Prospective lodgers / a question for you lot (particularly younguns in the UK)

[RegisterMe]

So I am looking to rent a room out to, probably, a professional aged between 25 and 40. It's a nice room, in a nice house, in a nice part of London, at a reasonable price. None of which really matters very much.

I just had a second "no show", which really means "no show, no call, no text message, no email".

I just don't get why people would behave that way, particularly when there's been email (well, web based but anyway) communication up to that point arranging a time and date to visit, view and meet.

My Friday night has been wasted because somebody couldn't be bothered to text me and say "got a late meeting / found a place / got the flu / whatever". Why do people think that behaving like this is acceptable?

./rant over

Also in before Antilogic says something like "because it's you RegisterMe" .

[Rapier]

I would say that's par for the course these days. It's no excuse, but agents themselves can be as bad. It comes down to a lack of respect - if neither side has it for the other, or both do, then it's all fine; if it's not mutual then there is a problem. You can try a nudge, such as mentioning in your email something like 'please let me know if you find you can't make the appointment', or send them a text reminder earlier in the day (incase they just plain forgot, or wrote it down wrong).

[Antilogic]

Why do people think that behaving like this is acceptable?

No idea.

Also in before Antilogic says something like "because it's you RegisterMe".

Would I?

[burger1]

Not showing up with out calling, etc... seems to be normal these days especially for companies. It's becoming the norm.

[Alee Enn]

Not showing up with out calling, etc... seems to be normal these days especially for companies. It's becoming the norm.

I was going to say something like this. I blame companies for not letting applicants know when they are unsuccessful when applying for a job. When people are treated like that by a prospective employer, they consider it normal behaviour. While you as a prospective landlord/housemate may not consider yourself in the same field as an employer, the person looking for a room probably does put you in that same box.

Either that, or people have gotten lazy. I honestly don't know.

[RegisterMe]

@Rapier - yeah I do all that already. Ho hum, I guess one way to look at it as that I probably wouldn't want to share a house with somebody who behaves that way .

[red assassin]

Ghosting seems like the thing to do these days. Dating, potential employers, potential house renters apparently - why have that awkward "sorry, not interested any more" conversation when you could just vanish quietly into the æther? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don't really understand why it's become so common, but here we are. I refuse to do it and I'm glad that my company doesn't either (we let applicants know one way or the other as policy).

[pjknibbs]

I blame companies for not letting applicants know when they are unsuccessful when applying for a job.

That's hardly a new thing--I had that happen to me in the early 90s!

[Alan Phipps]

I guess the only way to 'enforce' what I would call just normal good manners in any case would be for estate and letting agents to charge a standard modest refundable deposit for each arranged viewing that would be retained and paid to the vendor in the case of an unannounced no-show.

It would need some checks and safeguards in place to avoid it becoming another potential source of income for people who advertise their house/flat etc just to test the water and with no real intention to sell yet. (That's the subject for a different gripe!)

[Morkonan]

...My Friday night has been wasted because somebody couldn't be bothered to text me and say "got a late meeting / found a place / got the flu / whatever". Why do people think that behaving like this is acceptable?..

Give them a bad review on social media - "Not recommended. Two out of Five Stars."



Meh... Dunno. I think the depth of live social interaction with strangers, these days, is something that is going beyond the capabilities of some people. Whenever someone schedules any sort of appointment, one is required to give notice of cancellation by the standards simple social courtesy.

[X2-Illuminatus]

If someone would ask me to pay money upfront in order to view their room, flat or house, I would certainly strike that object from my list and not bother contacting this person again. I'm not paying money to just view a single object, when there's already enough hoops you have to jump through when finding a place to live.

@OP
Depending on how quickly you want to or have to rent your room, I suggest waiting until several people have declared interest in renting it, and to arrange a single viewing on a specific day and time. Then it doesn't matter if one or two people do not show up.

