The responsibility for maintaining the accommodation to a good standard is equally shared among all tenants in the property.

We are not going to like everyone and not everyone will like us. We also all have different life experiences which influence our perspective and expectations of ourselves and others. Our window on the world will be different to everyone else’s.

This means it is quite common for people to disagree about standards of cleanliness and tidiness and, fall outs occur when people feel the chores are not being shared out equally or fairly.

Your Tenancy Agreement is very clear about the responsibility for cleaning the communal areas. Communal is defined as being ‘a shared space for common use’ and therefore everyone has a responsibility to maintain these areas to an acceptable standard.

Unipol will undertake inspections throughout the year and if your property is not at an acceptable level of cleanliness and maintenance we will advise you at this stage what needs to be done to improve this.

How to keep it clean:

Try and arrange a rota early in the tenancy. This means everyone knows and agrees with the rules, who does what and when.

Agree how soon the washing up is done – it’s one of the biggest issues, but one of the smallest jobs! Getting it done by the end of the day is a good baseline. Decide and agree whether you are happy for others to use your belongings and if so agree they should wash, dry and put away after use.

If you have tried to resolve issues and have not been successful, you can contact your HMO who can provide tips on how to manage this. They may however decide to escalate this to the Tenancy Support and Wellbeing Coordinator, who can offer a range of options including mediation and help with organising a rota.

It is important to remember that others might not see the problems you do. One person’s clean is another person’s dirty. Friction can be caused by trying to impose your standards on someone else – sometimes if something is bothering you, it’s just easier to do it yourself! It might not be wholly fair, but could create a much nicer living environment.

Remember, failure to maintain the property could result in contractors undertaking a clean/deep clean. Both of these procedures are expensive and the cost could be recharged to all tenants in the property.

If you need any help, don't forget to contact Tenancy Support on tenancysupport@unipol.org.uk or use this form.