Because they have no rights beyond their lousy 3 months tennancy!
The law is a chocolate starfish for them.
You can not expect someone to care for a house they have 3 months security in.
After 5 years in my rented house i have come to the conclusion i will end up being remembered as one of those dreaded tennants.
He can keep the lino we have put into the bathroom and kitchen at our own expense.
The roof leaks but i really don't need another dodgy builder like the one that supposedly fixed the electric in my daughter's room. I never challenged him on that one. It wasn't worth the aggro at the time. One of the sockets works now anyway.
If we had a decent tennancy ... we could put our own laminate in. And put some fresh paint on the walls. But a tennancy that gives us 3 months? You got to be joking!

So the next time you ask yourself the question as to why private tennants seemingly don't care for the places they live in ...

WOULD YOU CARE IF YOU HAD 3 MONTHS SECURITY?
Oh do comment ... i feel so much better now I have it off my chest :-)
Armaillo: As for the gas certificate ... i am considering to ask the fire brigade to do a safety check on the house before i leave. I would do it now but really don't need the aggro. :-)

Why oh why do landlords treat their tenants like nothing, invade their privacy, deny them rights, refuse to help them out (ie accepting housing benefit if they have lost their jobs) and just see them as cash-cows rather than human beings with rights and feelings?

Oh and seize their deposits for no good reason, lie and cheat, pretend they could not immediatly relet the property when they did and get two lots of rent - she used mine to go on holiday with.

Why do they leave their tenants without gas or heating in mid December while they are in Paklistan for 3 weeks, then come home and tell them to move out so they could move in some rellies (who turned out be illegal immigrants) the week befire Xmas?

I'd sooner live on the street than ever rent from a private landlord again (bad experience).

They buy-to-let their poxy little houses to make a nice profit for themselves and see the people who live in them as walking bundles of cash. They take advantage of the fact these people can't afford to buy themselves and can't get council housing. Their little adverts stating "No DSS No Pets No children blah blah" show this.

Why do they charge £600 pcm for a house that the council would charge £240 pcm for? Plus the council will allow tenants to keep pets, accept HB etc. Why do they put their rent up everytime they want a new car or a foreign holiday, regardless of whether the tenant can afford it?

Noone wants to private rent unless they have to. Its a joke and as for "respect" maybe if their landlords gave them respect they'd show it back.

We need more social housing to take power away from these greedy people.

OK I know what you are saying and I have been both a tenant and a landlord in my day. In twenty years as a landlord only had a premises trashed once and that was when I broke my own rules about picking the tenant. I believe the three months security clause came in as a compromise before that most tenants had no security at all. Most of my tenants were good and I tried to be a good landlord but for economic reasons it was not easy.