Student Accomodation?

Farls

I am wondering what excactly our rights are? The problem is I moved into a brand spanking new appartment last september paying the most expensive rent around expecting it to be top notch, but no...only a month there and there was signs of dampness, we checked with the rest of the ppl in the block and they all have the same problem as us...dampness, this isn't just condensation now, we're talking clothes going blue moulded after a few days in the wardrobe and the ceiling/walls going pure black. Even in one of the rooms in our appartment water began to seep through the wall and some fungus began to grow. I said enough was enough and we complained to our landlady she insisted this was our fault and we were going to have to pay for it.
But when the landlord, who's company built the building seen the water seeping thru the wall he said it was where the scafolding had been held to the wall wasn't filled in and he would fix it. All he done was got it re-plastered and again its seeping thru as bad as ever. As for the walls/ceiling it was just painted over.
AFAIK nobody in the appartments has done anything about this and most ppl seem to be afraid of the landlady/lord. I myself am wondering what can we do, and what rights do we have. It's exam time now and the student union is closed so is it the council or planning authority we goto?...i asked one of the lecturer's and he says we should get our rent back in full. One of the guy's i live with (3 of us in the appartment) has massive medical bills from his asthma getting worse since he moved in even.
Any help/suggestions/courses of action would be greatly appreciated.

Farls

eth0_

Well have you got a rent book or any kind of contract of tenency? Because I don't think you'll have any rights at all if you don't...

Farls

Yes i have a rentbook, and my contract....its all above board like i want to know what i should do because i dont think anyone should have to live in these kind of conditions

paddyc

as far as I know, you can really do him over this, my folks have a few houses and have to be very careful, with things like this, speak to your student services office, they will be able to advide you, start keeping copies of all contact with land lord in case you have to go to court

zAbbo

keep a log of all events such as dates times letters sent/phone calls etc.

This builds ur case.

Hope all goes well.

Ps where is this place?

Farls

The building in Question is in Letterkenny, landlords name is Eugene Kelly and his wife is Annamay....i moved out there bout 3 weeks ago....rang up the other day asking about my deposit and she told me i wasn't getting it back......now our appartment was absolutely spotless, i broke nothing and done no damage its an absolute fu<king joke at this stage...i'm trying to get hold of the student union to get them to do something about this because it really has just turned me off college now cuz i cant get anywhere else to live. I found out that the landlord/lady is keeping everyone who's a student deposit...now some of the other appartments might of had some damage done, but no where near 700 POUNDS worth! and the damage would only b minor like a broken leg on a chair or a mark on a wall or something like that.

I took pics of the dampness with my digital camera before i moved out and i haven't told the landlord of this i'll use it against him if worst comes to worst....if you want i'll email it to anyone who knows anything/is interested in this.

My advice to anyone going to college is check your landlord out severly before you move in anywhere....my parents rent houses out and i've never experienced or heard of treatment as bad as this before. Another thing was i said to my landlord that he cant take money off me for normal wear and tear, as soon as i said that to him he called me every fu<ker under the sun all i can say is hes one lucky **** i didnt split him.Also he reckons i had my girlfriend living with me fulltime in the appartment, i told him he was wrong and he proceeded to go mental at me about it....the fact was she stayed over maybe once every 2 weeks but she came round in the evening for a few hours......like what is the story am i not aloud to have friends over????.....what action should b taken here?

Farls

Panda

I know the situation you're in all to well.

My landlord from the last college year was a abosolute joke,
there was so much **** wrong with the house that i couldnt be bothered to list.

Anyway my landlord was trying to charge us €1410 worths of damage done to the house, and i assure you that is utter bull****.
There was some damage done, but nothing beyond normal wear and tear and there was a key lost for a room door meaning that the lock had to be completely replaced.

Anyway Farls, if you really think that you're in the right in your situation and it does sound like you are, seek advice from the Students union and get their backing and also go to Threshold.
They offer advice and helped me a lot in my situation.

threshold.ie

Also ring up the district council in letterkenny and ask them if the your house at that address is registered to be let to tenants, if its not then ask for it writing, they will send it to you.

I'm going to ring my landlord tomorrow and since the house that i was staying in wasn't registered the wanker of a landlord is now liable to be fined €1270 if he doesn't give us back our full deposits and an additional €127 fine for each day after the day he's reported if he doesnt register.
And im going to check up on him each and every year after.

Definatly ring threshold or better still they might have an office in your city, theres one in galway anyway....

good luck.

