Is this the worst student house in Leeds?

Student houses aren’t the most luxurious accommodation you’ll ever live in, however these five second years have been living in terrible conditions for over eight months. They’ve suffered from water leaking into the house from next door, mould, broken boilers and wasp nests.

Water started leaking on the lounge floor over eight months ago, but when they initially reported it to their landlord, the landlord said said it was caused by next door’s drain being blocked by leaves. Even after the leaves were cleared the problem continued and despite emailing the landlord over five times nothing was done about it.

One of the housemates, Philippa Lazell, told The Tab “Following a particularly bad leak once and us threatening to not pay money we finally saw our landlord for the first time. He was very apologetic and ‘angry’ too, clearly he just didn’t want to lose money. He said he was going to sort it right away, left the house and never came back nor did anything else.”

The leaking has been going on all year and gets particularly bad after heavy rainfall and often damages their personal belongings. The housemates have since learned that the water that has been leaking into their house is wastewater from next door. Philippa added “Bearing in mind it was exam period this snapped us as we could physically no longer be in our lounge. That’s when we decided to post the video on Facebook.”

Since Friday their post on Facebook has received nearly 11,000 views, and the response has been huge with other students sharing their housing horror stories. The situation has clearly struck home with other students who have had to deal with landlords who simply don’t care.

One of the housemates said “one girl said they arrived to a rat in their boiler room. Following multiple emails it actually took one of their parents to complain for the agency to sort the issue three months later. By this time the rat had died and the room had become crawling with maggots which had spread throughout the flat. All the agency could offer the tenants was a £10 trinity voucher.”

The housemates are encouraging other students to get in touch with them to tell them about their horror stories in the hope that they can get enough evidence to take to Unipol, so that Unipol can reconsider what they class as “good” student letting agents. You can get in touch with one of the housemates Betty Callaghan on Facebook or email them at [email protected] to share your housing horror story.