Your Tenancy

Services to your home and estate

Homes for Islington may provide the following services to your home and estate. Not every home receives all the services set out here. Check with your area housing office if you are not sure about a particular service.

Our standards
We have four standards to assess cleanliness:

A) All clear-this is the standard we aim for. It should look like this after the areas has been cleaned
B) Satisfactory-no more litter than you would expect as the day wears on
C) Poor-a lot of litter for example, litter, tin cans or newspapers
D) Very poor-we would hope you will not see the area looking like this, for example, huge amounts of litter build up and dirtied shared areas like lifts, lobbies or stairs.

How do we check work is done properly?
Estate Services from your area housing office inspect each estate thoroughly at least once a month and in between will regularly check cleaning and other work.

If a problem is identified Estate Services will ensure that the problem is put right.

At the same time as they check cleaning standards, our staff will also check that other services like rubbish collection and grass cutting have been done on time.

Estate Parking
Most estates have limited space for cars and many estates have parking restrictions. We do provide some facilities (such as parking spaces, garages and car cages), which you can rent to park your car. If you want to apply for a parking space, garage or car cage you must contact your area housing office. If a space is not immediately available, you will go on the waiting list.

We give priority to tenants and leaseholders that have disabilities and those living on the estate.

When parking on the estate, you must not:

• Block footpaths, estate roads or access to emergency exits
• Put other people at risk, particularly children, disabled or elderly residents by parking carelessly
• Park boats, trailers, caravans or other large vehicles on the estate
• Park in marked bays unless you are renting a space and have the parking permit or
• Park on yellow lines (otherwise you may get clamped)

If you rent a parking space you must:

• Display your permit on the vehicle windscreen or on the dashboard so that it is clearly visible and readable from the outside of the vehicle at all times and
• Keep to the terms of your parking agreement.
• We run a wheel-clamping and tow-away service on some estates. If you park on these estates without renting a space or garage and displaying your permit, you may be wheel-clamped or have your car towed away. You will then have to pay a fine to have your vehicle released. You will also have to pay daily storage fees if your car is towed and you do not collect it immediately.

Abandoned vehicles
Please report these to your local area housing office who will investigate and arrange for them to be removed.

Gardens
Private gardens
If your home has a private garden, it is a condition of your tenancy that you look after it and keep it tidy and free from rubbish. If you are disabled or an elderly person and would like to know if you can get help with this, contact your area housing office.

Communal gardens
We employ contractors to look after shared gardens, trees and grassed areas on estates. Estate Services staff at the area housing office will check their work to make sure that it is satisfactory.

Heating and hot water
Your area housing office will tell you if your home has shared heating.

Some homes have a district (shared) heating and hot water system. Heating and hot water are provided from a central boiler and supplied to individual homes. Shared heating and hot water charges are included in your rent. The heating is turned on and off from a central point and is usually provided from mid September to mid May. This may be changed or extended depending on the weather. Hot water is provided all year.

Most homes have individual heating and hot water systems such as gas fires or gas central heating. These are not included in your rent and you must pay the gas and electricity companies directly.

Lighting
We are responsible for shared lighting in blocks and on estates. If you notice a light is not working, please contact your caretaker or area housing office. You are responsible for electric plugs, fuses and light bulbs inside your home.

Lifts
Some blocks have lifts. All lifts are serviced regularly but sometimes still break down. This is often due to misuse or vandalism. Please ensure you:

• Do not block lift doors
• Stop children playing in or with the lifts and
• Report to us any vandalism or lifts that are not working by calling HFI Direct

Pest control
If you find rats or mice in or near your home, report it to your area housing office or the Pest Control Team (020 7527 3190). The service is free to council tenants. The Pest Control Team can also give advice and treat other pests like cockroaches, pharaoh ants and wasps.

Pigeons and squirrels are a nuisance and can cause a health risks, so please do not feed them.

Rubbish disposal and collection
Most blocks have a refuse chute for normal household rubbish. Please only use this between 8am and 8pm, so you don’t disturb your neighbours.

Please put your rubbish in bin bags and don’t put messy or large rubbish (like bricks, wood and cardboard boxes) down chutes. Don’t leave rubbish bags on the floor or spill rubbish as this attracts rats, insects and other pests.

Bulky rubbish
If you need to get rid of something big (such as a mattress, fridge or a settee) speak with your Caretaker or contact your area housing office. They will tell you where you can safely place the item on the estate for collection free of charge.

Recycling
HFI takes recycling very seriously. We have provided a large number of recycling facilities on our estates. Where recycling facilities exist or are introduced, we would encourage all residents to use these to get rid of things such as glass bottles and jars, newspapers and magazines and cans and tins.

Caretaking and cleaning
We employ Caretakers to clean the shared area on our estates. They may be residential or nonresidential Caretakers.

Their main cleaning jobs include:

• Inspecting and sweeping all play areas
• Sweeping and mopping shared halls, porches, landings and stairs and removing any graffiti or other marks
• Cleaning the inside windows on all shared doors, landings and staircases
• Cleaning, sweeping and mopping all lift floors, walls and doors inside and outside where possible and removing any graffiti
• Checking and clearing blocked rubbish chutes where possible, or reporting blockages to the estate services team
• Sweeping all estate paths and parking areas
• Checking grassed areas and removing litter
• Checking estate lighting, changing bulbs and cleaning low-level light shades as necessary and reporting faults to the Estate Services Team
• Removing large items of rubbish from our estates where possible, or report them to the Estate Services Team and
• Removing unauthorised estate agents’ signs and other advertising boards fixed to shared areas on our estates

What else do Caretakers do?
Caretakers are an important part of the community, as they are our eyes and ears on our estates. They will report other problems (such as abandoned cars, vandalism and communal repairs) to the area housing office, so that they can be dealt with promptly.

The emergency repairs service have details of those on emergency duty, so you can be assured that a Caretaker can always be sent to a particular estate, where appropriate.

Resident Caretakers have received training to make sure that they can make safe a minor communal repair.

We also have a Mobile Response Team. This team has a van and steam-cleaning equipment.

As well as carrying out emergency cleaning work they carry out programmed work to remove graffiti and deep clean shared areas, stairs and bin rooms.