I prefer rogues to imbeciles, because rogues sometimes rest.

[reddragdiva]

• Oh, if only we could use these tags.

On Wednesday, redcountess noticed that the boiler pressure was actually pinning the pressure meter, i.e. over 4.5 bar. She promptly switched it off. (So we've been without heat or hot water since then.) Called landlord, called CORGI plumber. The plumber relieved the pressure (we're not sure if the boiler itself has a buggered expansion vessel or not), noted the grosslyunsafe flue, disabled the boiler and put a sticker on it and wrote out a nice warning notice for us.

We got another guy to come over today. His first words: "Jesus, that's terrible!"

He hadn't been told he was supposed to move the boiler, so he couldn't do the job now. But then, it wouldn't actually be possible to do the job now. Because there's pipes underneath, so it can't be moved down, and there's mains wires in conduits in the way of where the flue would have to go. Least worst option is to move it to the back wall of the bathroom. His not-a-quote rough guess for this was in the region of a thousand quid.

He asked if he could get a photo for the horror stories page of Gas Installer, the CORGI official magazine. I took a nice photo for him which I'll email him to send in. The October issue also had a nice article on a landlord's legal responsibilities, which he let me scan, and I'll be sending a copy to the landlord.

It's hard to put into words just how enormously pleased I am: no heat and no hot water and a flue that's been spewing combustion products into the kitchen all this time, with a pregnant woman and one with fibromyalgia. I don't think the landlord is actually evil rather than just stupid, because renting out a property without a gas safety certificate is ridiculously illegal and can lead to jail time. (The agent is unlikely to be responsible as the landlord didn't arrange a maintenance contract. Being a cheap bastard as well as stupid and incompetent.) Not to mention just how stupid you have to be to mess with gas fitting on a bodgy landlord's-mates basis.

So now I have to calmly contemplate just what the hell I say to him to try to get across to him how badly he's fucked up and how heavily HSE could LART him, and work out just what we want from him — break the lease and pay for our moving expenses, fix this immediately and expensively, or what. Gah. A nice cup of crack and a sit-down.

Update: Just left a message for the landlord, starting with "it's bad, it's dangerous, it'll need to be fixed immediately, it'll be expensive, and you're going to have to pay for it" and including the phrases "worst he'd ever seen," "incredibly dangerous" and "grossly illegal." Awaiting his call back.

Update 2: Landlord called back around 10pm. He says he will call around tomorrow and get someone out to fix it conclusively and in a CORGI-compliant manner by Monday. We shall see.

Comments

Re: The loose carpet on the stairs may cover

[redcountess]

The tread on the bottom stair definitely sags, but underneath the loose carpet is a thick 70s carpet that he didn't bother to remove before laying the new one, which just makes the stairs steeper, and the noses more slippery!

Re: The loose carpet on the stairs may cover

[mouseworks.livejournal.com]

I hope you can find a better place soon. I'm also beginning to agree with Arkady about turning the landlord in to the authorities.

I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't have some serious cracks in the treads besides the one that sags.

A tread that sags is dangerous, though not as spectacularly dangerous as a faulty boiler.

Re: The loose carpet on the stairs may cover

[redcountess]

We also have a problem with the light fitting in the bathroom being the wrong sort. We thought that and the stairs was incompetence rather than negligence, so we didn't blow the whistle on him, but I'm not so sure anymore.

Re: The loose carpet on the stairs may cover

[mouseworks.livejournal.com]

The boiler being that bad is really appalling.

Covering cracked stair treads with carpet is a common dodge here. The inspector can't look under it. In my case, I had to have a carpenter rebuild one section under the stairs before replacing the treads.

And if they put carpet over cracked treads, they knew what they were doing. Just cracked isn't necessarily dangerous, but flexing under foot sounds unsafe.

If you can, check the stairs from underneath.

My sympathies are with you all on this one. I was wondering if the landlord has called you back yet.

Re: The loose carpet on the stairs may cover

[redcountess]

No, not yet, if we don't hear from him by tomorrow, we call the HSE.