I too am a landlord and, while for me things have never been as bad as you describe, I can easily imagine your feelings - almost certainly first and foremost of betrayal. My worst experience is of a tenant's son playing football in the long corridor and the ball being kicked into a 130 years old stained glass window - he then absconded minus a month's rent with lots of repairs and replacement required, not to mention cleaning as well. It is quite astonishing how dirty people leave a rented place in (put in a clause that the place is to be thoroughly clean at the end) and it makes you wonder what the average British person is like. We take a two months rent deposit and have given the tenant interest on that but that will stop (see below). The first thing I would suggest is that you do not rent with any equipment at all (you are required to maintain it) and perhaps no furniture either. Presumably your let property is some fair distance away from your home (mine/ours is not) so, especially following this experience, it is advisable to arrange a periodic visit (ensure the contract includes this) whereby you can see what things are like. As for utilities, I sincerely hope you ensured that the contract placed responsibility on the tenant for signing up - you only carry the responsibility while there is no tenant in the property, and you need to inform the supplier(s) when someone moves out and again when someone moves in (watch out for standing charge tariffs - avoid) in order to be clear of responsibility for the tenant's consumption. Clearly you will have considerations regarding the law on furnished/unfiurnished lets and regulations that affect you in general. In my locality it is required that landlords register and pay a fee (or be fined, leading to worse if ignored) and that is supposed to ensure that landlords are fit and proper. There is a law coming in whereby the tenant's deposit is to be placed into an out-of-reach account operated by a semi-government scheme. These things are said to have been necessitated by bad landlords' behaviour (they certainly exist) but I am unaware of any effective measures being put in place to deal with bad tenants such as yours and ours. The effect seems likely to be a steady increase in rent levels to cover the potential risks - the government will face a conflict of interests, higher rents bring in higher taxes (taxation of the poorer through this set-up, for they are the ones who pay - unless the rent is covered through benefits, nonsense). People like me may decide not to rent if it gets too bad (you yourself must wonder). However, I did eventually catch up with the "window tenant" but he simply said he would "be in touch" - nothing. He knows our only recourse is court action, an unpalatable choice because the courts are as likely to be useless (from our point of view) as being effective in restoring a balance, quite apart from their simply being a very last resort option - courts are a very unpleasant process. The advice you have been given of establishing a record is good - that is what we have always done. Commiserations.