Tenancy review for Bryn Melin 2 in Deiniol, Bangor rented from Delyth Kendrick

Landlord rating: 1

Unfortunately we had an extremely negative experience as tenants here. Delyth appeared friendly and genuine the first time we met her but this quickly dropped after we moved in. Our requests to fix issues in the house were either ignored or met with a sarcastic rude response. We had a serious leak: water from the shower came down into the kitchen, ran through the mains-powered extractor fan and poured all over the hob. When we moved in the extractor fan worked, and when the leak started it broke, but she then tried to claim it was a "decorative" extractor fan (?!) and that it had never worked, which was an outright lie. She lied about work done by plumbers when we had this leak and we had to undergo several extremely stressful months of battling with her to get the issue fixed, which she only did when we got an environmental health officer to visit the house and force her to do the work. When our front door lock broke, she didn’t respond to our attempts to get in touch with her and we had to call out an emergency locksmith, who explained to us that it had broken due to lack of maintenance causing the door to become misaligned and it wasn't our fault. We had to pay him on the spot (nearly £200), but when we sent her the invoice she refused to pay it, claiming that we hadn't got her approval before having the lock fixed.
She tried to claim council tax off tenants who were full time students and sent threatening emails and letters trying to charge thousands of pounds, and we had to acquire proof of student status from the uni to get her to stop. We tried to make the house homely and cosy but the stress of renting with this landlord was constantly uncomfortable and anxiety inducing. It's a shame because it could be a lovely house if it had a more conscientious landlord. I would strongly advise any prospective tenants to avoid renting with her. The house may appear acceptable when you first look around it, but the overall experience was seriously unpleasant.

Property rating: 2

The only nice thing about the property really was the location, with nice views over Bangor and the Menai strait and easy access both to the town centre and Bangor Mountain. Unfortunately, despite the potential for 2 Bishops Mill to be a lovely property, it has suffered from poor maintenance. Rather than employing skilled and qualified tradespeople to work on the house, the owners often attempt work themselves (e.g. flooring) resulting in poor quality work. There are large cracks running through the house where the plaster is crumbling off the walls along with patches of damp and mould. The velux window in the attic room had a large hole below it between the wall and the window frame where you could literally stick your fingers through it and outside the house. She filled this with expanding foam which didn't do much to help the draft. Carpets are old and dirty, and we ended up buying most of our furniture from Relics because the furniture provided was falling to pieces. When we moved in, she claimed the house had been cleaned over the summer but when we arrived it was filthy and we had to spend hours cleaning dog hair out of the carpets and there was dog mess everywhere in the garden. The oven was encrusted with old food and had clearly never been cleaned. There is a persistent leak from the main bathroom shower into the kitchen which previous tenants warned us about - we asked that it be fixed before we moved in but a few months into our tenancy it started leaking and it wasn't fixed until we called the council on her. Future tenants should be aware that she tends to make the cheapest most ineffectual fix to any issues (if any effort is made to fix it at all) which inevitably results in the problem coming back after a few months.

Area rating: 3

The location is nice enough as long as you don't mind the steep hill. It's out of town enough that it's fairly quiet and you're the only students on the terrace. There are nice views from the front of the house and the back of the house looks over the trees behind. It's easy to access bangor mountain and the golf course and it's also very close to the high street. The neighbours are lovely and have some beautiful friendly cats. The path behind the house is the route used by the drug dealers to get to Bangor mountain but they never really caused us an issue - just don't be surprised if you get home from lectures one day and there's a load of cops in stab vests on your road.