Direct Housing Property Sales

Absolutely abysmal. As one reviewer said, they stopped caring immediately after I signed the contract. Communication was *always* an issue. I joined a house with my friend who had been there a couple of years already, and I guess I was never added to the mailing list as on the few occasions we did have correspondence (like when they wanted to show someone around the house) I was never contacted. I had to find out from the other tenants. When I first moved in my room was missing an office chair. I asked for the inventory on multiple occasions and they never supplied it to me. Eventually I found an office chair in the garage, where I'm assuming it had been stored because the upholstery was ripped. I cleaned it off and used it for the rest of the year because it was obvious Direct Housing had no interest in sorting it. When we moved out they tried to blame me for the damage to it! We were also charged for the cleaning in rooms which we had cleaned extensively ( to a better state than they were when my friend had moved in!) The cleaners had left a note saying that two of the fridges smelled of fish. One of these was a very old fridge which Direct Housing were supposed to have gotten rid of and the other was the replacement which we never used! I had to ask four times to see the invoices for the cleaning, and it was only the fourth time that they responded because I told them that they had completely ignored my previous three requests. There were obviously internal communication issues as well. We went in to the office on several occasions after receiving no reply to our queries and were told a message would be passed on to the woman in charge of maintenance. That would be the last we ever heard of the issue until we went in again. We had issues with the bathroom ceiling's paint peeling off which we told them about several times. Nothing was done. Then when they started showing people round they seemed surprised that the paint was peeling, even though we had told them multiple times months before! One of the women working there (I think it was Kiran) whose responsibility it was to show prospective tenants round the house was particularly unpleasant, and several of these people actually commented on this to us as they looked round the house. In fact, the house was only actually let when she couldn't make it to a viewing and we were asked to show the people round ourselves! I have been through three letting agents in the Birmingham area in the past four years and Direct Housing were the worst by a mile. I understand that for them this is a business, but we had to live with all the issues with the house that they didn't bother to sort for months. So although some of these things may seem small, they added up to a terrible experience with this letting agency. Would not recommend.