We rented a house for three years through Hackney and Leigh, Grange over Sands. They seemed to be a remarkably good agent, being quick to arrange to get essential repairs done and often commenting that we were excellent tenants. That was until the end of our tenancy. On the final visit we were asked if we were willing to pay for a replacement stair carpet. We pointed out that when we had moved in the cream wool stair carpet had been cleaned, but wasn't new. We had also just cleaned it, but after three years use it was naturally showing some wear. We refused to pay to replace it, saying that after three years use the landlord should be expecting to replace it anyway before the next tenant. One of the agents became angry at this and claimed that one of the bedrooms hadn't been vacuumed, running her finger along the underside of the skirting boards. It HAD just been vacuumed and we felt she was being nasty because we had refused to buy the landlord a new carpet. We also refused to allow prospective tenants to be shown around the house during our final month. We had pointed out that we didn't agree with this clause when we signed the lease. Our reasons were that the house was our home and we had paid full market rent for the final month, and we didn't want strangers wandering around in our home while we were trying to pack and move. The agent seemed angry about this too, but we felt we were within our rights to refuse people entry to our home. We moved to a house we bought through the same estate agent, and the man who assisted us couldn't have been nicer and more helpful, but the two women who cover property rentals were surprisingly unpleasant and unhelpful at the end. We really had to stand our ground against what we felt were unreasonable expectations, and are placing this review as we feel sorry for tenants who may not be as willing to stand up to them as we were.