17/12/2021
Advice from the Government regarding ventilating your home to help stop the spread of COVID-19
The importance of ventilation It is important to ventilate your home when you have visitors from outside your household — including family, or if someone in your household has COVID-19.
Letting fresh air into indoor spaces can help remove air that contains virus particles and prevent the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19).
Ventilation is important if someone in your household has COVID-19 or if you are indoors with people you do not live with. You can pass COVID-19 on to others if you only have mild symptoms or even no symptoms at all. How to ventilate your home Opening windows and doors at home is the simplest way of improving ventilation.
If you have people working in or visiting your home, let as much fresh air into your home as possible without getting uncomfortably cold while they are there, and for a short period before they arrive and after they have left.
If someone in your home is self-isolating, keep a window slightly open in their room and keep the door closed to reduce the spread of contaminated air to other parts of the household. If the person self-isolating needs access to shared spaces in your home, ensure that these areas are well ventilated by following the guidance above.
Ventilation can be increased by leaving extractor fans in bathrooms, toilets and kitchen areas running for longer than usual, with the door closed, after someone has been in the room.
In the winter months, it is crucial that ventilation, such as trickle vents on windows, are not blocked and that other ventilation is not switched off.
These actions will have minimal implications for heating costs but put you at more risk from COVID-19 transmission. Mechanical ventilation in the home If your home has a mechanical ventilation system, make sure this is working and maintained in line with manufacturers’ instructions.
Your landlord will be able to tell you how to check the ventilation system is working.
If possible, set ventilation systems to bring fresh air in and not recirculate indoor air.
If you are unsure of how to do this, seek guidance from your landlord.
Devices that only recirculate indoor air will not remove airborne virus from the home. You can use the boost mode (if available) to increase ventilation if someone in your household is self-isolating due to COVID19 or if you meet people you do not live with indoors.
Ventilation can also be increased by leaving extractor fans in bathrooms, toilets and kitchen areas running for longer than usual, with the door closed, after someone with COVID-19 or a visitor has been in the room.
If necessary, to ensure safety, we would advise that you latch windows — this will allow ventilation whilst reducing safety risks.
How to keep warm
Ventilation does not mean you have to be cold — opening your windows for just 10 minutes an hour can help reduce the risk and allow the air to refresh.
In colder weather, where it is not comfortable to leave windows open fully, opening the windows slightly can also provide ventilation and reduce cold drafts.
30/07/2021
As the world opens up after lockdown, we find ourself in our busiest period. This means lots of tenants to and from our office dropping off or collecting keys for their new properties.
Because of the high number of people through our doors we have decided to keep to pre-booked key collection and viewing appointments at this time to keep cross-over of our tenants to a minimum. We are also asking that visitors to our office wear a mask unless you are exempt.
We will look at this again after the summer period when our student tenants are all back in Lincoln for the start of the new academic year.
5/1/21
Tier 5 and what that means for Lincoln digs
Following last nights news of the UK going into a new Tier 5 ‘lockdown’, we have reviewed our working practices to ensure the continued safety of our customers and staff and compliance with any new regulations.
The Lincoln office has been closed to the general public, which will continue to be the case moving forward.
All staff will now revert to working remotely from home and will be available on the normal office number Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm to answer any queries.
Under the new legislation house viewings are allowed to continue in a Covid secure way (as below).
Essential maintenance, which includes safety certificate renewals will continue, again, in a Covid secure way. More information on this will be given at the time of reporting maintenance issues to the office on; maintenance@lincolndigs.com
01/07/2020
For the government guidance on Covid-19 and renting please click here.
30/06/2020
Right to Rent Check: for information on which forms of ID are acceptable please click here to be taken to the government webpage.
17/06/2020
The Lincoln Digs Office:
After a couple of months away from the office and working from home the team are getting ready to return!
We are busy separating desks, stocking up with hand sanitiser and installing new notices regarding social distancing measures in place so that we can start to welcome back visitors to the office in the safest way possible!
We anticipate opening from Tuesday 23rd June on restricted hours and staff. Visiting the office will be strictly by appointment only so we can assure that we are able to operate and adhere to social distancing. The rest of the team will still be working from home to assist you Monday to Friday 9-5!
You will be asked to attend via the main front porch as normal where a member of the team will be able to assist you with key collection or hand in or any other matter that needs to be dealt with in person.
We will also be asking that only one person comes into this reception area at once and that visitors wait outside until the space is free.
Whist we would still urge that you contact us by email or phone if you are able to do so, if you do wish to book an appointment to come and see us in person, just drop an email to claire@lincolndigs.com with your preferred day and time and the nature of your visit so we can check the relevant staff member will be free to assist you!
