Rats in brand new block of flats?

A mass email to Environmental Health is required listing all tenants that are complaining copied in to the Head of Housing at the Council. Make a formal complaint also via the Council complaint process and demand a personal response from the Head of the Environmental Department. Copy al this in to the local MP and the local newspaper.
Hit hard.
Any yes a rat on the agents desk might be required!
As you yourself know use the S21 to your kids (tenants) advantage . If he issues al the tenants with one he's got a long wait ahead of him and anyway if you get in with the Council beforehand he may mean he can't issue one for 6 months anyway AND he has to show the problem is rectified...

A rat appeared under the bath in one of my properties. Several had also been seen outside. Fortunately my tenants were two young men, one of whom was a gardener. They acquired poison and dealt with the rats.
Next door was a kebab shop, whose waste bin was always overflowing and never closed. I spoke to the manager of the shop as did my tenants. I also organised a visit from the health inspector from the council who wrote to the shop. For awhile all was good, but this shop was, and I’m sorry to say it, owned, managed and staffed by immigrants, who refused to understand British health and hygiene laws.
I did several years ago have one of them arrested for raising his hand to me when I was attempting to tell him that he was not allowed in the garden of the flats.
Shops under or around private homes can be a health hazard, I would never buy another in that position.

Its terrible that the LA did not help and perhaps the local media would be interested in this?
I would suggest finding some friendly owners of Jack Russells. There are some ratting teams available. I don't see that the landlord or agent could really complain about that.
Following their visit, I would then ignore the owner on the grounds that they are putting the tenants health at risk and would definitely get a pest control company in, which hopefully all the tenants would contribute to.
It's landlords like this which give us all a bad name.

Reply to the comment left by DSR at 09/09/2022 - 10:30Thanks DSR,
After a life with a few knocks I too have that 'hit hard' belligerent attitude. I'm not convinced the same of young tenants.
It does seem that leaning on the LA is the way forward followed by invoking the complaints procedure if the result is indifference again followed by the MP. I don't know what the LA's service level is, 7 working days?, and suspect they have more than enough to do without this additional task.
Unfortunately the communications with the LA to date on other matters have been, shall we say, 'not favourable'. For instance, being formally blamed for leaving the flats' 'grundon' bin in the street where upon it turns out to be lazy bin men. LA refuse (no pun intended) to listen. And then there's the matter of trying ever so hard to register for council tax and being told you don't exist ...
So I have this really uncomfortable feeling that it's the LA department 1 that deals with shops, department 2 deals with bins, department 3 deals with rats in shops but not flats, department 4 deals with flats but not rats, department 5 ... all seamlessly communicating.
This is also a balancing act. Inexperienced tenants and a landlord I'd like to meet.
Hamish

Reply to the comment left by Adrianne Major at 09/09/2022 - 11:06
Adrianne,

Unfortunately we look at properties in a different way to tenants. To some extent we are trained by years of experience and stories shared by others enabling us to spot problems a country mile away.

The tenants have bought 'humane' traps. I proposed something a little blunter. I even spent a gory 10 minutes on youtube to find better methods ... only to conclude that some people should be arrested just in case.

The problem with poison is the fact that the rats appear from the walls, holes behind radiators for example and you don't want them festering in the fabric of the building if that's where they are living.

The LA's approach will be poison.

It is the LA that will need to review the practices of the shops; this can't be the tenants job and it's highly unlikely the LL cares at all.

Thanks

Hamish

Reply to the comment left by Claire Smith at 09/09/2022 - 14:13
Claire,

It seems a more forceful approach to the LA may realise some results. It's all going to take time as any 'strike force' negotiates a budget from the bean counters. Time measured in glacial terms.

I'm going to guess that once it accepted there may be a problem, someone has to be scheduled to visit, then they visit (again), then they report, then the report passes through the LA's alimentary canal ...

I would like to share other details about this LL's and agents practices but it would distract from the immediate question.

Suffice it to say, this LL is not doing our reputation any good at all and the tenants are firmly on the side of s21 abolition because of this.

Thanks

Hamish

All,

If the tenants pay for a pest control company to come in and deal with the problem is there any redress?

Does any LL here think they should be, at least partly, responsible?

Or do you think my method of dealing with it was too 'soft'?

It's not our fault that rodents appear. It's not the tenant's fault either.

There may be blame to be had somewhere after a qualified investigation of the LA's refuse collection teams, shop hygeine review, building control review, review of this LL etc.

But we can all see that unless the problem is 'owned' by an individual then the solution is going to be patchy in the short term and in the medium term likely to be a complete waste of time and resources.

Who here would pay for a pest control and join forces with the tenants to harangue LA about things beyond their control?

Thanks

Hamish

how about a different tack? Complain to the LA Enviro Health but as a customer of the food store/restaurant/shops saying it a public health issue and the shops are not disposing of commercial waste property and you also suspect fly tipping.

The LA might be more interested as they might sniff there is money in it for them. Send them photos etc. They have to reply and there si another avenue to complaint if they don't. Also means you have to get a full response from, so if they don't act then you go hell for leather down the complaint route.

That way no connection between the shop and the LL but the end result might be the same and the LL will never know its you that complained. Suggest you put the word round the rest of the block to call the council off their own back....the more people complain then they have more reason to have to act?

Reply to the comment left by Hamish McBloggs at 10/09/2022 - 10:19
I think DSR has a good idea to complain as a customer of the shops, and would suggest that he gets friends to also complain. If that doesn't get a response, photos of the rats to the local media and on local Facebook forums may help. The LA are very lax about their own use of pest control and I know that we had to shame them into action win the past - I think that my mother's comment that their attitude was 'positively mediaeval' finally got them to react.
It is definitely the job of the shops to make sure that rats don't have access to their waste and any decent business would respond. Obviously we all know that not all businesses are decent and that fast food is a particularly bad sector.
It's disgusting that the property owner won't react, but landlords don't want to give the building a bad name and devalue their investment, so there are limits to how public they may want the problem to become.

Update.

The LA was formally contacted first.

Followed up by the LL being told that that the LA will be visiting.

Suddenly the LL sent someone around to fill holes (that should not have been there) in walls, behind radiators and other locations.

I get the impression that the LL's (and supine agent's) attitude to a tenant's availability for anything is at best arrogant and presumptious and I wouldn't tolerate it.

It also doesn't solve the actual problem ... just makes it fractionally more difficult for the blighters to get in.

There's still a snagging list of non-rat related issues that remain un resolved ...