[Ben Reeve Lewis is back on the Telly…)
The trouble with doing stuff for TV is most of what you do doesn’t actually go out.
Back in December I did a bit with Irish undercover journo Paul Connolly for Channel 5 about illegal sub-letting of council houses. ITN Productions phoned me in April and said they couldn’t track any properties down to film undercover.
Then a month ago I got another call from Paul saying my bit was going out but in a programme about housing benefit fraud.
I pointed out that I didn’t talk about housing benefit fraud. He said “Don’t worry about it”.
The magic of TV folks. Episode 3 went out last week and I still haven’t watched it myself yet.
A million renters suffering
Being in the rogue landlord business as it were my eye tends to be drawn towards stories of that ilk when scanning the week’s news stories and Shelter didn’t let me down with their news, compiled from a YouGov survey that an estimated 1 million+ renters have suffered a range of rogue landlord behaviours in the past year
50,000 luckless tenants alone have had their belongings thrown out.
Bonfire stories
In 26 years I have seen countless versions of this, including one married couple who built a bonfire of their tenants belongings in the back garden because he owed them rent.
I called them in for an interview under caution, prior to a criminal prosecution under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977.
They blew me out 3 times before finally turning up to be interviewed separately and when I got them into a chair and the tape turned on both versions of events were completely different.
Bullying behaviour I can live with but not incompetence. They’d had weeks to agree on a single story but were so stupid they couldn’t even get that together. They deserved to be prosecuted for that alone.
Know your rights
Shelter’s Danielle Goodwin said:-
“Too many people simply don’t know their rights as a renter”.
The understatement of the century.
In recent years I have come to savour the moment when I ask a tenant if their deposit has been protected. Like building up to a punchline to get the predictable facial expression of complete incomprehension. 9 years in and people still don’t know. [NB They could take a look here. Ed]
Lies and letting agent lies
I was intrigued to read of the legislative noose pulling tighter on letting agent’s advertising of properties. I’m not talking about adding a couple of feet to the garden size or advertising the broom cupboard as a walk in wardrobe either.
The Advertising Standards Authority ordered ‘Landlord Certificates’ to change their advertising regarding the installation of carbon monoxide alarms because it mislead people into thinking that the alarms must be fitted to all rooms, instead of just those with solid fuel.
Now, much as I’m all for honesty and accuracy I have to say that’s hardly the crime of the century is it? At worst it would simply result in a tenant getting extra protection and presumably a boost to the carbon monoxide alarm industry and jobs to go with it. Frankly I’d rather have heavy employment in the smoke alarm business than the arms industry.
Dinner party landlords?
The same article also carried a link to another article called “Will changes in the PRS signal the end of dinner party landlords?” What the hell is one of those when its at home?
I’ve heard of amateur landlords and reluctant landlords but never Dinner Party Landlords.
Maybe it’s a Darwinian thing. With more landlords around these days they are diversifying into distinct species like Hummingbirds. Perhaps the ‘Rogueus Brutalis” or the ‘Taxus Dodgus’ or that very rare species the ‘Letting Agentus Honestii’.
According to the article the dinner party landlord is the direct opposite of the professional landlord but I get the impression that the journalist writing in Property Reporter simply made it up, hoping the phrase will gain the same social traction as “Generation Rent” or “Rogue Landlord”, allowing him to say at his own dinner party “I came up with that”.
Music journalist Mark Radcliffe once wrote as a joke that Bob Holness of ‘Blockbusters’ fame played the saxophone solo on Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street and 25 years later that joke still survives as an urban myth, so maybe the reporter will get his wish.
Unaffordable rent increases
The Yorkshire Post told us this week that homelessness is on the rise due to unaffordable rent increases.
Apparently in the second quarter of 2016 Yorkshire homelessness units had seen 924 approaches for help by families unable to cope with the lethal cocktail (there’s a nice journalistic stock phrase) of increasing rents and benefit cuts.
DCLG figures nationally for the same quarter showed a 10% increase on the same quarter last year for the same reasons.
One thing I didn’t quite get though is that the highest regional increase in homelessness for the same reasons was in Hull, where it is generally acknowledged that rents are among the lowest in the country.
Who am I to argue? These are government figures and government always knows what its doing doesn’t it?
Is this the answer?
While we are on that subject and nothing to do with housing, I was listening to Radio 4 the other day. A news piece about Spain who despite 3 elections in a year still haven’t managed to form a government but the economy is recovering a bit and business doing quite well.
While the right and the left are slogging out their own trench warfare on who should govern, maybe we are missing a trick. Maybe the secret is not to have them at all.
There’s a thought.
What made me smile this week.
Not a lot actually. I’ve been too tired but I did have a giggle whilst chasing my dog around the park.
He found a dead squirrel and being beside himself at actually catching one instead of barking up trees while they stay just out of reach and thumb their nose at him, he ran around like cock of the north while young girls screamed. You take your pleasures where you can find them
See ya next week.