Tenancy review for 98 Clarendon Road in Linthorpe, Middlesbrough rented from Matthew Robinson

Landlord rating: 1

Firstly we paid extra a month in rent to have bills included, we were told someone would come every month to top them up but we were left 2 - 3 months at a time and not even compensated for it, I have tried to confront the landlord about it but he is just ignoring me. On the DPS our tenants reference is "crybabies" so that just goes to show his attitude towards being a landlord. He has tried to take a huge chunk of our deposit for cleaning the oven and the flat even though neither were cleaned when I arrived and I cleaned it thoroughly with my dad the day I left, he also tried to charge us for things that the previous tenants had left behind, after claiming he cleaned the flat himself, it was a surprise. The landlord himself lives in Spain and has not got the full service with the letting agent so they give you the keys and its thats their job done until you hand them back, he relies on his dad to do all the jobs for him and he wants none of it, at one point he even told me to stop contacting him, but I couldn't get hold of his son so overall it was a joke.

Property rating: 4

Student let, looked nice in pictures and for the most part it was. the day I arrived to the flat there was no electric or gas, this was resolved when I actually managed to get hold of the landlord after an hour of trying, then the alarm was going off when the electric finally came back, no where in the flat was there a code to turn it off luckily I was on the phone to the landlord at the time but that should be information left behind. The house was a mess except the two lower bedrooms, contractors had been in to repair damage from previous tenants and the mess wasn't cleaned up so I had to do it which isn't what you except upon arrival. The top bedroom was awful thick black mould throughout the room luckily there was only two of us renting out this three bed flat so we could avoid it but it would have been unhealthy to live in. The landlord claimed it to be "immaculate" when I moved in but it just really wasn't. The Gas and Electric are paid through a top up system which we were not told about until the day we moved in and we had agreed bills included so be wary of that if you are moving in here.

Area rating: 5

Neighbour hood was a little rough but I never felt unsafe, Very quiet considering. Although there is a building site over the road as I write this so it will be noisy during the day until it is done.