My experience with Roomerang: a personal review

Unfortunately, my experience with Roomerang was not a pleasant one.

The main issue comes from what I consider an abusive contract, but their lack of actual work, their need to improve on communication and a strange approach to handling deposits in a way that I'm not even sure complies with the Law, makes them an absolute joke as property managers.

Let me start from the beginning: I rented a room in a House with 9 rooms managed by Roomerang. Before being able to see the contract, they asked me to pay 200 pounds. Essentially, they don't tell you certain clauses until you already paid part of your deposit, and were you to decide you don't want to sign such contract in the end, you just lost 200 pounds and a week+ time to move somewhere else (which is tight when your current contract is coming to an end). They know the game they are playing, and they know very few people will actually read the contract or, if they do, risk losing their deposit due to a disagreement, which is how they kind of force their, in my opinion, abusive contracts upon you.

ALL BILLS NOT REALLY INCLUDED

The contract sets a limit on the bills they are obliged to pay, so even though they advertise it as "All bills included", in reality it's "all bills up to here included", but they don't say that on their advertisement, you only find this in the Contract. And have in mind I rented in a 9 rooms House, so there's little control on my side to make sure the bills don't go skyrocketing.

The one bill that bothered us though was the TV License, in the months I was there Roomerang didn't pay for the TV License and we were getting letters mentioning this. I requested it to be paid as soon as the first letter came in and was told they would. Yet months went by and nothing was done. When I inquired again I was told that this was not included in the Contract. Which while it's correct, do they expect a house with 10 people to organise themselves on how to pay for this? They were making literally thousands per month and paying this was nothing to them, yet they chose the difficult route instead of the easy one. If all the bills are included, how was this one not so?

NOT MUCH CLEANING

The house was only cleaned once a month, despite having 9+ people living and sharing different areas. Some of us were careful and cleaned after ourselves, not everyone did. There were times in which one of the two bathrooms looked worse than a nightclub at 3am in a Saturday, I've seen hostels with cleaner toilets than that one was many times. Yet, funny thing, in the months I spent in the house I noticed a pattern: each time there was a viewing to rent one of the rooms, a cleaner would come the day before or even on the same day in the morning to clean the entire house. Actually, my best moments living there were precisely when a room had to be rented, as we got a cleaner once a week for the viewings and you could really tell the difference. My advise: don't get fooled by the level of cleanliness on the viewing day, it's a facade.

MISLEADING POTENTIAL TENANTS

Another bit that was shocking to me and most tenants was the drying machine. There was a tumble dryer in the house that you can see during the viewings. Their "negotiator", Zack, even tells you something in the lines of "and here's the laundry area", and lets you believe there's a drying machine. Well, there isn't. It doesn't work. Just imagine me on the first week after washing some clothes trying to put them there and that thing not actually working. I told Roomerang about it but was told that the machine was not included in the contract. Which is correct, yet I believe that implicitly it was for the house was shown with it in it and made us all believe there was one. I complained and requested it to at least be removed as it was misleading (and they were looking for a tenant during those weeks), I was told this would be done, 5 months later it had not been done yet they continued showing the house to tenants who were then shocked on finding out the included drying machine was fake, I dare to even call it a SCAM, really.

WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE, ONLY YOU ARE

The contract makes you responsible for other tenants actions. So if someone paints a graffiti on a wall or breaks a window (this did not actually happen, just an example) you would have to pay for it. Even if you have nothing to do with it. And as you can't tell who will come or not come to the House, only they do, you can imagine how frustrating it feels to be told you have to pay a fine because they rented the house to someone with antisocial behaviour.

A CRISIS POORLY HANDLED

What did actually happen, is that some tenants in the house were not sorting their rubbish very well, they mixed stuff and the garbage collectors refused to take it, as the bins were contaminated or not placed according to the Council's recycling rules.

I and two other tenants tried to help with this, we even organised the rubbish in the bins and I personally handed some bags and bins to the collectors myself to ensure they took it. But the house has far too many people and after weeks with rubbish accumulating the House entrance was looking terrible.

I had been asking a member of Roomerang about this and no real action was taken, so I decided to raise it to someone more relevant in the organisation who did actually sort it out. That said, he was very abusive towards me, shouted at me, blamed me despite me being the only one who actually managed to get some of the rubbish out (and I don't take pleasure on going through other people's rubbish and organising it, trust me) and barely let me explain myself, constantly interrupting me, shouting, and threatening with fines and the loss of the deposit.

Yes, when I explained the situation I was told we would have to pay a fine, when I reasoned this didn't look right considering I have no control over HIS tenants, I was repeated constantly "contract, contract, contract", quite aggressively, and to be honest, lacking any sort of respect towards me as a human being.

I never lost my cool, for I am known to keep it even at the worst of times but also as I know how to behave well, and very politely and kindly explained how this didn't look right to me and how I would not be paying such fine. The discussion made an enormous turn instantly, and this guy just told me I would lose my deposit. Just like that.

For literally just mentioning what I thought was not right and despite me being polite, I'm threatened, as if the discussion had been heated or anything at all. This guy, Courtney, really has no idea of how to handle a crisis or a difficult situation and escalated things unnecessarily with the only tenant who was actually helping his company.

I did manage to calm him down (yes, I'm the customer paying him good money each month, but I have to manage him instead of the other way around) and the conversation ended civilly with him even calling me "the leading tenant". How cute.

THE DEPOSIT

But wait, there's more. My deposit was added to a wierd deposit scheme with the wrong moving dates, making it end a month before my contract ended, and also, giving me no way to make a claim on such. The company they used was quite wierd as I've had my deposit in other schemes before, usually the money is "frozen" and can only be taken out once both the tenant and the landlord/manager agree on it. Yet with this company, my deposit was returned to Roomerang before the end of the contract and without giving me any chance at making any claim.

