats, so you know people just coming in and out the cats might escape, just cause more stress, it assured me they did not care about us one bit, we were just a pain in the arse and some income every month, not thought of at all, we found out the landlord was just letting himself in with the lady above us too, zero respect it seems!
3. The downstairs bathroom had rising damp, the step on the bottom of the door crumbled away, we reported it and were told someone was coming to fix it, i waited up, they never came, the walls were ridden with damp and the smell was really bad, you could see how damp it was. I think when we moved in, they had just painted over it, there was a faint damp smell but it got really bad as we were there, yes it rains a lot in the lake district which didnt help and the roof upstairs leaked too, there was wooden roof beams, and when it leaked, could see the wood was rotting away, again yes we reported it, nothing was done. The landlord wouldn't do anything, the estate agents wouldn't do anything, we found out why I'll get to that later, we felt helpless and trapped, nowt we could do we took photos as evidence.
4.the lady upstairs. She was a nice polite lady, but how thin the ceiling was, it sounded like thudding whenever she walked across her floor, sounded like she had giant clogs on, Like she was doing it on purpose, and as she did, the ceiling lighting would wobble, if she shut the door loudly, could feel the cottage rattle, one time she thudded a door so loud, the celing lighting in downstairs bedroom came loose, that was scary and unnerving and if i sound like a fanny i don't care, it affected me mentally as never knew when there were going to be loud bangs, unexpected and constantly on edge, i make youtube videos, and when it came to doing voice overs, I'd have to wait until the lady upstairs had gone out to do one, but then there was the chance of the landlord just letting himself in or a farmer banging on the door, was on pins all the time, you know that feeling where you haven't done anything but you getv in trouble and feel like someone's watching everything you do? It was like that . I think the doors upstairs must of been old, so need a good slam to shut them, i mean if you are on your own you can pee with the door open right? Though if you've got the landlord letting himself in willy-nilly, probably best to shut the door, and lock it! The farmhouse next door was unnerving too, in that if a farner was going in and out of there, they'd slam that door shut too, and the house would rattle, wondered often if the door would fall off it's hinges they'd slam it that loud, that would be at fuck face o' clock sometimes too, so would wake us, and hard to get back to sleep then, now that is no respect really is it, i get they are farmers, they work hard, they work around the clock, but there was just no respect for us we felt, i didnt mind the mooing cows, infact that was a bonus, i didn't mind the noise of the tractors, loved seeing them, machinery is my thing, had i been more able bodied, I'd of asked to of helped them fix stuff or weld I'd of buzzed off that, they never asked us to help, I'm just thinking, I'd of loved to of as it was brilliant to see a working farm, it's a hard job, but had we of known it was going to be the way it was and it would of been explained to us, we'd of avoided it, but we weren't told, and that sucks donkey balls, right, getting back to the lady above us... When she had a shower or went the toliet, we knew about it, the ceiling leaked with her shower water, and whatever liquid was coming through the celing when she pulled the chain on the toilet, we had a bucket to catch the drips, which over time, was more of a pour, the smell wasn't good, we had that room set up as a study and we used it less and less over time was not relaxing to hear thud thud thud across the ceiling, then have a fail water feature coming through into the bucket. We got a light which shows up bodily fluids, the ceiling was glowing when you shone the black light on it, again we told the estate agent and the landlord, they did sod all. More on that in a bit.
5. The landlord would just let himself in when we went out, we set up a cctv in doors to try and catch it on camera, we set up the doors in such a way that it was blatantly obvious if someone had been in, he soon stopped when the cctv was there, which is a shame really, as that would of been concrete evidence, nothing for us to hide, not right to have someone just letting themselves in whether we were in or not, generally disrespectful, scary as you don't know what they are doing if we are out, might steal something, looking through our stuff?
