Tenancy review for 28 Histon Road in Arbury, Cambridge rented from Greg Gregoriou rented via Radcliffe and Rust Estate Agents

Landlord rating: 1

Not present and his lackeys ("repair" men) are laughably useless. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum have a habit of coming round and "fixing things" which inevitably break just as soon as they leave.

The front door sticks; the kitchen door came off its hinges a few months back; the house was full of previous tenants' personal effects upon arrival; the bathroom cupboard was full of mould and smelled of damp for over a month after we arrived before we managed to convince the "repair" men that this was not okay and needed fixing (even then he seemed perplexed as to why we wouldn't want a mouldy shower curtain and some old wall tiles in the bathroom cupboard as if they were pieces of tasteful decor).

Agency rating: 5

We mainly dealt with David Radcliffe who seems to be an honest enough guy. Generally communicates well and was suitably shocked when he first saw the property (R&R took over the property a month into our tenancy). Willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that the landlord is simply uncooperative when we ask for stuff (as we can only communicate with the landlord via R&R). Still, there is nothing that stands out to me as particularly good service so 5/10 it is.

Property rating: 1

A mid-terrace, two-storey house converted from a two-up-two-down to a four room student revenue generation machine where the bottom line comes above all else. Repair work is avoided at all costs and when they do send people round they do the bare minimum. The kitchen door fell off half way through the tenancy.

The worst part has to be the electrical situation: we weren't told before we moved in that we actually pay for the electrical supply for the granny flat above the garage that the landlord lets separately and laughably calls a "studio" (and charges through the nose for it too). When asked to rectify this, the landlord refused. We are currently taking it up with ACORN tenants' union.

The water system is a combi-boiler but there is next to no mains pressure due to Cambridgeshire's dire lack of topography so don't expect any amount of comfort when taking a shower. Speaking of the shower - the electric shower that was provided by the landlord produces a dribble requiring you to press yourself flat against the bathroom tiles to get under the stream and the temperature oscillates something wild. We have been using a hose-pipe tap attachment (purchased from Wilko) to shower with ever since we got fed up with washing using a bucket of hot water run from the bath taps. The "repair" men also seem perplexed as to why we might have a problem with this situation and we've simply run out of energy to continue complaining. Incidentally, the bath doesn't hold water for more than twenty minutes at a time as it leaks around the plug.

The front door has been sticking ever since we arrived (we asked for them to fix this but they said - you guessed it! - "sorry but no" to which I said "if you don't do something about it soon then it will get worse and inevitably be more expensive to repair at a later date") Lo! And Behold! This morning I walked down the stairs and noticed a lovely ray of sunshine beaming through a brand new crack in the bottom panel of the door. Lovely stuff :)))

The windows are all single glazed with the exception of those that face onto the street which are double glazed but improperly sealed (so are full of condensation).

The house doesn't keep its heat very well but is generally liveable, temperature-wise. My main gripe is that the time-controlled thermostat on the living room wall is a placebo and the heating control is limited to the temperature setting on the boiler coupled with flow valves on the radiators.

Area rating: 2

Nice place in a nice town next to a brilliant convenience store. Midan World Foods is to be highly commended for its large collection of herbs and spices in 100g-500g bags. The single saving grace for this property. The staff are also very friendly :)