Tenancy review for Bexley Square Salford in Salford District, Salford rented via X1 Lettings

Agency rating: 1

After spending the whole winter in that flat I noticed there were gaps in one of the windows. One between the window frame and the pane of glass, over 1cm (p.4). And the other between the two sliding window frames (p.5). These gaps were allowing cold air to fill the room and consequently I could hear every sound from outside. I had essentially wasted money on heating that went straight out the window: the one radiator in the studio was below the windows. My complaint about the window was not taken seriously by staff at X1 Lettings so I contacted Salford council instead. The council were very helpful and informed me that they deal with a lot of complaints about the apartments in this building. They presumably spoke with X1 Lettings, urging them to do something about it as it was immediately dealt with after the council’s inspection. One of the gaps was sealed with silicone whilst the other one was not seen as a major problem, for some reason I cannot understand. I received no apology or reimbursement from X1 Lettings and gave up trying to fully resolve this issue.

Property rating: 1

When I first arrived to the flat it was dirty, with hairs and crumbs in the kitchen drawers and drawers under the bed (p.1). There was food waste in the drainage part of the dishwasher (p.2) and both the fridge and oven were greasy and grimy (p.3). Clearly the flat had not been cleaned, never mind professionally cleaned. But this wasn’t a huge problem for me. The problem is that they had they cheek to make the following deductions at the end of my tenancy, after I had spent all day making the apartment spotless:

- x2 extractor bulbs - £20 (Lights I never used…)
- mattress clean - £35 (A mattress that had a mattress protector on it…)
- chair clean - £35 (A chair that was dirty when I arrived and couldn’t be properly cleaned…)

Area rating: 4

Average city neighbourhood. Reasonably safe but very dirty. People have no respect for where they live. Litter everywhere!