Answer the bloody phone!

The landlord is driving us round the bend. Not only did he allegedly not know that were moving out in August instead of October, he's now dodging calls from our estate agents who are trying to get references from him for our tenancy application! He's never been easy to get hold of - he almost never answers the phone, and on the rare occasions that he does (probably because he got distracted and answered without checking the caller ID...) he makes up some excuse that he's "really busy and can I call you back?".

Which he doesn't do for days or even weeks.

His mobile number is the only contact information we have for him. We don't have another number and we don't even know where he lives. As a last resort, we do know that his parents live next door to us, but we don't really want to hassle them because they don't (or shouldn't!) have anything to do with his being our landlord and they're pretty elderly too. We need to get the reference from him soon otherwise we won't be able to move in to the new wonder-flat! Just 16 days to go now!

Independent, impartial legal advice: always read the contract!

Today B got a voicemail message on her phone from the elusive Mr. N! He said he had "only just" got her message (from 2 weeks ago...) and was confused because he thought we were moving out in October, not August!

What a complete prat.

As I may have already said, when we first moved into the property, there were 3 of us, and we signed a contract for a year, which would have taken us through to October 2009. However when K, our fourth housemate moved in in January, we had to sign a new contract (no idea why they can't just add her to existing one!). After the shenanigans that the estate agents had put us through the first time we were unwilling to stay in the property for another whole year and so only signed up for 6 months. Bloody Mr. N SIGNED this contract so it should have come as no surprise whatsoever that we are now moving out in August. Except he clearly didn't read it. What a douchebag.

Happily though, we have found a new flat in Stoke Newington and put down a holding deposit! It's above a shop on the "ever-popular and trendy Stoke Newington Church Street" and so far so good with the estate agents too! The lovely Ava of Location Location informed us today that the landlord had accepted our (reduced rent!) offer and is willing to meet all of our conditions including replacing the washing machine and general maintenance. Hurrah! Really looking forward to moving and hope the new landlord isn't as idiotic as the current one!

Student security

Just a quick little snippet today from my friend Jenny as it's way past my bed time...

"My student house in Coventry got burgled in April 2007...landlady didn't fix the broken back door until May 2008!"

Wow. That's actually ridiculous.