Tenants leave landlord with £2,500 rave-up bill

TENANTS who rented a four-bedroom house in Falmouth left their landlord with a £2,500 clean-up bill after a “revolting rave-up”, it was claimed this week.

Neighbours became sick of the noise and were disgusted by what went on, it was alleged.

Mike Thomas, who owns the house in Clifton Crescent, told the Packet that he wanted to warn other landlords in the town what they could be letting themselves in for.

The living room of the house was covered in empty super-strength alcohol tins and bottles, stinking milk cartons, cigarette butts, a smashed-up television, dirty pans, papers and ripped up curtains.

The kitchen work tops were piled with dirty debris and festering plates. The bathroom was encrusted with green grime and the bedrooms strewn with broken furniture, torn curtains, scraps of paper and old boots.

The dining room wall bears the graffiti: “We respect you, you don’t respect us. Have respect for all. Sow as you shall reap. Retribution. Be scared if you like.”

“It is going to cost me £2,000 minimum to put right,” said Mr Thomas. The nightmare occupants also owed him nearly £500 in unpaid rent.

The problem arose when Mr Thomas, who has rented the house out to students for two years, agreed to let one of them stay on for a short time after the end of the academic year in June.

It was agreed two friends would stay and also pay £35 per week rent each. When neighbours complained, Mr Thomas told the ravers to get out and found three others at the house. They claimed to be visitors.

He says Carrick Housing Advice told him not to evict the tenants and stop harassing them for unpaid rent or he would be prosecuted.

The occupants disappeared overnight last week leaving him with the cost of refurbishing and rent arrears.

No room at the inn for baby-face Kevin

A FRUSTRATED 19-year-old from Falmouth is fed up his baby-face looks are barring him from popular local pubs.

Kevin Moore of Polwhaveral Terrace was 19 in March but his lack of wrinkles and 5ft 7in height means to a bouncer’s suspicious eye he could be just 14 or less. On two occasions he has been refused entry to the packed Grapes disco pub at weekends, when doormen said he looked too young and his identification was not good enough.

The response was just the same when he and his mate James Martin tried having a Saturday night pint at the Cork and Bottle which is also in Church Street. With pressure from police to stamp out under-age drinking, bouncers do not want baby faces boozing in the bar.

“I showed them my picture ID card from the Twilight Zone nightclub in Redruth but they said it had no expiry date on it. They said my driving licence could belong to anyone. It really got to me,” said frustrated Kevin. “I’m really fed up with the town.”