Two NTU flatmates have identified a Nottingham Lettings Agency as the root cause of many of the problems they faced during their second year at Nottingham Trent University.
Amy Armsden, 21, and Lauren Hammond, 22, shared a Uni2Rent flat during their second year of university and claim to have experienced a number of problems over the course of their studies.
Film, TV and English student Amy Armsden from Derby claims she and her flatmates struggled with the lettings agency all year.
“The problems started from the moment we moved in, we weren’t given lounge keys which meant we lacked a key to one of our rooms in the flat for a whole year.” she said.
“We had multiple leaks including one in my bedroom that left me with a hole in the ceiling for about a month, which left a lot of my coats stained with paint and plaster, and they didn’t do anything to help solve this problem.”
On top of this Amy and her flatmates also made complaints to the agency of fire alarms sounding repeatedly, and other issues that threatened their safety.
Both of these issues were reported six months prior to her complaints, but to no avail.
Amy’s flatmate, third year Film, TV and English literature student Lauren Hammond, 22, from Lincolnshire, also claims the lettings agency did little to aid their experience
“Every time I rang up Uni2Rent I was passed around to different people, the miscommunication is massive in their company,” Lauren said.
“It caused us all to struggle with our mental health and being away from home and living in a place that was basically hell, it was horrible,” she added.
Both Lauren and Amy claim various incidents occurred at their residence, which ultimately affected their studies.
“We were left with fire alarms that went off every two hours for at least two weeks even though they had been reported,” Amy said.
“The fire alarms going off in the middle of the night for over 30 minutes at a time was a huge issue,” Lauren agrees.
“It lead to a lot of us missing our lectures as we’d over-sleep. We were all based at Clifton Campus and wouldn’t get there in time or we’d always be late,” she added.
Lauren claims issues such as a broken outside gate and disruptive neighbours were just some of the issues she and her flatmates faced over the year.
“On November 5 2018 our cooker knob had broken. After a week, a maintenance guy came to look at it and I rang up to complain because he hadn’t fixed it, and was told he would be back, but it never happened and we lived all year having to swap over knobs just to work our cooker.”
“Our washing machine, tumble dryer, dishwasher, toaster and kettle had not been PAT tested since 2016, our toilet was leaking sewage and the ceiling had fallen in. They took their time because Uni2Rent are trying to keep everything cheap,” Lauren claims.
To support their claims, Lauren and her flatmates kept photographic evidence throughout the year.
“I decided to take photos of everything in my room and toilet and kitchen and thank god I did as when we finally got through our report on Friday 6 September 2019 we were charged for markings on the wall that were already there [when they moved in].”
Although the lettings agency were quick to correct this error in their report, Lauren’s frustrations were not appeased.
“The amount of times we have had maintenance men just walk in without knocking and they would walk into our rooms and try and sort something out but they got the wrong flat.”
“I never felt safe there,” she admits.
Director of Uni2Rent, Edward Henderson admits that some mistakes were made during their tenancy.
“Having to work with many external partners during the busy check out periods such as cleaning and decorating companies alongside landlords themselves, sometimes leaves Uni2 a little exposed when they do not work as fast as we would like to,” he continues.
“Feedback from our students is generally always positive and many tenants, even this summer, have expressed their satisfaction.”
“We do appreciate as with any business, however, that there are always areas to improve, and we have apologised to these individual tenants if they haven’t received the service they expect.”
By Faith Pring
Image credits: Amy Armsden and Lauren Hammond