6. The heating. It was heated by burning wood pellets. The stove was in our kitchen of course, never serviced the 2 nearly 3 years we were there, we paid him directly for heating, he'd knock on the door and demand the cash early next morning, give us a chance to get to a ATM, forgetting sonetimes we can't get to it if mobility is particularly bad that day, zero respect and didn't listen to us about our health, may of mentioned about my partners health in another blog, but I'll explain mine in a nutshell, i was a carer for both my parents, zero training on how to, just had to use common sense most of the time, involved lifting, i have juvenile arthritis as far back as i can remember, mostly in my knees, but now have it in my back, hips, shoulders among other places and i walk with a stick, otherwise I'm wobbly and can't stand up straight, adding to that, i fell on some ice on the way to work once, and shattered my coccyx which doesn't help! I had a Road traffic accident, i got run over, sent me flying into the air and i bounced off the windscreen, onto the bonnet, smashed my head against the head lamp, and then hit the asphalt. The cover lens of the head lamp was shattered, my head was bleeding, i remember red on my right eye, thought I'd lost my eye, the flash backs are bad right now I'm panicking thinking about it, the lady driver (i know, stigma haha female drivers) was found to be doing maybe over 60 coning round the corner of a 20 mph zone, even though i thought the coast was clear she came out of nowhere, she was rushing to get to her daughter, not worth it is it look what happened! Anyway, i waited for an ambulance for ages apparently it was an hour, i was trying to stay conscious, i knew, don't ask i just knew if i closed my eyes i was gone, a lot of stuff was just flashing past my eyes past memories but knew i needed to keep my eyes open instinctively, though pain of bad things would be over if i did close them, i somehow got through it, i didn't plan for it to happen, I'd gone to see a friend, was crossing the road as i didn't know which side to stand to catch the bus and boom out of nowhere, I'm flying throygh the air, unexpected twatting that felt like i was on a swing, i was thinking about my parents the whole time, i sacrificed everything to look after them and they'd be waiting for me but instead I had trip to A & E. zero scans, they didn't do a head scan, or clean my head wound, just got me to lift my arms, and my shoulders clicked and the pain was immense like they'd snapped, they gave me morphine in the ambulance as i was screaming in pain, though they put that off as much as possible so they could see in a&e the extent of my injuries, they said otherwise they'd send me home as quickly as possible, and not check me over properly, the state of the NHS, not the nurses fault, it's the government, anyhow that's a different story, they decided to pull over the ambulance and give me morphine, he said he had to give a higher dose than he thought of morphine than expected, i was high as a kite it was lovely! My friend was with me, oh he's a whole other story, I'll talk about that in a future blog, i imagined he was a budda floating on a cloud, it was a bit trippy but fucking good!!!
Anyway, no scans, no check over an hour waiting only to get my head stitched up, for weeks after i kept finding bits of grit coming out my pores, the headaches were vile and i still get them, there's a med i have and if i don't have it i suffer from neuralgia and i want to rip my head off, they make me drool like a zombie but rather that than the pain! They didn't check my back, later found out i had allsorts of naughty whip lash upper and lower, damage to different joints, arthritis in my back and had some surgery and never had it again because i had to be awake and it scared the shit out of me, i was supposed to go back but i put my dad's appointments and health first, missed a load of treatments and neglected my own health i cared more for my dads, and i now have untreated injuries, which yes is my own fault but what the hell else was i supposed to do when it was just me on my own, i just had to get on with it. With a big fight against social services with the help of my now partner, we met really randomly and just fell in Love while having a coffee, pure tangent there, erm, my mum was put into a nursing home, but she pased away she was only 63 which isn't that old is it, 4 or 5 months later my dad passed away, i never had any councelling for their deaths, i applied for it but never got it, they wrote me a letter, saying we hope you rate our services, well it would of been good to of had them in the 1st place, I'm still grieving truth be told, well that was one big nutshell, its all a bit too much to take! .
I went to the docs asking for physio but they said i can't have any as they didn't treat anyone who had injures that had gone on that far, no help, they said it'd be no help, so no point. A female doc said I'd be dead in a year, because of how advanced my injures were, nothing in the way of treatment they could do. wow. I put in a report about her, they said she was wrong and apologised, they said i needed to loose weight, put me in for a programme to go swimming and go the gym, the lady phoned to register me, and said she was sorry i was not allowed to it, my bmi was actually too low to take part, how dumb! So no help there, no help with my mental health, i don't want to talk about that in this blog, but just know all that mixed with the head wreck of a land lord we had then had messed up my mental health in a big way, i will get help, I've got to sign up to some service. One of the things I'll talk about here, is i get a pain in the side of my head when I'm trying to cross the road, i can't do it, go into a meltdown and convinced something is going to come out of nowhere, flashbacks and nightmares about it. So yes, that and a landlord who doesn't care or understand, I'm a mess mentally, at least we are out of there now, and in a cosy place away from there, no private landlord and no one just letting themselves in
6. Our post, a lot of it was going to a separate address, that the landlord owned, he'd take our post off the postman/ woman, open it, and post it through the letter box. So who knows what went missing. When we found out the name of the house our mail was going to, we asked where it was and we got the direction of 'just up the road, that way *points in random direction*' really helpful, not!
So got post on redirection to here, not cheap, but a bit of a drive if our post is just going to some random empty house!
7. The electricity set up. The farm electricity set up was on the wall going up the staris, loads of boxes and wires, looked very dangerous, we got an independent electrician to look at it, they said it should be redone as it was unsafe, boxes where it you put your finger in a gap in them, say if one of us was to loose our balance for example, it will electrocute you, i can't remember every detail but it's completely unsafe, our usual bill was about £200-300 per quarter, one came back as £800 which seemed very unusual, a few things to consider regarding this...
