Property mismanagement

It's not just landlords who get the LFH-UK once-over here, oh no, estate agents are also definitely worthy of a rant or two! I guess we're "lucky" that the estate agency who dealt with the rental of our property don't manage it - they only advertised the place, drew up the tenancy agreement and, of course, collected their extortionate "administration fee" for their troubles. (Pah). If they managed the place as well it would mean that we would have to talk to them a whole lot more which would definitely start turning our hair grey! Here are some reasons why we all came very close to checking into therapy to cope with the headaches that our estate agent put us through...

1. The estate agent who showed us round the house said that we would be able to move in within 2 weeks. We waited a month (which was not good for my housemate B who started a PhD course in London during that time - 2 hours from where she was living - and so she had to commute for hours every day to get to and from uni while the agency faffed with our paperwork).
2. As previously mentioned in "The Parent Trap", one of the selling points of the house was that it had "a spacious garden". After we'd moved in, the landlord told us we weren't allowed to use it.
   
3. The administrative assistant, M, is unbelievably annoying. Yes, that does deserve a whole numbered point to itself, but read on for clarification.
4. M continually phoned, emailed and generally harrassed our parents at all hours of the day to send her the landlord references. Yes, you read that correctly. She wanted our parents to say that we were good tenants. Maybe her parents can't stand her - and we do sympathise - but ours definitely love us so a reference seems a little silly.
5. M continually phoned, emailed and generally harrassed us to send in our tenancy applications (when we had already filled them out in front of her in the shop), our bank references (which I for one had scanned and emailed her at least 3 times) and employment references (even though we had repeatedly told her that none of us were employed).
6. M continually phoned, emailed and generally harrassed B's stepfather for an employment reference - he's self employed - and once she finally got that through her thick head she said she would have to "bend the rules" to allow him as a guarantor. Weird and pointless.
   
7. When our 4th housemate, K, moved into our spare room a few months after the rest of us had moved in, they made us sign a new tenancy agreement (we only renewed it for the minimum of 6 months this time!), for another £100. Just for printing off a new sheet of paper. Sheesh.
   
8. During said signing of this £100-piece-of-paper, we expressed our disappointment with the agency and said that at the end of our tenancy we would not be looking to repeat business with them. Any normal business-person would be quite concerned that their customers were not happy and might try to alleviate the situation, you might think? Instead we got branded "difficult tenants", were told to "stop making these comments" and that "she didn't need this kind of hassle first thing in the morning" - tell us about it, M!!
9. We politely asked if they could remove the To Let signs from our house. We were told that the landlord had specifically requested that they be left up. Someone was lying as Mr. N told a different story!
10. M cannot spell. This is one of my pet hates anyway so is always sure to rile me, but come on, if you are an estate agent, surely you should be able to spell key vocabulary such as "guarantoor" and "tennancy"?!

Anyone out there got any other snippets of estate agent lunacy? Comment on the blog or email me at landlordsfromhelluk[at]hotmail[dot]co[dot]uk!