Farls

Cheers Panda for the link, i'll give them a call during the week and see what they might be able to do for me.

Another thing i just remembered is our landlady used to constantly just walk into our appartment, like she'd knock on the door but just unlock it and come in wheather we were there or not, and she often walked in at say 10am to show ppl who would b looking for an appartment around ours and my flatmates and myself still in bed like...we'd wake up to see her and some strangers staring at us. Another thing i seen on that site was that we are aloud have ppl stay over unless it states in the contract that we're not. And i have my contract here and it don't say anything about it. I also have my rentbook and keys (i wasn't going to give my keys back till i get my deposit, so it will cost them to change all the locks)

My landlady is also looking for all our rentbooks back does anyone have any ideas on why she might want them?...im not handing mine back like cuz its the only evidence i have of paying my rent which i was never late with.

I'm quite surprised about the lack of interest in this thread, i thought lots of students would have stories to tell and advice to give or even landlords.....maybe this should be in the accomodation board?......i'll leave it to the mod's to decide anyways.

Farls

leeroybrown

On the issue of your landlord coming in whenever they want:

You'll have to check this with someone but afaik a landlord has to gie their tenants notice (24 hrs or something similar) if they plan to call by to inspect the house etc. I could be wrong tho.

If I was you I'd get in contact with as many of the other former student tenants as possible and make sure everyone kicks up a fuss. Give this idiot landlord (for want of a more eloquent expression) a right royal ass shafting!

phobos

After being a student in Castlebar for 5 academic years, I learned that there are too many people who have the intention of keeping your deposits as soon as you hand them over.

Take this for example (this happened me there last Christmas, and it's a laugh when you think about it) [It's long but worth reading for anybody looking to rent accomodation]

My Story Begins
After having a clean student record as far as accomodation was concerned in my previous 4 years of college, I thought that we would be treated with a little respect from our (to be) final land(lord/lady). How wrong we were
It was last summer and I'd just gotten my results from my 3rd year exams, and had the intention of moving back in to another house in Gladesville. My previous landlord was a guard from Westport, and was the soundest man/landlord I've ever met. He provided a fantastic living environment (new house, all new appliances, TV/Video, and even paid the TV licence). Anyway I got a few people together to share the house with me, and gave him a ring about 3-4 days later. He told me that his wife had just given the house to others a day or two before, and was gutted that I hadn't contacted him earlier, because he had as much respect for us, as we did for him, and hoped we would be giving him another year's business. He then told me that he didn't want to see us stuck, and said he knew of the man that owned the house 2 doors down. I though "grand", same type house, same location, it can't be that much different. So anyway I got in contact with this new guy, and over the phone he seemed sound. So agreed to visit the house etc etc. I got the lads together in early July, and paid a visit. The house appeared fine, with new tiles on the floor/carpets etc. The only thing is that I knew this particular house, had a few troublemakers in it the year before (coz I live two doors up, if you remember). So I commented on the newish look of the interior. So he proceeded to tell us that there was a bunch of druggies in the house last year (which was an exaggeration), and they flooded the house while stoned out of there trees.
Since the house was in an ideal location, we agreed to pay his (rather high) deposit of £1000 (between 4 for Castlebar is a lot). Rent was £35.