We had been there 2 years, our contact for want of a better word was supposed to be renewing for the year. We were sitting one evening after dinner and watching tv. We got an email off the estate agent saying we had 6 months to get out of the house and find somewhere else to live. My tummy just flipped, we have to move everything out by ourselves, I'd put all my savings into firstly moving into my partner's house when my parents pased away, then the rest of it into moving right up to the top of the country, we had no family up here, no friends, knew no one, there had and has (you know it's still happening) a global pandemic, so didn't make any friends or aquanences, so we had to do this on our own, no money no savings, 2 cats, finding somewhere that accepts pets, can't just get rid of them, they are part of our family, i didn't want to ask anyone as it was so far away and i knew no one who could help and hate asking for help anyway, so basically fucked!!!
I was hoping to pass my driving test, but due to the pandemic, couldn't do that, i can't have the covid jabs as I'm allergic to the ingredients and nurses refused to give me them due to that twice i tried, I'm not being an asshole not having the jabs, there was supposed to be a tablet instead, but can't have that, it's only if your in hospital with covid that they'll give you that so that's that plan gone to cock! So, my partner could drive his car, but had to get my car which i regret getting now, hopefully paid off soon and can sell it, but when we find somewhere, have to drive it there and get a train back, fucking kerfuffle! So, why did they kick us out, they wanted a farmer in there to be on hand 24/7 for the farm and to have access to the electric, landlord said 'well I'd of had to get you out while i put the electricity in the barn opposite' begs the question well why did you not sort that BEFORE we moved in!?! Because they wanted the rent money that's why maybe? Oh and he said it was never going to be forever, we said we were looking for our forever home, to have zero hell from landlord and estate agents, to kick out a couple with no friends or family around and both sick and disabled, i think is disgusting, well, disabled or not to do that to someone, financially it was massively difficult, we sold a load of our stuff and got not much back did everything we could and i refused to ask anyone for help as i know no one could and I'd never be so cheeky, it was damaging in more ways than one!
We were packing our stuff away upstairs, and heard someone come in, my partner was carrying some stuff down the stairs, the landlord was getting impatient, he was very aggressive sometimes and abrupt, we had trouble trying to sort out this £800 electricity bill, and he had a letter saying we hadn't paid it, we were and still are fighting it, now to back to when we had that email from the estate agent, saying we had leave the premises. The next day, literally the next day, 2 guys came in to sort out the electrics, when they had gone, we noticed one of the boxes on it looked different, like a wire had been tampered with, we took photos, i had the dryer on a few days later, nowhere really to hang the clothes, and always raining, my partner said 'whats that noise?', like a whirring noise, we went to look at the electrics on the wall and this dial was spinning like mad, also, quite sparidically, a high pitched noise was coming from there, was coming from a box marked dairy, we think the farm electrics had been aded to our bill, the name on the bill had ben changed to the whole business, how was i supposed to pay for a farms electrics!!! My partner got in touch with environmental health, we found out it was a common scam with landlords who had farm buildings and renting them out to bodge the electrics and make people pay for the farms ekectric bill, we are still fighting this with the electricity company, i think they were going to come out and condemn the electrics, but we had to get the police involved as the landlord was about to lamp my partner, so we've been told by the police to keep away, we got as much of our stuff out as possible and never been back, what a mess, we were supposed to get someone in to clean it too, the estate agents rang us to kick off about it, seems no one was on our side apart from the police, isn't it kind of bitfer sweet to get out of there, apologies i went on so many tangents, but all relevant to the story, it's like Something out of a tv show 😅 anyhow, we are still recovering from this, there's some flood defence going on opposite, so lots of diggers, the noise gets us on edge sometimes, so will be glad when it's over, writing about this i hope helps someone, If you've been in any of these situations please get help, unfortunately it's rather common, shelter were not much help to us, best help was from the council, we feel more at ease, get out if your landlord is being aggressive, get all the evidence you can, put your video capture on, with just the sound so it's not obvious you are filming it, phone the police they'll tell you exactly what to do, it's not being dramatic, or over the top, if you've felt threatened in any way, you never know what they are capable of.
I missed something, the landlord had d
Signed up to a certain type of contract with the estate agents where he paid them as little fees as possible, this meant they couldn't do much help wise, the landlord had more control, proving he wanted as much money as possible in his pocket, meant any repairs were to be done by the landlord, so when we phoned the estate agents they were zero help, they had no control of anything, makes you wonder what they actually do, had he paid for a higher contract, the estate agents could of helped and we would of had some comeback regarding their condemmed electric set up, not servicing the boiler, and no safety checks, absolute shit show, and glad to not be dealing with them anymore, they messed us around for a bit but we told them where to go
There's help out there and a better, safer place
Netty x
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