The first episode of BBC1s landlord swap TV show, ‘The Week The Landlords Moved In’, has caused a fair amount of controversy.
Luxury Landlord Lifestyle
The opening episode featured multi-million-pound landlord, Paul Preston, who lives with his girlfriend in a luxury apartment while his HMO tenants share their squalid property with a family of rats. Paul’s glamorous girlfriend only lasted one night in the dreadful bedsit vacated by account manager, Hayley. Poor Hayley spends £575 a month to live here while her landlord freely admits to blowing £1,500 a week!
Landlord Paul rather naively assumed there would be no problems at the property because nothing had been reported to him. Instead, he was greeted with mountains of rubbish in the backyard, rats, a washing line made from old telephone cables, rotten windows, no security lighting, and black mould on the kitchen walls.
Social Media Backlash
Viewers at home were incensed with his “smug” attitude and many took to Twitter to blast his lack of awareness.
Paul explained he wanted to learn more about the property business, which was behind his decision to take part in the show, but thanks to a lack of communication between him and his tenants, he was clueless about the many problems faced by tenants living in the property.
Initially, Paul tried to dismiss the rat problem as “something that happens in built up areas”, but eventually he realised that changes needed to be made, and to his credit, he gave the kitchen a makeover and cleaned up the backyard. He also provided his tenants with a nice new washing line.