Here comes the snags
He pointed out that the only part of the cooker that was working was the rings, and that the curtains in one of the rooms weren't up. We thought nothing of this until we moved in a few months later, and they still weren't there. This is after our deposits had been paid. But your man seemed genuine when he said he would be getting them immediately. I remember him distinctly saying "Lads, all I ask, is that ye have respect for my property, and I will sort out anything ye need". So anyway weeks passed, and nothing seemed to get done. There was a TV in the house with no aerial in the attic. When I tried to explain to him how TV works (ie you need some sort of signal input), he insisted that if I plugged it in to the RF socket on the wall, everything should work. We didn't want to make him look stupid, so we let him get an RF lead, and hey presto, it didn't work. So we asked him did the TV come with "rabbit ear" antennas. He got this for us fairly quick if I recall. He arranged to pick up our rent every monday evening, and to make sure somebody was in the house to let him in. That was fine, and it worked for the first 3 weeks. Being final year students we didn't have an awful lot of time to sit around waiting for him, so once 8pm would come we would bugger off back up to the college (which was our normal routine). 3 weeks passed, and there was no sign of him, and the money started to build up. We got in contact with him, and he appologised that he simply didn't have the time to call over. This was grand, but I told him, I would appreciate if he called beforehand to say if he could or couldn't come. He agreed. But this never happened the whole time I was there. Every monday we would ne left sitting wondering if he was going to call.
He then said that if we left the money in envelopes in a kitchen drawer, he would collect them when he had the time (at weekends when there wouldn't be anyone there for example). We thought "fine", and agreed to doing that initially. Then 1.5 months passed, and we hadn't seen this guy or couldn't get in contact with him. His mobile was always off. At this stage there was a crazy amount of money sitting in the kitchen drawer while we were away at the weekends. We also thought that this bugger was trying to play a game with us. Perhaps he would send around a brother at the weekend, and break a back window, take the money, and make it look like the house was robbed by someone unknown. I also forgot to mention this guy and his brothers were cowboy builders (type people).
The next few houses on our street were being constructed, and there was a lot of building going on, but nothing to do with our landlord (we though). On one occasion we came home for lunch at 1pm, and saw someone walking around the back of our house. One of lads went out and asked the guy what was he doing, and he said that his boss, had told him that they could connect their equipment up to the power supply in our shed. We thought OK, fair enough, it sounds like they got the OK from our landlord, and there is going to be some sort of ESB deal going to be done. When we finally got in touch with the landlord, and he came over, I questioned him, and asked him had be approved of them using our ESB. He said he hadn't, and that he had nothing to do with that building company. We didn't believe him (but didn't tell him that), so I said I was going to report them to the guards immediately. He got all bothered (of course), and said that he knew the boss of that company, and said he would sort something out. Granted they never used our ESB again (we think), but we got no money for the ESB. So we decided not to pay the ESB until we did get something. So the first two bills came and we didn't pay. In mid November we were also sick and tired of having a very dodgy heating system. Hot water either didn't exist, or only worked for short periods. We resorted to lighting fires a lot, and with no back boiler, the living room was the only warm room in the house.
On the night of my graduation, I remember Kharn, and Trojan, came down for it, and we were standing in the back garden, when we noticed some water coming under our shed door. I didn't think much of it because it was raining and dark at the time, and didn't seem that much of a problem. The next day I investigated, and a pipe had burst. And it was hot water that was leaking all over the back garden, while we were wasting oil at the same time. So we did all the obvious routines, and managed to get hold of the landlord. He rushed out (surprise surprise!!), and his brother, who we find out about now, who just lives across the road comes running over. His brother got there first, and I brought him to the root of the problem. He noticed there was a bike in the shed, and said that whoever put the bike in there obviously hit the pipe, and burst it (bull****). The reason for the pipe bursting was due to faulty plumbing, which was later cleared up by a plumber. The brothers didn't have us on that one
At this stage we were getting almight pissed off that nothing in the house had been fixed (curtains, cooker...), and it was months later. At this time we told the landlord that we were no longer leaving the money in the kitchen drawer, because it was unsafe, and that he was either punctual on collecting the rent, or we just lodge it in the bank. He suggested that his brother collect it. We said fine, and he told us a time to be there. Anyway the following sunday night the doorbell rang, and it was the brother looking for rent. He was a day early, since we agreed on monday evening, and I told him this. He told me that his brother said it was to be collected that night, and not the next day. He told me that he wouldnt' tolerate late rent. This really pi$$ed me off, considering all the sh1t I'd received already. So I said, hang on a second mate, what about all the problems in this house. He said, "like what?", in a really narky tone. I went to tell him, starting with the cooker, and he stopped me and said. "Weston, you and me both know who the cooker's problem is". Curiously, I asked "Who's", and he said that of course it was mine, because he thought I was one of these so called druggies living in the house the previous year. Now I was really mad, and I said, "excuse me, but how dare, you suggest that I take drugs, when you have obviously got the wrong person". I continued to tell him that I wasn't in the house last year, and all that. His attitude really stunk. It was like he had no respect for students whatsoever. At least his brother had the decency to be nice when talking to us, even though he didn't get/fix anything.
So I told his brother to fuk off (in a nice way, and that the landlord would be hearing about this). Anyway we didnt' see the landlord until the day before we went home for Christmas. I think it was 3 time I had seen him, in the first semester. At this stage we owed him hundreds of pounds. He eventually called, fixed the cooker, put up curtains, and was generally sound. He told us that we didnt' have to pay rent over the Christmas for all the inconvenience, and we were over the moon, and all forgiving.

