West End Extra - Letters to the Editor: Rent is up: service, down

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West End Extra - FORUM: Opinion in the WEE
Published: 2 November 2007

Rent is up: service, down

• I HAVE been informed of a savage increase in my rent, our landlord being Peabody Trust.
I sometimes wonder if Peabody and the Rent Officer service are working hand in glove.
The question is: Does the Trust deserve such a windfall, taking into account the “service” on offer these days?
Some two and a half years ago, our estate office was closed: now we have no on-site caretakers – we used to have three. We now have the services of just one person on a kind of regular basis which, judging from the results, is totally inadequate. Any repairs are directed to the ubiquitous call centre.
Repairs are taking much longer than previously; information is often not updated and some members of staff are clearly poorly trained.
You are forced to call again and again regarding the same problem. Staff are unable to inform tenants as to the timescale for job completion, nor even tell who is actually going to do it.
Tenancy regulations are frequently flouted. For example, the keeping of dogs is prohibited, yet some tenants are “allowed” to disregard this regulation, a slap in the face for the rest of us who respect the regulations.
Dog mess, therefore, is a problem and is in no small way exacerbated by tenants from other estates who show no respect by exercising their dogs on our premises.
Rent increase? Rent decrease more like!
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Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number.
Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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