[WillowTheWhisp]

Originally Posted by entwisi

it is teh landlords responsibility as I understand it to maintain teh property. That is why you pay rent. Its liek a tele, if you rent it and it breaks they fix or replace it.

The problem seems to be "unofficial landlords" (somebody just buys an extra house and then rents it out to whoever) who don't give a hoot about maintaining property. The house next to me has been owned by various different "landlords" and rented out to various different tennants some of whom have looked after it and some of whom have trashed it. At one stage the back wall was falling down and a real danger to anyone passing but the owner didn't want to do anything about it. There develops a sort of apathy where the landlord doesn't want to do anything because the tennants won't care for the property and the tennants won't care for the property because the landlords won't do repairs.

It should be possible for the council to force them to do the necessary repairs and to have the ability to evict the tennants who don't look after it.

Or maybe all rented property needs to be "vetted" and all landlords have to be licenced or something. It only takes one "dump" to start the ball rolling and before you know it whole areas have gone downhill.