L&Q at Dovetail Place, Private Rental, N15

Please tell us about the good and bad aspects of living in your local area:

Love the area. Close to lots of shops, nice parks and transport. WGR is quite noisy at night with the fountain pub and loud cars. We have had lots of stolen packages

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

They were quick to lock the roof off when false claims were made. Took months to get the access again. Which sums it up - everything takes months

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

I wish I would have known the building would be full of crack users in the communal areas. I wish I would have known that the parcels would be stolen regularly and I wish I would have known that repairs/queries take months/years to get anywhere

Please tell us about the good and bad aspects of living in your local area:

Love the area. Loads of good shops and pubs around. Close to trains/busses. Great community feel. Sadly lots of drug users and people who think it’s ok to rob parcels from the building and surrounding buildings. Quite noisy on west green road. especially at night with bikes/cars. Doesn’t put us off living here.

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

They respond to some quicker than the others - lots of residents have issues with the doors not locking downstairs which is a continuing issue

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

Maybe the security of the building. It wasn’t that bad before but it’s definitely got worse and we don’t see it changing any time soon

Please tell us about the good and bad aspects of living in your local area:

I’ve been renting from L&Q for almost 4yrs now, their disregard for their development and tenants is surreal. I’ve never dealt with such a difficult property management company that would be so dismissive and passive towards actioning any security or health and safety requirements. Our lifts were often out of service, once for over a period of 5 weeks ongoing and I at the time. Our bin store became a hostel for the homeless, being broken into many occasions and just the horrible overall aspect of the building as well as getting our mail or special delivery is also a challenge, often times mail box is being vandalised and some of our packages have gone missing.

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

It’s literally a battle, having to continue to chance back and fourth repairs not completed or with a unreasonable time to respond or fix ongoing issues with the property or the development itself. My property manager for the past few years have been unreliable and unfortunately very difficult to communicate or get in touch with her, even tried all different ways making contact and share feedback or escalate any issues, she was always unavailable and had to reach out various times before getting a response or any communication back from L&Q.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

I wish to have known their lack of interest in providing support to their tenants, as I mentioned in my review, their disregard for their tenants needs is surreal and need to be investigated further.

Please tell us about the good and bad aspects of living in your local area:

So let’s start with the positives. The flat itself is gorgeous, loads of space, loads of light, private terrace and just everything you could want in a flat at a decent price. The street is hard to park on and loads of people just park wherever they want whether they have a permit or not. There is a lot of street and traffic noise and it’s not the nicest area to live in.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

How bad the security to the building is.

Please share one thing (or more) which you would change about your development:

For L&Q to actually take the safety of tenants seriously.

Please tell us about the good and bad aspects of living in your local area:

Lively, up and coming area. Lots of bars and restaurants nearby to enjoy. Excellent transport links with the victoria line & overground available in 7 mins walk. Close to Cycle Superhighway 1 with good, quiet cycle links to the city. Parking is controlled and restricted to permit holders. This is limited. Bin collections are poor and not as regular as they should be. The street is fairly noisy and is adjacent to West Green Road which is noisy. The street suffers from lack of maintenance and there is often lots of litter. There has been crime/gang-violence on West Green but I have felt safe despite this.

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

Sometimes they are good and quick to resolve problems. Other times can be extremely slow. This applies to both flat related and building issues. The customer service team are always helpful when calling a problem in. Some of the contractors used to fix issues are not fully trained and do not fix problems properly. i.e. it took several months and countless visits for our heating to be resolved. This cost us a considerable amount of money as we were overpaying for our heating due to the issue. Despite requesting compensation this has not been provided.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

Don't leave bikes in the bike store.