SpareRoom.co.uk
Reviews and Complaints

This website, SpareRoom.co.uk, they be asking you to cough up some cash for an upgrade so you can get in touch with them landlords, right? But let me tell ya, if ya do pay up, ain't nobody gonna be replying to your ad or message. It's all a big fat fake, I'm tellin' ya!

Tenants should totally be able to give reviews to landlords and rate 'em, you know? Like, how else are we supposed to know if they're good or not? SpareRoom.co.uk needs to get with the times, man. It's like, so unfair and old-fashioned to not have that feature.

I gotta say, SpareRoom.co.uk ain't worth a single star in my book. These landlords, man, they're just plain rude. You fork out your hard-earned cash to contact 'em, and what do you get? Zilch. Nada. Not even a simple reply. It's a total waste of your precious time and money, trust me. My advice? Steer clear, folks. SpareRoom.co.uk ain't worth the hassle.

I wouldn't suggest using this platform if you gotta rent a room, mate. It ain't safe like they say it is, ya know? They don't bother checkin' who's advertisin' and they don't give a toss 'bout protectin' ya if the advertiser ain't followin' the law.

I wouldn't recommend using SpareRoom.co.uk. They let sketchy ads on their site, which are probably scams. They sent me an email "warning" me about it, but didn't take any real action. The ad was still up on their site. A few days later, I almost got hacked.

I've been applying for loads of rooms to rent on SpareRoom.co.uk, but I haven't gotten any replies from anyone. It's been a real bummer, you know? But then, finally, I found this one room that seemed really promising. The catch was that I had to pay ?11.99 just to send a message to the landlord. I thought, "Hey, maybe it's worth it if I can secure a great place to live." So, I went ahead and paid up.

But guess what? As soon as I sent the message, I got an automated response saying that they weren't interested in renting anymore. What a letdown! I felt like I had been conned, you know? It's just not fair to make people pay for something and then not follow through. So, my advice to you is to save your money and look for other options. SpareRoom.co.uk might not be all it's cracked up to be.

I've been using spareroom since 2011 to rent out my spare room and sometimes find a room for myself. Gotta say, I've always been pretty happy with the service and how well this website works.

Back in the day, it was super easy to put up a free ad and still get folks reaching out to you. But as time went on, more and more people started posting ads on the site, so it became more common to put up a paid or featured ad if you wanted to rent out your room quickly. Even then, I was still satisfied because it was efficient and gave you good bang for your buck.

I hadn't used the site for a few months, but last week I decided to post a paid ad on spareroom, and boy was I disappointed! I put up the ad at 2pm, and by 8pm that same day, I couldn't find my ad anywhere. So I called up the customer support team, and they told me that my ad had dropped to like 100+ place because there were so many ads for my area. They said I had to keep hitting the renew button to move it up, but let me tell you, that renew option ain't doing squat. My ad just stays in the same spot or even drops further down. They then suggested that I search for people looking to rent in my area and contact them directly, but that's just not an efficient way to do things. Plus, it leads to more spamming, and this ain't no dating or friend-making website, ya know?

So yeah, I was pretty bummed out by my recent experience with spareroom. It used to be a great site, but it seems like things have gone downhill. Hopefully they can get their act together and fix these issues because I used to really rely on this website.

Spareroom used to be a proper good place for landlords to find tenants and for tenants to find somewhere to live, innit? But lately, the website is full of fake ads from these letting agents, mate. As a landlord meself, I used to get loads of replies to my ad (which cost ?24.99 for 28 days), but now there's so many agents' ads on there that your ad just gets buried real quick, like within a couple of hours, ya know? It's proper unlikely that anyone will even see your ad after them first few hours. And get this, renewing your ad only puts it at the top of the list for the day you renewed it, innit? So if you placed your ad a week ago, you'll always have a whole week's worth of ads above yours, plus all them other ads from the same day that got renewed. It's a proper mess, I tell ya.

