Illustration by James Burgess
A housing advice column for all your renting problems from VICE UK columnist Vicky Spratt. Got a burning question? Email lifeforrent@vice.com.
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You have done your duty as a tenant by raising the issue with him and you are, I presume, not making like the previous inhabitants and scattering food all over the floors so there isn’t much more you can do. Your landlord says he is dealing with it and it certainly seems that he is, to an extent. The question is whether he’s doing enough?Rats, as with other pests, can be seriously harmful to human health so if poison isn’t working you can ask your landlord to pay for professional pest control. If he has an ounce of sense, he will do this because nobody wants to be the owner of a rat-infested building. If he won’t play ball, you can step things up a notch and involve the council’s environmental health department who can carry out an assessment and may order him to sort it out.
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You’ve paid your rent on time, every month for three years. It is your landlord who has not kept their end of the bargain by carrying out repairs during that time or getting the necessary licenses.Partners, jobs, hopes, dreams and fairweather friends come and go but you can always go home. Unless, of course, you’re renting – then you can go home until your landlord decides to pull the rug out from under you. I know it’s gut punchingly unfair.You can’t put a price on what you have with your shared house. Unfortunately, too many landlords and letting agents don’t see themselves in the business of providing homes – they think of property as an asset to be bought, sold and leveraged. With more people relying on the private rented sector to provide them with a home, this attitude really needs to change.There is one more thing – you might not be ready to hear this, but it’s important. You are going to be OK, even if your home is forced to disband. It won’t be easy, it will be stressful and you might have to move to another part of London where prices haven’t gone up quite so much. Such is the fickle nature of living in a city where shiny, luxury glass and steel structures host empty rooms while the rest of us scrabble around for somewhere affordable to live.If this happens, though, I know you will create the same supportive, nurturing home that you have in Peckham. The house you rent is only the container for that – you can take what’s inside with you.