phobos

Here's where the sh1t really begins
On leaving the house he said asked did we have oil in the tank, that he didn't want the pipes freezing over the christmas while we would be gone. He dipped the tank, and we had enough oil. We agreed to put the oil on the timer, to come on for an hour each day. We suggested turning off the water to him, but he said he wanted it done this way. So we agreed. You can imagine we were all on great terms at this stage, because the house was in perfect mint, and rent was sorted out and all that.
So anyway the house was vacant from Christmas Eve, to about the second week in January. The morning I was to go up, one of lads rang me, and said that he opened the front door of the house, and water rushed out past him. He said that the house was destroyed. The kitchen ceiling had fallen in, the walls were all cracked, and the floor was wrecked. The pipes had burst in the attic, and gravity took it from there. I got down there in mid afternoon, and couldn't belive my eyes, the house didn't even look the same it was so badly damaged. I freaked with panic, but knew it wasn't our fault. It had to be faulty plumbing. Anway the landlord came, and the **** hit the fan. It turns out that this is exactly what happened the lads the year before, and they got kicked out, without there deposits. But they couldnt' do anything, because the landlord had proof that they were smoking gear in the house. He said that we obviously hadn't put the oil on, and something like that. He also told us before Christmas, that he would be checking on the place constantly over the christmas, and not to worry. He obviously didn't check once (the neighbours said that he didn't), which he denied initially, but then said it was true, when the neighbours confronted him. They were pissed off because our immediate neighbours had damp carpets, and walls, because it was even coming through the semi-detached divisions.
Our landlord refused to give our deposits back, so then we said enough is enough, and we contacted Thresh-hold. They were so helpful, and said that we were completely in the right, and entitled to our deposits. They even wrote a letter to him, on our behalf, suggesting that legal proceeding would go ahead if he didn't comply. He denied that he ever received a letter. This guy was like a child in that, he thought as long as he kept ignoring everybody, we couldn't do anything to him. When he told us that he had been to threshhold, and that he was in the right. We knew he hadn't, so I asked him was it the threshhold in Castlebar he went to, and he said "Yes". I then proceded to tell him that he is quite stupid, because there is no Thresh-hold in Castlebar. I had gone to my local one in Galway. This was now all going on when I was sitting my 1st semester exams of my degree, and had was sleeping on the couch of a friend.

Anyway in the end, a month or so later, we eventually got another house, much further away from the college (of course). He eventually got intimidated by the letters from threshhold, and said that he would return our deposits, ex the owed ESB. We then had to bring up the whole ESB ordeal, with him, because it turned out our landlord was working for that very building company that was using our ESB, as a plasterer. He had even given he go ahead to use the electricity, but freaked out when I suggested contacting the guards a few months earlier, because he knew he would lose his job, or get on bad terms with the boss. I was able to throw all this in his face. I really social engineered the situation, in that I knew
- Where he lived
- What houses he owned
- The names of all his brother and sisters (and their mobile numbers)
- What he spent the money on, that we gave him before christmas

it's amasing waht you can find out in a small place. He hadn't scratch on me, apart from my name, and that I was from Galway. Anway in the end we got about £180 of our deposits back. We accepted, and he even tried to short change me, when he was counting out the money, when giving the deposit back. He was a real chancer.

Anyway that concludes my story. I could name and shame this landlord, and disclose the address of the house, his name, amonst other things, but I'll wait and see what ye guys think first.

;-phobos-)
PS: Fair play if you read all of that

leeroybrown

Jesus man, ... that guy sounds like some bástard. And to think you were only a couple of days from getting your old house back.

I'm a semi-unofficial landlord for my fathers house in Galway. Most of the people who stay there are friends tho so it smooths things out a lot.

phobos

He was some muppet alright, but we got him in the end. I don't know if he's got anybody in the house since then. But I bet anything that he will put it back up for rent this coming September, because he's knows that we'll be out of Castlebar.

As for your situation, I think it's a wise move for you to take the role of landlord. The reason is, since the tenants are friends of yours; the chances of them wrecking a house belonging to a mate are very slim. Even when they come home drunk (or whatever), they will still take something like that in to consideration. I know I would anyway.

;-phobos-)

Stephen

Name and shame the fu<ker. Maybe someone looking for accommodation in Castlebar next september might see the post

leeroybrown

I forgot to mention one small detail about my landlordship. I also live in the house so theres no messing going on. Over the last 4 years I'd say that I've probably been one of the more relaxed landlords in Galway. I always collect the money when the lads have it.

hacktavist

Jesus, phobos if I were you id name him. Sounds like a right prick.

P.s You asked me for a favour on irc when I was afk ages ago? I dunno do you remember...

