More External Stresses 2

…Continued from previous post. Email exchange with letting agent after the office manager took over from the previous person:

In this scenario, your own space is quite suitable for you rather than shared accommodation. I do not have problem in helping you to find one for you.

Thanks, I completely agree that having my own place with control of my environment would be much more suitable. There are many challenges here which have been extremely stressful for me. I’ve had a lot of communication with the council about this already, and I’m currently in the middle of a PIP application which a disability charity (Stepping Forward) are helping me with. It’s necessary for me to get PIP to be eligible for the higher rate of living allowance from the council, which would allow me to pay the rent for my own place.

Hi Robin,

We have single studio available straight away with bathroom and kitchen unit within it.

Do you want me to speak with housing officer.

Really? Would it be ground floor, and how much would the rent be? I have the extra requirement of being on ground floor because of mobility problems from arthritis. As long as I can pay the rent then yes I’m very keen to look into that.

Its half a way of first floor.

And the monthly rent is £700pcm. We have RGS tenant at the moment who is moving to two beds flats due to new baby and need much space.

Actually it really needs to be ground floor because any kind of steps every day injures my knees so I have to completely avoid them. And the rent is an issue without the higher rate of living allowance. If we can solve those issues then I’m very happy to try it. Could you speak with the housing officer about the studio room please? Thank you

Sure.

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Positive things:

• The office manager took over from the stressy person who was originally emailing me (the one who was shouting at me in the house earlier!).
• This new person has actually acknowledged the root problem I have.
• The issue they have with the electrical appliances is to do with the fact I’m in a House with Multiple Occupancy, which puts extra demand on the power supply. It seems they wouldn’t have an issue if I was in my own place.
• I agreed to take down the lights before they do an inspection tomorrow (I still don’t see the point since I can obviously just put them back up 🤷‍♂️. How can you regulate this sort of thing without actually putting numbers to it?). But at least if they perceive me to be compromising that will help, and I’m happy to since they started being more reasonable.
• My constant high-horsing and label-signalling has seemed to pay off to some extent 😏.

Negative things:

• I’m highly skeptical of these new ‘developments’ about the studio flat, because I’ve been round in circles before with the council where some organisation (e.g. police, hospital) expect that they’ll be able to help me if I explain the problem. But the council have been so clear multiple times that there’s no way past their eligibility requirements which I don’t meet.
• I obviously can’t keep my LED lights down because the plants will die…and can you just imagine that sad scene!?

🌪