On Feb 20, 1:19*pm, (Cynic) wrote:
On Sun, 19 Feb 2012 14:48:44 -0800 (PST), Ste
wrote:

It's not just the electrical appliances, there are tiles falling off the
wall, doors falling off the cabinets and so on.
Those things *are* the landlord's responsibility if not caused by the
tenant, as is reasonable redecoration. =A0I appreciate that many
landlords drag their heels, but any tenant should be able to get it
done with persistance.
It's often necessary to simply withhold the rent to get repairs done,
and people who I know in that position simply don't want the risk of
upheaval if the landlord decides they are too much hassle or too
demanding and so terminates their tenancy.

In which case they would probably benefit from moving to a place with
a more reasonable landlord, as much of a pain as it will be.

It's a question of finding such a landlord. In the end, a competitive
rental market and a competitive society, is not going to yield many
"reasonable landlords", because it is always more profitable to be a
Hoogstraten.



And from the other side of the coin, landlords are often loath to make
repairs to properties that the tenants do not take any real care of,
and themselves cause either careless damage or wilful damage in the
course of arguments/fights and such (though not necessarily the same
damage as the disrepair complained of), which the tenants themselves
are in no financial position to make good.

Perhaps you should be taking issue with the behaviour of the tenants
in that case instead of moaning about the landlord?

I don't recall "moaning about the landlord". As for the behaviour of
the tenants, again to take pride in your surroundings, you have to
have some degree of security, some degree of personalisation, and some
sense that it's of a commensurate social standard. So too, whereas
middle class partners might replace any crockery and fittings damaged
in a plate-throwing argument, the poor cannot generally afford to do
so (their income was not sufficient to have afforded those fittings
even in the first place).



=A0In any case those things can usually be tided
sufficiently to not be an eyesore, and do not make the place less
comfortable.
Are you really as comfortable in a house with no doors on the kitchen
cabinets and tiles falling off the wall, as one with a sound kitchen?
Or is it just double standards?

I have two hands and a brain, and would most certainly be able to
effect sufficient repairs to make a vast improvement.

I'd be quite interested to see you fit a kitchen with nothing but your
fingernails - and no prior experience.



In any case, I think it is yourself who is being completely
unrealistic in your scenarios, because I have visited many homes of
people who have no money and are surviving completely on state
benefits, and have not seen any homes in anything close to such a
state of disrepair. *I concede that they no doubt exist, but put it to
you that they are very much the exception (except in places where the
people deliberately damage their own homes - to which I say nobody has
any duty whatsoever to make it better).

All I can say is, for people who have survived on basic income support
(i.e. not disability benefits or any of the other considerably higher
benefits) for a significant period of time (possibly all their lives,
possibly generations), and without working on the side or receiving
other consistent subsidy from wealthier friends or relatives, I do not
observe their homes to be of any reasonable standard.

As I've said, some of the worst cases I'm describing are not even
friends or relatives of mine, and they are actually families of ill
repute in the local community - in some cases, I've seen the inside of
their homes only because I've entered the property with the landlord,
not because I have any personal relationship with them whatsoever.