Panda

sorry dont have time to read your novel phobos , but i copied and pasted it for later.

I avoided this bull**** in first year because i stayed in 4 the Orchard the comfiest digs ever made.
And the owners of the house were sound aswell.

As for ye who suggest naming and shaming the bastids, isnt that some sort of liable?
(slander is spoken and liable is written, i think.....)

Also for those of ye that have land lords just wandering into your house whenever they feel like it, well thats not allowed.
Offically its a 3 day notice, according to threshold.
But i doubt that this notice has ever been adhered to.

Panda

Okay.
That sounds very like my landlord.
He’s the childish, irresponsible sack of sh1t that you've just described.

Ok, first meeting with our landlord went pretty well, he seemed fairly sound and looked like he knew what he was doing.
We sorted our deposits and we agreed to pay the rent into a quick lodge account in the AIB in castlebar before 1 on a friday, which was really convenient.
(although we were late with the rent every now and then.)
We were well chuffed because thought we had such a great house...
We were so naive.
After the first couple of weeks the following was ****ed up in the house.(i assure you, NONE of which we were responsible for)
Downstairs toilet:
roll holder broken.
towel holder broken.
soap holder broken.
inside handle broken.
Sitting room:
couch: falling apart.
armchair: falling apart.
smoke started to come up the back of the fireplace which resulted in smoke damage and eventually changing the colour of the paint from beige or whatever to a yellow type colour.
water stains on the ceiling.
the radiator leaked.
Kitchen:
1 ring on the hob broken.
2 light fixtures unconnected to electricity.
1 chair seat broken/loose.
this is hilarious, the extractor fan above the hob was never connected to a vent, so the steam or smoke, travelled all the way from the hob to the ceiling.
upstairs:
my room.
paint taken of the door from stickers.
paint taken off the wall from posters.
there is a 1cm gap between where the floor should join the wall, resulting in a bastid of a draft.
double ensuite.
the carpet was stained all over by bleach.
toilet.
paint was coming off the ceiling.
the shower head hose leaked onto the floor.
there was no proper ventilation, bar a little extractor fan that came on whenever it felt like it. there was a window alright but it was a skylight about 20 feet up.
Also:
the head of the hoover was broken.
the brush was not useable.
the stairs is dodgy, the banister is just glued at the top.

When we ever notified him of the problems with the house he kept telling US to call a plumber or US to bring the hoover to be repaired or just didn’t do anything.
Completely irresponsible asshole.
Anyway, he only called around once or twice a year and he never organised a rubbish pickup. he said he'd do it.
At one stage we had upwards of 10 yes 10 bags of rubbish at the side of house until we contacted him because there was cats ripping open the bags and the place was a mess.
Then he had his GIRLFRIEND pick it up.
And he had her paint the porch of the house.
He also had her collect the rent later on in the year when we missed the rent one week because the person whose turn to pay the rent was/is an idiot and went home without doing it.

Anyway over christmas on of the lads stayed in the house.
Turned out that he was a bigger wanker than i ever imagined.
He used all the oil that we had just bought a week or 2 before xmas.
(we ended up not getting oil for the rest of the year, and survived on fires in the ****ed up fireplace that dikhed wouldn’t fix.
the place was an utter mess, later on he dropped out and left us with bills.
but don’t get me started about dikhead housemates, that’s a different kettle of monkeys.

he never contacted us at all and i ended up having to ring him at the end of the year as he had "forgotten" about the two weeks in advance that we paid.
w@nker.
i asked him about the deposits and told him that we were leaving the house soon.
he knew that most of us would be gone the week after the exams but one of the lads is staying up in castlebar so he took advantage of the week in advance that we still had.
anyway he came into the house with his associate, they went though the house with a fine tooth comb and came up with a list adding up to €1410 yoyos.
oh how we laughed.
he was trying to charge us €5 EACH to wipe the dust out of the cupboards in the house, to wipe the dust off the window board, to wash windows.
€10 EACH to clean the wardrobes and presses in the rooms.
€160 to clean the carpet professionally (admittedly it was stained in spots but it was already heavily stained)
€40 each to clean both bathrooms.
prices ranging from
€120 to €180 to paint the bedrooms which were left in the condition we found them except one or 2 marks from posters, which he maintains were painted before we moved in and has receipts to prove it.
in short this man lies like a trooper.
i forget the other stuff many things which i listed above, theres only a certain amount buII**** i can remember.
and after looking at the house he tried to make himself out to be a nice guy and make his associate out to be the bad guy.
he threatened the remaining housemate that he wouldn’t do anything but his associate would report him to the college and if he was working in the castlebar that he would report him to his
employer.

to meet him half way, we painted 4 rooms and fixed the stuff in the downstairs toilet and the couch that was already broken and various other small things.

