Jan

Your shout: Why don’t tenants understand lightbulbs aren’t my problem!

admin

Brighton HMO and student specialist Amanda Smith recounts some of the more amusing ‘light bulb’ moments from her 20-year career as a professional landlady.

Does this sound familiar? It’s
winter time, dark and cold outside and your tenant calls somewhere between
5.30pm and 10pm to say it’s also dark inside their home.

If you’re lucky enough to
have a switched-on tenant (excuse the pun), they will have done the following
before calling in, asking for help.

checked to ensure
there isn’t a power cut by opening the front door and looking down the rest of
the street;
checked their fuse
box to see if an appliance has triggered the RCD switches and made amends with
the offending article;
changed the lightbulb
in the room which is presenting as dark!

However, your caller may not
have done any of the above in which case you may print off the above checklist
and go through it systematically with them to evaluate, educate and inspire.

My best stories are those
you couldn’t make up:

The HMO tenant who
couldn’t wash up because she couldn’t see, i.e. “the light wouldn’t light up”
(sic) – for three weeks.
The student who
didn’t notice the first bulb in the kitchen had stopped working and called us
out as an emergency on a Saturday night when the remaining one gave up.
The HMO tenants who
had taken the bulbs from the communal hallway when their room bulbs failed then
complained when they ran out of bulbs to take.

A lightbulb is a consumable
which effectively means that the tenant is responsible for taking the old one
to the shop when it fails, match it up and pop the new one back in. But this
seems to be a hard one for many tenants to grasp.

Taking into account the
above scenarios, do you (a) leave a box of spares in the kitchen cupboard
running the risk that, in changing the bulb, the tenant pulls out both the
light fitting and surrounding plaster and leaves the bare wires dangling or (b)
sigh, grab the keys and do it yourself?

Are you a landlord with a
pet hate or an issue you’d like to shout about? Then call the editorial team on
07971814233.

View Full Article: Your shout: Why don’t tenants understand lightbulbs aren’t my problem!