The property at 5a Caversham Road was, fundamentally, a building that failed to provide the basic necessity of a warm and safe home. While its location was appealing, the reality of living there was a constant and exhausting battle against structural deficiencies that rendered it not only uncomfortable but also financially unsustainable. The core issue was the property's profound inability to retain heat, a problem so severe that it constituted a Category 1 'Excess Cold' Hazard under the official Housing Health and Safety Rating System.

This wasn't a simple matter of feeling a bit chilly; it was a systemic failure of the building's thermal envelope. Pervasive draughts were a constant feature of our daily lives, entering through numerous unaddressed defects. These included mis-sized sliding windows in the kitchen that left a permanent gap open to the elements, a balcony door that could not fully close or lock, and multiple cracked window panes, some up to 50cm long. The cumulative effect was a home that bled heat, making any attempt to stay warm a futile and incredibly expensive exercise.

The financial consequences were staggering and far exceeded any reasonable expectation. The property was fitted with electric heaters rated as "Very poor" for efficiency on its own Energy Performance Certificate (EPC). In the UK, electricity is significantly more expensive than gas, which meant we were already at a disadvantage. Forced to run these inefficient units constantly to combat the perpetual cold, we faced astronomical energy bills that exceeded £800 per month in the winter. Over the course of our tenancy, our total electricity bill amounted to a staggering £4,600. When we presented these figures to the landlord, he dismissed them as normal, stating they "sounds about right to me".

This created a vicious and untenable cycle: either endure dangerously cold indoor temperatures or face crippling financial hardship. For much of the winter, my own room hovered at approximately 16°C, the precise threshold defined by the HHSRS as presenting a "serious health risk". The severe cold even led to one of my housemates developing a medically-diagnosed case of chilblains, a direct physical injury caused by the property's hazardous condition.

We were so concerned that we took the competent step of challenging the property's EPC rating. The energy assessor himself admitted that significant defects like "cracks and gaps between windows isn't relevant to EPC" methodology. Following a formal complaint to the accreditation scheme, Quidos, a Quality Assurance audit confirmed the EPC had failed. It was revealed the assessor had incorrectly recorded the single-glazed windows as being 100% draught-proofed, a finding that validated our experience that the property's poor quality and high running costs were officially and fundamentally misrepresented. Ultimately, the property was not simply poor value; it was a dangerously inefficient building that was financially punitive and unsafe to live in.