Tenants have been telling me that most of them letting agents' ads are fake, like they say the place is in a great location, it's a lovely property, and the rent is dead low. But when you call 'em up, they'll tell ya that the place you're interested in ain't available no more. But they'll try to convince ya to go and see their other "amazing" properties, which ain't as good as they make 'em out to be, ya know? They ain't in a great location, they ain't as nice, and they ain't as good value as what they advertised. It's all a big con, mate.

Now, I get it, Spareroom is a business and they make a pretty penny from them agents' ads. But it's made the website proper useless for both landlords and tenants, ya know? It's a right shame, 'cause it used to be a top-notch place to find a place to live or find tenants. But now, it's just a load of rubbish.

Let's get something out of the way... SpareRoom ain't here to help you find a room. They're here to rent rooms advertised by paying customers. Now with that, let's move forward.

SpareRoom ain't a bad site, it's a site where YOU need to be careful. Remember, these people are tryna get your signature on a lease. May adverts have dated pictures or pictures of rooms that ain't the one for rent. If the pictures look too good to be true, then they were probably taken right after a remodel and don't reflect the actual condition of the room now. ALWAYS go and look in person or ask for a virtual tour (using Zoom or Facetime) so you can see the current condition. Never send money without looking in one of these ways first.

The search feature lacks a few things. For example, when you save a search, it won't store the sort order of your search. They wanna feed you rooms from their regular paying customers. Also, you can't exclude postcodes. For example, there's an area near me that's ALL student housing. If you ain't a student and you don't wanna be kept awake all night, then you'll wanna avoid this area. It mainly falls within a certain postcode (first three digits). Now, you can search that postcode by itself, but you can't exclude it from broader searches. I find it a waste of my time as this post code comprises most of the search results. Even when you exclude student housing, you'll still get the majority of your results from this area.

The mobile app is even worse, 'cause you can't specify "bills included" or "furnished" in your search. I hate finding a really nice place only to discover bills are an extra ?200 a month and it's completely unfurnished.

The site ain't all bad. You can at least look to see what is available. I recommend ringing them on the phone rather than sending a message. At least if a person answers, the advert is probably real and not a scam.

Most of all, just use common sense. If an advert sounds too good to be true, then it probably ain't.

I gotta say, I got a bone to pick with SpareRoom and those landlord folks who put up ads on their site for rooms. It's like they all got this weird obsession with only wanting females of a certain age. And let me tell you, that's just plain sexist and ageist, not to mention totally unfair to the fellas out there.

So, I signed up for SpareRoom hoping to find a place to crash. But instead, I ended up in a nightmare of rejection after rejection, almost ending up on the streets. I wasted a good five months and a bunch of my hard-earned cash trying to upgrade my membership and find somewhere to live, but I never even got a chance to meet with anyone.

Nobody had the decency to reply to my emails or return my calls. I was in a desperate situation, and all I got in return was a bunch of landlords with attitude problems, asking me dumb questions about my age and telling me the rooms were only for the ladies.

Now, I get it if someone wants to advertise for an all-female household. That's their prerogative. But what really grinds my gears is when they advertise a room in a mixed household and still insist on only wanting females of a certain age. That's just plain illegal, man.

The most messed up thing is that I've seen the same sexist ads posted on like four or five different websites by the same advertisers. They're spewing the same garbage, trying to lure in those "preferred females" to their lair. It's like they're stuck in the Stone Age or something.

SpareRoom needs to get their act together and start reviewing their policies. They need to tell their advertisers (or landlords, whatever you wanna call 'em) to read up on the Equality Act 2010 and those age discrimination laws from Age UK. It's pretty clear that landlords can't go around discriminating based on age, gender, race, or sexual orientation.

When you're looking for a place to crash, it should be fair for everyone. Landlords shouldn't get to pick and choose based on some outdated notion of the weaker sex or whatever. Those who put up those kinds of ads are straight up breaking the law, and that could land your company in some serious trouble, man.

After the crap experience I had with SpareRoom, I ain't ever gonna use 'em again. 'Cause they don't give a damn about anyone but themselves. And don't even get me started on their advertisers (or landlords), they're just as bad. They're rude, heartless, and they discriminate against dudes and people of a certain age.

(Sincerely, someone who's had enough)