This all said, just while I was writing this review I reminded Zack about my deposit and he managed to get Sid to refund me, so that's great. Though have in mind I'm a Websites Developer and I know the Internet better than I know my kitchen, and they knew I was about to post a review. But still, kudos to both Zack and Sid.

In any case I'm quite sure that not having my deposit in a scheme breaks the Law, even if it was added at a point but then "fell through accidentally". It leaves me vulnerable and with no protection, quite like in the old days when landlords could do this to you which is the reason a law to protect your deposit was created. Yet it feels like with Roomerang the Law and its compliance it's just an estimation, a possibility they may actually manage to comply with by mere accident.

FIRE ALARMS

I believe that all of the Fire Aalrms in the house were faulty and non functioning. The one just outside my room ran out of battery a couple weeks after getting in, so it started making many noises as a warning. I told Sofian, one of Roomerang employees, and we basically removed the battery from it as a "temporary solution" which became permanent. No one ever came to fix it. Other fire alarms across the house had a similar problem at a point, and the one inside my room had no battery at all (I checked one day). Again, Roomerang and their own managing style here. The Law? What Law?

BE OUR MANAGER, NOT OUR GUEST

They basically expect you to be the manager in the house, and make sure the rest of the tenants behave, so they don't have to do this themselves. This, by the way, doesn't end up well. One of the tenants took it to herself to be the "House policewoman" and was day and night chasing everyone to remind them of their duties, to the point she essentially bullied a poor woman living with us to whom she harassed, shouted constantly and made her life miserable in the house by constant bullying. Worst thing is that this poor woman was actually one of the well behaved ones and never caused any trouble.

Roomerang was informed about this, but as you can imagine, the situation was never sorted, in part because they are the ones who cause it by writing such contracts and threatening tenants. The acting policewoman was an old lady who was absolutely convinced Roomerang would make her pay all sorts of fines if everyone didn't follow the rules very strictly. Can you guess why such an old woman was so paranoid and chased others around the house? Yep, I'm guessing it too.

The "be our manager" doesn't end there though, I've lost count of the times I had to do something on their behalf: take photos, videos, be there to open the door to the gas/plumber/electrics/delivery guy. They even ask you to carry out viewings for them, and any problem in the house not in contract, will come with a contract reminder as an answer.

At a time, a toilet was stuck for two weeks which took another tenant to buy a pump and fix it himself. A toilet. Not the most pleasant job, yet the guy was tired of having no toilet on his floor so he took it to himself. At another time, someone vomited in the sink where we wash our faces and stuck it with "bits". Quite unpleasant I know. I told Roomerang about it but as it was taking them too long to react I too took it upon myself to fix it, which I managed to do with some patience and lots of disgust (the things that come out of sinks my gosh!). And in general that was the norm around the house: fix things yourself, don't expect them to move a finger. I actually fixed my windows (were stuck and couldn't be opened/closed), my blinds (too heavy for those windows), the Internet router a few times, some gaps around the door that I filled and cleaned my windows (they never did). 

And another guy even offered himself to cut the grass as Roomerang wasn't. Unfortunately just when he got the equipment to do so the garden's door key disappeared and no one could access the garden. Two months later Roomerang was still to do something about this. I left before they ever sorted it out.

FAULT AFTER FAULT

The house was in disrepair and used to have issues, I'm afraid I lost the count of this too but I'll try to list them: the shower at the top bathroom broke down. Twice. Took weeks to get fixed and was basically patched, not fixed, as I left the house the plumber visited again as the shower had started to break down for the third time (it basically loses the cold water so you just have boling water to shower, may sound fun but it isn't). There were three leakages I know about, some pipe broke somewhere and water was being leaked. Once outside the house, the other in the basement, and finally one just above a bathroom which ended with the water touching some wire and half the house being shut down of their electricity for a couple days, not to mention how dangerous it was to have water all around touching wires. 

At a point a heater/boiler started making noises that felt like a nuclear reactor about to explode, the end of the world was coming, the Blitz was happening again or something. No one in that part of the house could sleep, as the sound came on and off even in the middle of the night. Funny days those were.

MICE IN THE HOUSE

The ice in the cake was mice. With such an old house full of gaps and some tenants not being careful enough, mice got in. They spread across the house and at a point they were everywhere. They also got into my room. I tried to barricade myself but somehow they seemed to be getting in until I found that behind my radiator there was a hole the size of Trafalgar Square from which they could get in and out. The hole connected to the house pipes and ran across the walls and floors. I obviously told Roomerang of everything but yet again, it had to be me actually doing something about it, so I covered the hole patching it with stuff, tape and whatnots while also managed to catch, kill and dispose of 5 mice. All me. Did Roomerang do anything? I think they thanked me. No wait, they didn't do that either.

After this crisis I decided I had to go and left the house. Days before I left I catched the last mouse so there's probably more in there, and as I'm not there surely they will breed until they build London's Ratatouille City with the unestimable cooperation of Roomerang's laisser fairism. I'm just hoping they invite me for dinner once they open the restaurant.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I would like to thank Zack for his good work and coolness, Sofian for being always so full of enthusiasm and willing to help, and Sid for being very professional. Sadly, Courtney destroys your good work with aggresive and abusive behaviour towards your tenants and also, you really need to rethink the way to manage properties, far too many things were non functional and in houses as big as the one I was in, a cleaner once a month is not even close to being enough. And as you are on it, please pay the F****** TV License, it's literally no money for you but would give a lot of peace of mind to your many tenants who worry they may be fined about it.