So after I posted that last night, I talked with the rental agent a few more times.
First of all, can I recommend to everyone on the planet to never deal with a rental agent to find a flat in the UK. My boss had a similar experience in finding a flat and then getting screwed over by the agent when he was shopping around. They're just crappy middlemen, and charge way too much money for not nearly enough service.
So, he'd been calling the landlord since I had responded by stating that the situation was "unacceptable and completely ridiculous." The landlord never answered his messages or called him back. At one point the agent was being sent strait to voicemail, which either means that the landlord's mobile phone died, or more likely, he turned it off after receiving repeated calls from the agent.
Around 6:30 pm, I had my final talk with the agent for the day. He said that he was unable to get in touch with the landlord so "tomorrow I'll give you an update." Interesting that he just glossed right over the fact that I need to sleep somewhere tonight. I explained that either the landlord or his agency would be paying for my hotel stay tonight and any other nights that the flat wasn't ready. Of course, this wasn't his fault, so the agency wouldn't be paying me, but he'd talk to the landlord. What's that? Waive all of the agency fees (about £250 = $500)? Well, those are sent to an external party that does the background and credit checks, so...
Yeah, basically I'm getting the run around from these guys. I'm supposed to get another update from him sometime today (chances of that being 1. good news and 2. before 5 pm are about zero).
Even if this guy does come through with the flat being ready tonight, I'm not comfortable dealing with them anymore. They've raised the rent twice from its posted price, and this last little bit has been the final nail in the coffin.
I'm also going to be looking at another flat this evening, so hopefully this new place will be nice (the location seems pretty good at least). The rent is right around the same amount, and the proximity to my work is much better.
More to follow soon.
2 comments:
The nice thing about living abroad is that when something seriously crappy like that happens, you can try to accept it as "valuable life experience" or "cultural immersion."
haha... very true. Or accept it as being an idiot and rushing into renting a flat.
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