[Alan Phipps]

My suggestion was that you only 'pay' if you don't show up for your arranged appointment without any warning or valid reason. Otherwise you get the deposit back - not too much of a hoop for serious buyers. Of course this would not apply to privately-arranged viewings.

Incidentally, missed escorted showing appointments are one of the reasons for such high estate agent fees. (Not that I feel much sympathy for estate agents, but both buyers and sellers end up paying their costs in their fees.)

[Golden_Gonads]

I was going to say something like this. I blame companies for not letting applicants know when they are unsuccessful when applying for a job.

Whats worse is when someone gets the job and they don't let them know. I worked in a supermarket a few years back, one of the summer temps was kept on... But no-one told him! A week into his new contract they phoned him to ask where he was and that was the first he'd heard of it, as far as he knew, he was unemployed.

[Chips]

I think the simple answer is because there's no face to anything anymore. You deal with email, or other matters, it's not a person. It's an entity that's responding.

They literally don't equate to a person. It's not worth their time/effort to reach out as they've no consideration for you as an individual.

You could send a follow up email saying you hope they're okay as they didn't show up at the appointed time. If they've any form of empathy they may actually reply to apologise and give reasons why. If they don't, then either they are actually dead OR you're definitely better off not having them as a tenant as they'd probably break things through inconsiderate actions / negligence.

[X2-Illuminatus]

My suggestion was that you only 'pay' if you don't show up for your arranged appointment without any warning or valid reason. Otherwise you get the deposit back - not too much of a hoop for serious buyers. Of course this would not apply to privately-arranged viewings.

This may be fine if you just want to view one or two places, but imagine you need a room or flat on short notice, then you want to view maybe ten places from ten different landlords or agents in a few days or maybe one or two weeks. If I pay everyone 10 or 15 bucks (€, £, $) upfront, then I have to worry that I get the money back. Seeing that in my described case I certainly have other expenses (time and money) I have to invest into finding a flat, I do not want to deal with another hassle. Also my definition of a valid reason to not show up may be something completely different than of the landlord or estate agent.
And this is all on top of what you normally have to go through, too: Agents not showing up, or answering to messages, the information in exposés being wrong, agents/landlords coming up with other fees you have to pay, strange clauses in rental agreement and so on.

[RegisterMe]

I don't mind if people don't turn up, I do mind if they've arranged a time with me, failed to turn up, and not called / texted / emailed. That's inconsiderate and wastes my time.

[Bishop149]

We have had similar behavior from tradesmen recently.

We contact them with potential work, they come round have a look and promise a quote and then. . . . . . nothing.

It's infuriating, we have been trying to get 3 quotes each for 2 jobs, we have thus far had about 6 tradesman call for each job and thus far have 1 quote for one and 2 for the other.
Its ridiculous, a waste of time for both parties, why bother to come if you clearly have so much work you can afford to run your business with such laxity.

Its no trivial amount of money either, 3 weeks after a visit and after our chasing them up escalating to the point of daily phone calls they had the nerve to quote for £24,000. I mean, wut?

[Rug]

@Bishop149

That's typical tradesman approach. Don't want (or need) the job, so throw out a silly quote. Don't care if they don't get the work, buy a nice toy if they do ...

But yes, it's a pain.

(And then you get into mind games. This contractor is available to start now - so does that mean he has no work because he's rubbish ?)

Good luck with it !

Rug

[jack775544]

It remands me of the last time I applied for a job, I probably put out a dozen applications and only had 2 people respond to me, one with a rejection, the other the was an offer for an interview for my current workplace.
Sadly no responses are common these days, from both sides of the yard.

[Bishop149]

It remands me of the last time I applied for a job, I probably put out a dozen applications and only had 2 people respond to me, one with a rejection, the other the was an offer for an interview for my current workplace.
Sadly no responses are common these days, from both sides of the yard.

I hate that, but yes a rejection from a job application these days most often takes the form of no response whatsoever. I mean how hard is it to fire off a mail merged email to simply say "Sorry to inform you your application was unsuccessful".
Least they could do, it just a lack of base level politeness IMO.