Three Generation Households – by Fergus Wilson

Looks like I'm getting a three generation household as of next month - acquired a different way.

Eastern European tenants moved into my three-bed maisonette 4 years ago when their two children - a daughter and a son, were 15 and 10.

I learnt yesterday that the daughter is now 'up the duff' with the baby due next month. Where will they live, I asked? I got a shrugged response that looked like 'stupid question, where do you think?'

So.... I am starting to think. The first floor maisonette is wholly unsuitable for what will be a three generation household very soon. I will wait and see what transpires knowing full well it's highly unlikely that the 19 year old mum-to-be will be offered a home by the local council!

Some very interesting points raised here Fergus, which I had not considered before.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Can we start a 38 degree poll on how many landlords would choose to rent to single parents with children under 5, ... IF - Licensing conditions punished them for doing so.
Even the very existence of the poll would make good publicity and show the media its not a ' Fergus bashing issue ' - just common business sense.

I have the same thing quite often in my houses.
Move Grandma in, new babies, more kids, lived there 20 years etc.
These new bed sizes, was bought in for the London 20 to house etc. But now Licensing here, they gonna' be enforcing this rule in other areas.
Here is some text I have saved & sent the council etc.

Yesterday we got told minimum bedroom size 6.51 sqm for over 10 years old kids. Which the Govt bringing in minimum size for Rogue Landlords overcrowding etc.
And Licensing said yesterday something like if smaller than 6.51 sqm, we or they got 18 months to move or do something about it.

Now here’s what happens in the real world, where I ain’t overcrowding like London 20 immigrants to a house.
Over the last 20 years, I’ve had bedrooms in my houses to fit single bed in & wardrobe in, I’m guessing 6ft 6 x 6ft 6. Which is less than 4 sqm. SHOCK HORRORS I hear u say.

But when woman has moved in, she says WOW, I now have 3 bed house, I have a room to put my baby in, my 5 year old, my 10 year old kid etc. Brilliant Thank you. My last council house was overcrowded, 3 kids sharing 1 bedroom

Now I’ve just read on Google, that this 6.51 sqm is too small when kid gets over 10. So what do we do? Chuck ‘em out? Are Licensing saying they can’t live there any more?
Now here’s more real world stuff for u. These rooms were only mean’t for baby. As the past 20 years have gone by, as many of you will know, housing shortage massive, & what was babies in these rooms years ago are now over 10 years old. And here’s more shock horror for u. I’ve gone in some of these rooms & woman Mum tenant has now got bunk beds in this SMALL room with TWO kids in there. What? Is that my fault? I've said u can't put two kids in there. She says where they gonna' go? The council has nothing for me. I can't afford bigger house. What do u propose I do?

All ‘cause the council can’t house them.

And I also know the other dept of the council is making their rooms even smaller so they can get their tenants out the bedroom tax trap, so the council no longer have to chase up the £15 a week cut that gets placed on tenant in 3 bed & now council can say it’s a 2 bed cause room too small, even though council know tenants will still be using it as a bedroom. You couldn’t make it up, could you.

I also have a family of 5 who lived in 3 bedroom of mine for 12 years. 5 years ago, my 5 bed come up & they moved into this one. The 53 year old brother is SO SO THANKFUL he now has his own bedroom. Which I know is smaller than 6.51 sq m. But he is SO SO GRATEFUL. But is Licensing telling him he now has to move. Where is he gonna’ go?

And Licensing will be making us evict these tenants, who then go from 6 people in a 3 bed house to 6 people in one Travelodge room.
And then the homeless department then ring us up and say Have u got anywhere for this family? And they end up going to somewhere smaller than they had before.

All REAL WORLD STUFF! But Now Licensing will be making these homeless.

Text from one of my tenants who is now overcrowding as per their rules. He did move in on his own, but ex missus lost kids, he now has them:

From a tenant of mine. Or should I say Council old school people, please take note.
I have just read your email regarding the bedroom size rule, scarletts bedroom is much smaller than that and there is no bloody way im moving out of here with all the money and.time i have put into this house, im sure new builds have bedrooms smaller than this? And i know of people who own there house with smaller rooms than this, what a joke

We found ourselves in a somewhat similar situation several years ago. We'd let our one bed bungalow (hang on to this important detail) to a retired single woman - who (strike 1) chose not to mention she had a dog and a cat, which we discovered at our first meeting at the property on her moving in day.
We (somewhat reluctantly) forgave her that 'omission', added an additional clause to the TA and everything jogged along for about 2 years; she paid her rent on time etc. etc. no issues.
Then she called me one morning to say the boiler wasn't working. I called our plumber, who informed me that he was on a Gas Safety course for the next 2 days and so would go out at the end of the week.
My husband dropped by with a couple of heaters for the tenant to use until the boiler would be fixed (which he handed over on the doorstep so'd not to spoil her 'quiet enjoyment of her home' seeing we were not due to make an any kind of a landlord nspection at that time).
On Day 3, completely out of the blue, I took a phone call from the Council Housing Officer to say that we needed to get the boiler fixed double quick or there would be 'serious consequences' for us, as a 6 week old baby couldn't be left in our property without central heating (huh?????)
On visiting the property it transpired that our single retired lady had moved her daughter - and her partner - in to the property (remember a 1 bedroom bungalow with en-suite) and said daughter had since had a baby!
Long story short it took us about 6 months to get them all out even though we had by now got the backing of the Council Housing Officer, who had initially accused us of condoning/permitting overcrowding! Of course both families by then had bumped themselves up the Waiting List (no doubt the aim of the tenant's call to the Housing Officer in the first place)
In the interim our plumber happened to mention in passing that, while he was fixing the boiler he'd been inconvenienced by the daughter's 2 dogs and their 5 puppies getting in his way!
So now we have 3 adults, a new baby, a cat, 3 adult dogs and 5 puppies all living in our tiny 1 bed bungalow.
As you can imagine by the time we got the property back it was a total wreck and cost us thousands to sort out!

Reply to the comment left by Liam Strid at 10/08/2018 - 09:43
Yes the move our goalposts AFTER we've already signed up to help people out.

Reply to the comment left by Liam Strid at 10/08/2018 - 15:09
I've got loads of overcrowding for Licensing to investigate when they ready.
And I'm putting it on the forms. Please come check this tenant out, he moved in on his own 5 years ago, ex missus problems, he now has the 3 kids.

He's spent 10k of his own money on the house & some kids are in too small a room & he's gonna' tell u to F-off when u tell him he's got to move out.