The Letting Centre

Mice in farmhouse

Question: 408
One of my landlords is a local landowner who farms quite a large acreage. He asked me quite a while ago to find a tenant for one of the farmhouses that had become vacant and for which he had no immediate use for his staff. We found him a tenant and for a while there were no problems but now they have come to me complaining not only about the constant smell but also about mice in the farmhouse. What should I do about this?
Answer:
The issue of the smell should have been recognised by the tenant before they moved to the property, assuming that the smell is solely agricultural in nature. Even if it constituted a nuisance a court will very rarely order its abatement where a complainant has moved to the area of the nuisance. Mice are another matter and if the tenant can show that they originate on property owned or controlled by the landlord then the cost of removing them will be borne by the landlord. Your local authority may have a pest control department who would usually charge for business users or pest control companies can be contacted through the trade associations the British Pest Control Association at www.bpca.org.uk or National Pest Technicians Association at www.npta.org.uk
References:	Pages:	Hyperlinks:
Letting Update Journal	April 2005 page 19	letting-update-journal.html
Letting Handbook	Chapter 11	letting-handbook-and-factsheets.html

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