Let’s put a stop to letting agents taking advantage of young people

It’s with a shiver down my spine and clenched teeth that I recall my first rented flat in London. I was 22-years-old, looking for work and had never lived south of Manchester. Looking back, I was terribly naive and, truth be told, absolutely petrified about moving to the big city. Put simply, I was fair game for an unscrupulous letting agent. To say the agent took his duties lightly would be an understatement. From the gas boiler which broke down repeatedly to the coin-operated lekky, it wasn’t an easy time. Add into the mix a bitterly cold winter and damp in the bathroom and these weren’t exactly halcyon days. When it came time to move out (six months later and not a moment too soon), he insisted on keeping my deposit, citing the damp (hardly my fault) and cat hairs on the carpet. Knowing that some letting agreements forbid the keeping of pets, I’d obtained permission for the cat and was therefore more than a little surprised when he said carpet cleaning costs would be deducted from the deposit.