Diary of an up and coming sociopath

Despite trying to remember all the things I did in october which demand resolution, I still forgot one important thing. Today, a cheque cleared, and my bank account was finally overflowing with our initial housing deposit back. £337.50 of money that I haven’t seen since July 2002. With that in mind, let me advise, totally within the law and boundaries of freedom of speech, that anyone who might be looking to use Isis Properties (that’s Isis Properties) in Oxford, should very well reconsider, because my experiences with them have been somewhat terrible.

Let’s look at the basic list:
1. In the first week that we were there, the landlord’s son (who was acting as landlord for us, or, er, something) let himself in, while debbie was alone in the place, and slept in one of the rooms because he wasn’t able to get to one of his own houses. Not necessarily Isis’ fault, but indicative of the type of people they are agents for perhaps.
2. They didn’t fix a hole in the roof of our smaller toilet, despite multiple requests for them to over a two year period. Water literally leaked in through the roof and made the place often unusable in the winter.
3. When we were broken into, the landlord was reluctant to use his insurance to fix the damage to the house, claiming it was our responsibility. Isis, who I believe are supposed to mediate such matters as this, were utterly uninterested in helping.
4. The people who did fix any problems with the house tended to be, in my opinion, incredibly bad at their jobs, often more interested in getting stuff done fast rather than doing it properly. I would say that they were the kind of contractors you see on watchdog.
5. it took almost 3 months to get our deposits returned, and this was in a case where there was practically no damage or wear to the house and we provided them with closing bills in a speedy manner.
6. In the process of getting our deposits back, they were unable to provide us with copies of some documentation we considered necessary. In fact, they were claiming on behalf of the landlord that we had taken a washing machine and microwave. When we requested to see the check-in and check-out inventories which would prove we had no such things there when we moved, they stalled for a week or two (”We don’t keep those at this office.” “They’re with the manager.” “Our fax machine is broken.”) then did a complete about face and returned our money.

Now, in fairness, they did get some things right. When the landlord for our original choice of house turned out to be bad, they gave up on being his agents, then informed us that they weren’t dealing with him anymore and that they were going to help us find a new house. Of course, we were told they’d keep us one if we liked it, without deposit, until we had conferred with everyone likely to be int it, then changed their mind and told us other people would have the option for it too. They did sort out our shower reasonably well, though water still leaked through the walls under the paint, if not out into the hallway. Most obviously, however much they might’ve seemingly been trying to avoid it, they did give us all our money back.

That said, faced with the choice of using them again, I’d probably find someone else. I am not what you would call a satisfied customer. Compared with Adams, our letting agency in Ealing, Isis look like a bunch of complete amateurs. Let’s hope they sort themselves out, because it’d be incredibly disappointing if they could get away with that level of service forever.