exeposé
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The South West’s Best Student Publication
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ISSUE 724 9 NOV 2021 exepose.com @Exepose
THE UNIVERSITY OF EXETER’S INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1987
“We are far from perfect”: Cardens responds to housing criticism
Rees-Mogg “proud” of our colonial past, applauded by audience at EUCA event Megan Ballantyne News Editor
M Image: Geograph
Cassia Grace Deputy Editor
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ARDENS estate agents have received persistent criticism for poor management of their rented student properties, with several students coming forward with their accounts. Exeposé spoke to students about their experiences with Cardens, all of which have asked to remain anonymous. Frequent criticism seemed to be the alleged poor and unclean condition of the houses. One student responded that, “they showed up at our house for a viewing unannounced and we had to let them in… my boyfriend was with Cardens 2018/2019. They had such a bad mould issue, and the electrics were off and the fire alarm would get set off whenever the oven was switched on and they never did anything about it. When they were going to leave, Cardens demanded the house got professionally cleaned otherwise they wouldn’t get their deposits, even though the house wasn’t professionally cleaned when they moved in. They had to threaten legally and pull-out terms from the contract to avoid it.
Horrible experiences all around”. Another response stated that, “the main problem is just the time it takes for anything to get fixed, they’re truly awful”. They included a further description of the condition of the house: “Our tap was leaking about 40 litres of water a day and it took over a month before it was fixed. In September I requested new curtains as mine had mould on them, they still haven’t arrived. My felt headboard had layers of embedded hair and a jizz splatter on it upon moving in and my flatmate arrived to men’s dirty pants in her chest of drawers. Plus, mouse poo everywhere. Mould on walls all been painted over.” They added that they “hope it maybe changes something with their awful company”. Other issues that Cardens supposedly failed to fix included one renter telling Exeposé that “my housemate’s bed was broken when we moved in, and they took two to three weeks to replace it and he was left sleeping on a mattress on the floor. Also, one of our lounge floorboards fell through in March and it never got fixed”. Students also spoke about being mischarged or quoted for the price of their houses. One such person stated that, “the
advert for the flat for this current year said that the flat cost £160pppw bills included, whereas after doing the maths, it has turned out to be £176pppw”. They also added that “two of the toilets were broken, most of the paint is flaking off of the wall and there is mould growing in the living room. Also, one of the windows is broken”. A different response described how “for the first few months we ended up paying double what our actual electricity bills were because they failed to update the machine”, agreeing with other responders that they had “mould covering the walls” and also “slugs in the cupboards” There have also been allegations that Cardens uses false advertising, with one such person explaining that “we this year were sold a property that was completely misadvertised, so last summer (2020) the property was completely re-vamped, yet they were still using old images to advertise the property”. They further stated that Cardens “refused to take any blame” and that “the whole team there talk to you like children”. Continued page 3
P Jacob Rees-Mogg was applauded for stating at an Exeter University Conservative Association and Guild approved event on Friday 22 October that he was “proud,” of Britain’s colonial past. This came alongside Rees-Mogg’s decision to not to comment on an audience member’s use of ‘LGBT’ as an insult. The incident occurred after ReesMogg took a series of questions from the audience. When asked about this year’s government report on systematic racism, which found that the UK was not an “institutionally racist country,” Rees-Mogg expressed support for the report, saying, “I think it’s very important to be clear that the report didn’t say there’s no racism in the UK, but that it wasn’t institutional, and I think that’s right.” He celebrated the “progress” that institutions had made over his lifetime as evidence of this. Rees-Mogg continued his response to this question by stating that he believed it was important to not put people in “pigeon holes,” of race or social status. ‘It’s really useful to have the information… rather than just adopting the left-wing mantra that it’s all about our colonial past, which it isn’t - and anyway of which I’m quite proud.” This comment elicited loud table thumping and applause from the front few rows, where members of EUCA committee were sat. Another audience member accused Jacob Rees-Mogg and the Con-
COP26 and climate change Pages 4 & 5
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servative Party of allowing, “the total deterioration of democracy under this government,” because of its imposition of national lockdowns during the Coronavirus pandemic. The audience member argued that the government had imposed, “illogical, unfounded, unsupported lockdowns, which have decimated this country, decimated our economy, over what? A flu with a 99.97 per cent survival rate. How is this government conservative?” Jacob Rees-Mogg responded. “I think those criticisms are really important. I won’t begin to pretend to this audience that I was banging the drum for the restrictions that we imposed. That’s what I said about Dominic Cummings and the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister was always saying: “do I have to do this? Can I not protect people’s freedoms?” The same audience member also accused the current Conservative Party of “pursuing this LGBT, woke narrative. What are you? Because you’re not Conservative.” Rees-Mogg commented “It is the first time I’ve ever been accused of following a woke narrative” which elicited laughter from the audience. He failed to respond to the use of LGBT as part of this criticism of his Government. Rees-Mogg has previously controversially stated that he disagrees with same-sex marriage in an ITV interview in 2017, where he said: “I’m a Catholic, I take the teaching of the Catholic Church seriously. Marriage is a sacrament and the view of what marriage is is taken by the Church, not Parliament.” Continued page 3