If you are looking for a room or house with us:
We are currently offering Virtual and video tours at the moment and are looking to start actual viewings in the next 2-3 weeks, so check out our availability on our properties page and contact the lettings team at hayley@lincolndigs.com for more information or to book a viewing slot
Leaving tenants:
If your tenancy ends in June or July the team will have emailed you regarding the move out process.
If you are leaving in August, we are just holding off on confirming the details for another week or two so we can consider any new guidelines in place relevant at the time.
New Tenants:
Our cleaning and painting teams are already out and about in Lincoln getting the houses ready for your tenancy start dates:
If your tenancy starts in June you will have been sent an email to book your move in appointment
If your tenancy starts in July the team has started sending emails to you with details of how to book your move in appointment and working in date order these will be with you over the next 3-5 working days.
If your tenancy starts in August, in date order the team will start emailing details of how to book your move in appointments by the end of June – however as your dates are furthest in the future, this information may be subject to change based on any new guidelines being introduced.
18/05/2020
15/05/2020
Lincoln Digs office
The health and safety of all tenants, staff and office visitors is paramount and so we have decided that the Lincoln Digs office will remain closed at this time.
The staff however continue working at home to support you. We will continue to answer calls and emails and we still have a maintenance team responding to repair requests – adhering to social distancing and enhanced cleaning procedures for everyone’s protection whilst visiting your property.
We are looking to open the office in the future for pre-booked appointments only. We will only re-open when we believe we can do so in a safe manor to protect both our tenants and our staff.
Moving out of your student home for 19/20
New guidelines have specifically stated that students are permitted to move out of their student homes and travel back to their family homes. In order to do this in the safest way and adhering to social distancing guidelines we advise the following:
- Tenants arrange to move out on different days
- Tenants are fully packed, having carried out their end of tenancy cleaning ready for their collection time – to avoid having a parent / guardian going into the property that may have other tenants in.
- That they are collected by one person where possible and that that person is of the household that they are moving back to.
- That travel by public transport is avoided if possible.
The lettings team will be contacting our leaving tenants over the next few weeks to remind everyone of their end dates and how to hand back keys, which will be done with no contact.
Moving into your student homes for 20/21
We are aware that with a small delay to your term start dates, this will impact when you receive your loan payments. Don’t worry! Lincoln Digs will be offering our tenants extensions on their payment dates to accommodate this. We will give further information on this when we contact you to arrange moving into the property.
With your move in dates approaching, the team are still reviewing the recent government guidelines and their own processes to formulate the best way to allow you to safely move into your student homes. We will provide you with an update as soon as we are able and will make direct contact with you once a plan has been put into place. You will be contacted well in advance of your tenancy start date. You will also be provided updated information on rent payments as above.
04/05/2020
Upcoming tenancy ends and tenancy start dates:
We are aware that our tenants are now heading toward the end of their tenancy or starting to think about moving into their new houses over summer. As we are still under certain restrictions and government guidelines, you may all have lots of questions.
We are waiting until around 7th May when the current guidelines are to be reviewed by Government before making any final decisions, but have lots of plans in place to cover what we hope are every eventuality for you moving out and into your student homes.
As guidelines are updated and firm decisions are made over the next week or two we will update our website with some general information for you all.
We will then be contacting all current tenants as a priority to discuss their move out. This will be done in order of when their tenancies end.
Once this has been done, we will then contact all of our future tenants again in order of their move in date.
In the meantime, please still contact the office team with any specific queries by email to hayley@lincolndigs.com
25/03/2020
PDF Housing & Maintaining Covid-19
20/03/2020
We have made the decision to close our office to all visitors.
Our office team has moved to working from home. The team will still be taking calls and answering queries on the normal office number. Please bear with us during this transition.
Our maintenance team is working tirelessly to ensure all emergencies are dealt with efficiently and continue to monitor the emergency out of hours telephone number for our tenants. Essential maintenance and emergencies are being assessed on a priority basis but we will keep all involved informed and we appreciate your patience with this.
We are ever mindful of the safety of our staff, tenants and clients. We continue to monitor the situation and take guidance from Government documentation. If we are attending your property then please can we ask that you ensure that social distancing guidelines are followed.
If you are planning to go home during this unprecedented time please let us know especially if your house is unoccupied during this time. This will enable us to keep an eye on your property until you return.
We will continue to provide updates across our social media pages and below are some useful email addresses if you have any questions.
Tenancy and Rent queries: hayley@lincolndigs.com
Account queries: claire@lincolndigs.com
Maintenance queries: maintenance@lincolndigs.com