First place I lived with my now wife was a split level flat in a 4 story 70's block in south London. Looked respectable from the outside but that was about it. This was about 10 years ago.
First night we moved in we were woken by our immediate neighbour playing drum and bass so loud it was like your head was inside the speaker, he completely ignored all attempts to get him to answer his door. This would happen practically every other night by the time we moved out.
The head of the residents association wrote to the freeholder to complain that we were having loud parties so our Landlord got a letter from them and angrily called us up. We explained it wasn't us but our neighbour and invited him to listen to the noise he could hear through the wall as we were on the phone. So he had to respond to the freeholder denying responsibility and pointing them to the neighbour. That resulted in them sending the neighbour a letter telling him they would cancel his leasehold if they received any more reports in a 12 month period. Our neighbour attempted to break our door down after he got the letter. The head of the residents association knew it wasn't us causing the noise but wanted to force our Landlord into making the complaint so she didn't have to deal with it.
Same neighbour was a drug dealer. We would get woken up in the small hours by people who were off their faces and trying to buy drugs from him but pressing the wrong bell. He was also very active in the riots and was on the phone to his mates that evening claiming to have got a TV from richer sounds.
He was constantly smoking weed and because of the way the pipes ran it would fill up our flat with the smell and smoke. We spent a lot of time using expanding foam to block it because I am allergic and it triggered my asthma. I reported all of this stuff but nothing ever came of it.
A landlord bought the flat on the other side and started renting it to a woman who appeared to run a brothel, but not before replacing all the carpet with laminate so we could hear everything. You'd hear someone knock on the door, silence for about 5 minutes and then a rhythmic banging for another 5 minutes before leaving again. This happened all day every day. The older woman that lived there also took to singing songs on her balcony next to our bedroom in the small hours. Luckily this only started after we gave notice.
The head of the residents association controlled the communal heating to all flats and would only put it on for two hours a night in the winter. The flats were uninsulated and we were on the top floor so we had electric heaters running constantly.
Finally a group of young men in their late teens/early twenties rented a flat elsewhere in the block. They were all white van men and would attempt to park all their vans in the small residents car park even though they didn't have allocated spaces. If you went somewhere in the car (even for a few minutes) one of them would run down from their top floor flat and move their van into the recently vacated spot. This escalated with them getting letters from the freeholders telling them not to park in the car park so they did donuts on the lawn. One day we were all woken up by them screaming and shouting at an 80 year old resident because all their tires had been slashed (I'm not sure why they thought she had done it).
After we moved out our landlord attempted to charge us £1000 of our £1500 deposit for cleaning and the smarmy estate agent pretty much told me that they do this as most people relent because they urgently need the part of the deposit they will release and can't wait for the dispute process to work on the rest.
That's my only experience renting or living in a flat. 0/10 would not do again.
First night we moved in we were woken by our immediate neighbour playing drum and bass so loud it was like your head was inside the speaker, he completely ignored all attempts to get him to answer his door. This would happen practically every other night by the time we moved out.
The head of the residents association wrote to the freeholder to complain that we were having loud parties so our Landlord got a letter from them and angrily called us up. We explained it wasn't us but our neighbour and invited him to listen to the noise he could hear through the wall as we were on the phone. So he had to respond to the freeholder denying responsibility and pointing them to the neighbour. That resulted in them sending the neighbour a letter telling him they would cancel his leasehold if they received any more reports in a 12 month period. Our neighbour attempted to break our door down after he got the letter. The head of the residents association knew it wasn't us causing the noise but wanted to force our Landlord into making the complaint so she didn't have to deal with it.
Same neighbour was a drug dealer. We would get woken up in the small hours by people who were off their faces and trying to buy drugs from him but pressing the wrong bell. He was also very active in the riots and was on the phone to his mates that evening claiming to have got a TV from richer sounds.
He was constantly smoking weed and because of the way the pipes ran it would fill up our flat with the smell and smoke. We spent a lot of time using expanding foam to block it because I am allergic and it triggered my asthma. I reported all of this stuff but nothing ever came of it.
A landlord bought the flat on the other side and started renting it to a woman who appeared to run a brothel, but not before replacing all the carpet with laminate so we could hear everything. You'd hear someone knock on the door, silence for about 5 minutes and then a rhythmic banging for another 5 minutes before leaving again. This happened all day every day. The older woman that lived there also took to singing songs on her balcony next to our bedroom in the small hours. Luckily this only started after we gave notice.
The head of the residents association controlled the communal heating to all flats and would only put it on for two hours a night in the winter. The flats were uninsulated and we were on the top floor so we had electric heaters running constantly.
Finally a group of young men in their late teens/early twenties rented a flat elsewhere in the block. They were all white van men and would attempt to park all their vans in the small residents car park even though they didn't have allocated spaces. If you went somewhere in the car (even for a few minutes) one of them would run down from their top floor flat and move their van into the recently vacated spot. This escalated with them getting letters from the freeholders telling them not to park in the car park so they did donuts on the lawn. One day we were all woken up by them screaming and shouting at an 80 year old resident because all their tires had been slashed (I'm not sure why they thought she had done it).
After we moved out our landlord attempted to charge us £1000 of our £1500 deposit for cleaning and the smarmy estate agent pretty much told me that they do this as most people relent because they urgently need the part of the deposit they will release and can't wait for the dispute process to work on the rest.
That's my only experience renting or living in a flat. 0/10 would not do again.