He tried to pin the broken shower base on us and he actually said that he had professionals in to look at it, who informed him that it would cost upwards of €300 because the shower tray would have
to be cut out and brought down through the sitting room ceiling.
we found this funny.
we told him that we didnt know about this but we knew that there was stains on the ceiling above the television when we moved in.
then he said that he wouldnt be able to charge us for this then.

Now in my previous post i informed ye about the whole registration thing and when i rang him up on a monday and informed him about it(giving him until wednesday to pay the deposits),
he acted like a retarded child.
he practically needed to have the word registration explained to him.
he kept going on about the list of damages and i told him that i had been advised (by threshold) that there was told that there was nothing on that list outside of normal wear and tear.
i had to say this and explain this about 8 or 9 times.
needless to say the ignorant fuk never paid up and the dispute is ongoing, he has only rang the others since and every other word out of his mouth is either a threat or a lie.
he wont ring me because im the only one whos actually doing anything about this.
I’m ready willing and able to go to court with this but the lads are reluctant.
the latest thing that he tried was to get us to send him a letter of apology and €20.
never, EVER do this.
this means you are accepting responsibility and will end up with you in court being quite screwed and leaves you open to every sort of fine.

on another note phobos if you'd care to make problems for your landlord, phone the castlebar UDC and ask if the property you were staying was registered and i bet you a shiny nickel that it wasnt.
this means you can report him, anonymously i think.
which leaves him liable to pay a fine of €1270. and an additional €127 fine for each day after he’s reported, that he doesn’t register.
As i already said i did this, but i handled it wrong. The way i put it to my landlord it sounded like it was blackmail. but its not, its the law.
Because of the way i handled it, he threatened us with court, and the lads don’t want to bother with court even though we'd win.

This annoys me but i think hes given up trying because he hasn't called any of us lately.

Thats all for now.

phobos

Good story panda, thanks for sharing, again an instance of poor accomodation in Castlebar.

Right there is one thing I noticed here, and after being a student in Castlebar for 5 years I learned to cop on to. Your landlord had painting receipts, plumbers to pay, painter this, painter that. All the works of trades men. The thing about Castlebar is that everybody knows eachother, and everybody is a fukking cowboy builder, or else knows one.

After the whole water incident (damage) in January, he said he was going to get a plumber to assess how the fault occured. It was really down to whether or not we had enough oil in the tank or not. Our word, against his really. But if you remember he checked how much oil we had before christmas, and agreed it was enough. Then he denied he checked it after Christmas. We all stood there in shock @ how he was lying right in front of us, and that he knew, that we knew, he was lying. Anyway the plumber turned around and said that it was our fault, and came up with a story that just didn't sound right. So I asked the plumber for his business card, and he gave me one. So I had him checked out and it turned out the plumber was a friend of my landlords. Because he was working for the same construction company our landlord was working for (so they were bound to be friends). So I told him that we couldn't accept the results, with the corrupt assessment that had been carried out. This is when Thresh-hold came in to it.

As I probably said somewhere in my long post earlier, I don't have every explicit detail posted. It would take too long, but I will disclose more of the story if required.

Anyway the moral of the story, be cautious of professionals hired by the landlord, because they are all in on the deal. But the best thing to do is stick by your guns. Know your rights. Don't all shout at once, and be very professional about dealing with things like this. All for the simple reason, that your landlord will back down if he thinks he's going to be outsmarted. In the end I had caught my landlord out so many times, he was terrified.

Also panda, on reading (what was wrong with your house), it sounds like a pretty old place. Houses like in Chessnut Grove, or Garry Duff, or...feckit there is plenty of houses like that in Castlebar. They are trying to dump them on students, and then make some cash to do the houses up in the end. I recommend you stick with the newest houses as possible. I know my one that I was in was new, but it had defects. Also I tend to find landlady's better to deal with than landlords. Also if you're not going through a Auctioneers, don't agree to pay the money in to the bank. That is a sure sign that your landlord is just in it for the money, and you won't see him/her again, once you keep the payments consistent.

I don't know what else to say ATM, but I know I will probably come up with more later. I personally have been involved with rented accomodation for a good chunk of my life, so I know a fair bit about what should/shouldn't go down.

;-phobos-)