I lost my job in the recession, which meant I had to hand over my guinae pigs to my mum and my rabbits to my sister as I lost my beautiful appartment with a whole acre of garden and had to downsize to a grubby place with no garden, in a hell hole, didn’t even have the money to put the heating on in winter with 3ft of snow outside! It was horrible! Well the only place I could find that I could afford had damp mould all up the windows and doors, was in a horrible building, I wa actually afraid most of the time due to my next door neighbour being a stalker and the fights that so often had the entire block ready to call the police if only we dared stick out head out to direct them to the right appartment.
I met Chri and we moved in together, however…the agency that had let me the appartment dropped off the face of the planet after about a month. The damage to the appartment which they claimed they’d fix…never heard from them. I actually had to track my rent payment through the banks and beg a bank manager to pass a letter on to the account holder as data protection forbids me finding out anything about account holders. Luckily, my mum used to work for a bank and knew what to do. So I handed my notice in and everything looked fine…until the agent re-appeared and said that I would not be recieving my bond back due to…damp mould on the walls, a stained carpet, the fact that the poorly built kitchen cupboards bent (they had rice and a cereal box in after one month becaue anything more bent them, poor construction). Loads of my stuff was destroyed by the damp, but we washed the carpet six or 7 times, screwed the draft excluder back on, there wasn’t even any ventilation in the kitchen! It was hell! But they were adamant that they were keeping my bond.
So I disputed it.
I moved out about a year ago, maybe a little more, it wa around this time. And I’ve been fighting them on it ever since. It finally went to the DPS courts to sort out because I wouldn’t back down. They sent me an email on the 8th, mostly technical stuff but the long and hort of it is..and I’m going to quote here because it’s really made my day:
Frankie and Bennies to celebrate tonight. And ome payment towards the wedding, as well as stash money to play with ^_^I NOW having considered the submissions of the parties and the documents provided to me HEREBY DECIDE AND DIRECT that:
i) The Landlord’s claim fails
ii) The Deposit Protection Service shall return the disputed sum of £340.00 to the Tenant.
