The past couple of weeks have been terrible for me. 3 months ago I moved into a flat in Camden Town and agreed to sublet a room. For the first 2 months, things went well and there was really no worry. The couple I live with are great and we have nice conversations together. Plus, we do not get in each other’s hair and are generally all quite laid back.
Now the person I’m subletting the place from was a complete disaster.
She asked us all if she could stay in January for a week, as he had come back from a two-week-long holiday to South Africa. She works as a nanny, or so she says, and she stated that her nanny job would not start until a week into the month. So we were kind and let her stay for free for a week. We have a pretty big living room, so she stayed in there. If that wasn’t enough, she didn’t go out for the week, just stayed indoors with the heating on and generally was always in the living room. That irked me a bit, but the fact I knew she would be leaving soon made it all bearable. However, after a week she comes back to all of us asking if her boyfriend can stay for a week. She was almost pleading as she said that they’d have nowhere else to stay (her boyfriend would not be able to stay at the place she has a nanny job). She also mentioned that she’d pay £100 to us if we’d let them stay. Just because we are nice, we let them both stay. Again, they both stayed in the living room for the majority of the time they stayed here, so it was a bit awkward going through the living room to get to the kitchen.
Anyhow, that was okay, at least with me, as I knew they’d both be leaving soon enough. Plus, I wanted to stay in her good books as I actually wanted to take over the tenancy for the place. A week goes by and she asks my other flatmate if they can stay another week. The other flatmate sends me a text message telling me about this. Of course, at this point, I’m furious. I send her a text saying she’d have to pay for the entire period she had already stayed – if she would like to stay longer. That scared her and so they both moved out that day. I couldn’t believe that they were asking to stay another week in addition to the time that they had already stayed here. She also never told me that they’d be staying even longer. They just assumed it would be all okay. The boyfriend even delayed his flight back to Denmark just to to stay longer without even notifying any of us first! Unbelievable and rude.
And so they both moved out that day, but not before coming in and cooking dinner in the kitchen. I assumed they came back to get all their stuff and just leave. They then left all their dirty plates on the side for us to wash. Not only was we nice enough to let her stay for a week (for free), but we allowed the boyfriend to stay as long they paid £100 (which is something she suggested) AND even so they left the kitchen in a complete state. Oh, it’s been almost a month and they have not paid us this £100. Annoying as fuck.
Then we come to the ‘internet issue’. The internet is in her boyfriend’s name and he of course lives in Denmark. We make payments to the boyfriend to pay for the internet. Silly, I know, but I’m only subletting the place (silly again) and don’t really have much choice. The contract is now going to be in my name (hopefully), so today I signed up to Virgin Media broadband which will be installed next month on the 7th of March. Not to derail, paid the money for the broadband (with TalkTalk) of £30 to pay for the month’s bill, but TalkTalk still cut us off. They tell us they’ve made the payment of £30, but I call TalkTalk and they say that there is a ‘balance’ left on the account that needs to be paid. So they obviously have not paid for it. We’ve since had no internet for about 2 weeks. Two excruciating weeks. I’ve got online university assignments that need to be done, and I need the internet to do them. I’ve had to stay at work late and go to work on Saturdays and Sundays just to finish off my assignments. During this time we are texting the soon to be, former tenant, asking her to update us on the internet. She tells us that she’s trying to sort it, and yet nothing happens. We then group up together (all flatmates) and decide to text her a clever message to see if she has been telling the truth. She stated that it has been impossible to get through to anyone at TalkTalk, yet I got through to someone in the first go on a Friday. They asked me if I wanted to pay money to them (they wouldn’t tell me the exact bill amount). We text her this, and she makes up some sort of bullshit.
We now have internet – only because we decided to ask our neighbors if we could use their WiFi. From this access, I ordered a broadband package with Virgin Media via MoneySuperMarket.com that affords us 50 mb upload speed and unlimited usage. Only problem is that they take their time with engineers. So we have to wait until the 7th of March to get someone around to install the internet. At least, it’s coming and soon enough our house will have a super-fast connectivity!
Note: I did not proof this or expect any part to make sense. This is just a big fat rant. I’m glad I let this out though. I’ll read it next week and will probably laugh.
