Accommodation adventure - part 2: Dealing with Qflats

My friend inspired me with idea to make a series from my accommodation adventure. If you read my first posts, I had a problematic start in Belfast concerning accommodation. I met owner of the private sector house I left, to give him keys and try to get my deposit back. It was another trip into amazing world of human creativity.

I paid the deposit in advance to book the room where I wanted to spend half a year of my life. To me it make some sense that I should be able to live there healthily and I should also get the deposit back in case the room is not suitable for living. So 2 days after I left this house because I couldn´t even sleep there, I met an owner to show him what doesn´t serve well to health of any tenant too. When I came he was "cleaning" the kitchen with a sponge, saying "I don´t have to do it, but still I´m cleaning it here." Actually it was very funny picture. When I showed him the totaly green shower and gray ceiling in bathroom he was just silent. I guess there was not much to say. Still he managed to say lots of things during the meeting, which are absolutely not fair in such communication and they are also nonsense. I felt like Alice in Wonderland. Maybe I should rename my blog. So let's see what is according to the spanish owner of the house relevant to our issue.

• "This is Belfast." Thanks for the information!
• "Belfast is humid place. That means blight is in every house and it´s not possible not to have it." Damned rotten city! Maybe in Spain they don´t know half of the world is more humid than their country.
• Owner touching the blight: "This is not humid." So where does it come from? Bathroom and my room are not in Belfast anymore?
• "Nobody else in the house has problems with state here." Well, when I asked one tenant where is vacuum cleaner he pointed at mop and said, "I think others use this for cleaning".
• "Owner of the house can´t force his tenants to clean the house", therefore it simply will be messy and there´s nothing to do about that. Owners of house only collect money and wait until the house falls apart.
• Carpet looked like it was never cleaned. Never means at least 5 years. What about owner? "But we took vacuum cleaner with us today."
• "You have to open the window." Really? Never did it in my life. I would like to open this one for more than 2 cm. Unfortunately it wasn´t possible even though I wanted to try it for the first time :(.
• "If you would give me month to fix everything, we could be able to solve it." That make sense to live here for another month when I´m explaining to him there is not even possible to sleep.
• "The house is in perfect shape." I can see it, I can smell it. I really don´t know why I needed to go away.
• "We can´t give you your deposit back. This is contract." Which we even haven´t signed yet. And technically, none of the rules in the contract was broken. But I understand this point.
• "I understand your problems, I´m asthmatic too, but when I have such problems, I use my medication." What is meditation? We don´t know this word in the Czech Republic. And I don´t have such big health issues that old house should cause me problems like this.
• I told him it is not healthy to have blight in a room where you sleep. "You won´t die because of it." Guy, thankyou for giving me hope...
• "You created lots of problems for us. Now we have a free room." Yes, I like to create problems. I don't have any problems because of the state of the house. Except loosing all my scholarship for new accommodation, not having place to stay and sleep and needing week for health recovering.

I really don´t recommend Qflats.com, Carlos Quinteiro is the owner. Please if you are looking for accommodation, look for it elsewhere. They have nice webpage, nice photos, they are very communicative, but some things are just unbelievable. They put a lot of effort into giving a good service to you in terms of communication but care about houses is very poor. And if something is not alright, it´s ok to make a fool out of you.
We´re still not done. Our email history is getting longer and longer. Before leaving the house the owner tried to soothe me a bit and said that this is problematic for both sides so if they find a new tenant soon, they could give me part of my deposit back. It was better than nothing, so I left. I know I am not a good negotiator :-D. I wasn't expecting they will give me an echo, but hope dies the last. I am in contact with an advice center now and I will see what will come.
So keep updated, this is not over yet and I believe more creativity will be involved. If you have any advice how to get at least half of my deposit back, you can write me. Thanks!

Motto of the day: You won´t die because of a blight. That doesn´t mean you should be ok living with it.