Student ghettos and missing doors. Discuss.

[lukey]

So yesterday was spent making small talk for 6 hours with people spontaneously ripping out all of our doors. It appears that new HMO regulations are in which means all fire doors (which basically means all internal doors except bathroom/toilet doors in our house) must have insulation brush strip type things (I'm sure there's a lovely concise name for that) running around them which excitingly swell when the place burns down to spare us the horror of death for a few moments.

This is only one of a series of changes from the minor (the last HMO inspection picked up on the dreadful oversight which saw our kitchen sink plug not attached by a chain - terrible!) to having a dozen emergency lights slapped on every surface casting a surreal green glow around our landings at night.

Where I'm going with this is, the whole benefit:cost ratio seems a bit...well...fucked, for landlords. Unless they can claim back the expense of any of this from the cooncil (I'm going to guess they very much can't), the cost of all this HMO malarkey doesn't seem to have quite been passed onto us the tenants in the way we'd expect.

By the way, for anyone not au fait with property rental regulations (and you're really missing out), HMO is the stuff which covers houses/flats which have 3 or more tenants not of the same family (I'm sure there's a slightly more accurate definition out there) and consists of a load of safety regulations and it would appear, 'standard of living' things, going by our stair walls having to be repainted in a duplicate shade of magnolia, just because it was starting to look a bit manky.

I'm not sure what kind of margins most landlords make at the best of times, without throwing this into the mix, but does anyone happen to know how the fook it manages to be remotely lucrative? We've only lived in this place for 5 months and so far we've had 3 inspections/follow-up checks from the council whenever they've identified another bizarre thing worthy of sorting. On top of the usual mass of regulations to follow, the idea of everyone casually buying to let and being able to prance around while all this money spontaneously appears from tenants without any effort on their part is clearly complete bollocks, and I guess makes us lucky that our landlord does at least seem to be fairly on top of it.

Presumably this cost can only be passed onto tenants, who, and I may just be blatantly lying here, will be predominantly students. So is there not a risk of driving rents up to the point where this group of people will struggle to physically afford the only flats the majority can legally live in (ie. those flatsharing with friends) and the concept of raising standards of living/safety completely backfire?

[Mr Q]

Well, I think you identify a particularly valid point. Regulation is costly - and in this case, the regulations sound particularly onerous if landlords are being forced by councils to make what are relatively trivial but likely very expensive alterations. It also seems that there is a lack of consistency as well. To have had a series of inspections in just a matter of months when - and I'm just surmising here - you as a tenant have no serious problems with the place, seems incredible. I've got to say, I wouldn't feel at all inclined to be a landlord under those conditions. That's a problem of course, because if no one wants to be a landlord for large groups - say, for student accommodation - then that creates a rather large problem for those who would wish to be tenants... Where the hell do they end up living?

I know I drone on about free markets all the time, but I do understand that what policymakers are trying to do here is to ensure decent conditions for tenants. Yet clearly some of these local officials just go overboard, forcing policy changes on a whim in response to every small thing that pops up. It's counter-productive. All this does is make it harder for people to be landlords, which in turn makes it harder for people to rent property. If your objective is to ensure reasonable standards for accommodation, then you've got to avoid discouraging the accommodation from being provided in the first place - a poxy little flat is still preferable to a damp cardboard box on the street.

Or, to more succinctly answer your question lukey: Yes.

[Chie]

must have insulation brush strip type things (I'm sure there's a lovely concise name for that)

Draught excluder?

HMO is the stuff which covers houses/flats which have 3 or more tenants not of the same family (I'm sure there's a slightly more accurate definition out there)

That's an accurate enough definition of a House of Multiple-Occupency.

[dosxuk]

insulation brush strip type things (I'm sure there's a lovely concise name for that)

Sounds like an Intumescent strip.

[Sput]

Ah, that's the one. That's pissed on your cornflakes, eh chie?

[lukey]

insulation brush strip type things (I'm sure there's a lovely concise name for that)

Sounds like an Intumescent strip.

Yuss!

Draught excluder?

No!

[davidmcg]

You have Fire Doors? Us irish students are currently doing without a blind, cooker, or half a sofa, Fire Doors sound like a luxury at this moment of a cold harsh Galway evening.

[Gavin Scott]

The rules on HMOs are particularly strict because of the potential death traps they are. Imagine the scene in a four storey house with lots of students in lots of bedrooms, each playing their music, oblivious to a kitchen fire in the basement. I'm pretty sure there were some horror stories in the 70s and 80s of tenants being killed en mass in shoddy HMOs.

The rules are less strict in a single occupancy rental flat like mine - although I'm supposed to have mains-powered smoke alarms and have my gas appliances checked yearly - neither of which I have had. I have mentioned it to my landlady, subtly - more for the fact that if something catastrophic were to happen she'd end up in the clink for a long time indeed for failing to have these basic requirements in place.

Compared to some though I pay a peppercorn rent, so I'm comfortable with the benefits versus cost - but then, its not me who would go to prison in the event of a fire.

[Stuart*]

The rules are less strict in a single occupancy rental flat like mine - although I'm supposed to have mains-powered smoke alarms and have my gas appliances checked yearly - neither of which I have had. I have mentioned it to my landlady, subtly - more for the fact that if something catastrophic were to happen she'd end up in the clink for a long time indeed for failing to have these basic requirements in place.

Compared to some though I pay a peppercorn rent, so I'm comfortable with the benefits versus cost - but then, its not me who would go to prison in the event of a fire.

She may end up in the 'big house', but you could potentially end up in the local burns unit, or even worse, in a box in the ground.

We may all snigger at some of the rather obvious or over-protective health and safety regulations; but is it worth risking your life for the sake of a cheaper rent?

Connecting the smoke alarms to the mains is a one-off cost, and annual appliance checks aren't prohibitively expensive. If your landlady has a few properties then she'd probably get a discount if she got them all done at the same time.

[Gavin Scott]

She may end up in the 'big house', but you could potentially end up in the local burns unit, or even worse, in a box in the ground.

Well when you gotta go, you gotta go.

We may all snigger at some of the rather obvious or over-protective health and safety regulations; but is it worth risking your life for the sake of a cheaper rent?

I'm going to go with "yes".

FYI I hate the word "snigger". "Chuckle" preferably, and "titter" if you really must.

Connecting the smoke alarms to the mains is a one-off cost, and annual appliance checks aren't prohibitively expensive. If your landlady has a few properties then she'd probably get a discount if she got them all done at the same time.

Well she doesn't, so that's that.

[iSon]

She may end up in the 'big house', but you could potentially end up in the local burns unit, or even worse, in a box in the ground.

Thanks for pointing out the dangers of fire - you make it more real than Julie Walters and "go on...pull your finger out" ever could.

We may all snigger at some of the rather obvious or over-protective health and safety regulations; but is it worth risking your life for the sake of a cheaper rent?

Well of course it's never worth risking your life for anything. Gavin has asked and is content with the situation as it stands. Besides, the property is probably no more unsafe than the average home. I can still think of lot of people without smoke alarms or means of escape from the first floor. That's just the way it is.