Orbital anvil delivery service: order placed.

[reddragdiva]

• Wikipedia Brown, Boy Detective. (Bah! We did this ages ago!)

In an utterly unexpected turn of events, no gas fitter has called or shown up. At 1pm, redcountess called the HSE. They took our details and those of the agent (who may also be in trouble — they are in fact supposed to get the gas safety certificate, and by not passing on the landlord's address they've put themselves in the way); they'll be contacting the agent, and told us our next move for immediate action on the boiler was to call the council. Housing Services pointed us at the Tenancy Relations Officer, and we left a detailed complaint with them. The HSE are writing to the agent and the council will be dealing with it in the next couple of days, but we feel confident the orbiting anvils are slowly moving out of orbit and targeting Canterbury (where he lives) in an orderly fashion.

I just called the landlord again and he babbled "he's coming! really! Just get him to do whatever it takes, at whatever cost!" so we'll, ah, see.

Accuweather says it's seven degrees, feels like two. Yes. Yes, it does.

Update: New gas fitter showed up. He looked at the flue with a "wtf" expression on his face and ... promptly wanted to take a photo for Gas Installer himself. He's trying to see if a flue for that model of boiler is even available any more and will get back to us.

Comments

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

Ok, I give up. What are they both taking off? </showing off ignorance of literature>

[reddragdiva]

This guy.

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

Ah. Doh. I should have guessed that, rather.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

Are you a child of the late 1980s by any chance?

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

child of '79

[(Anonymous)]

Damn. I was way off.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

Accuweather says it's seven degrees, feels like two. Yes. Yes, it does.
Thanks to climate change - and air con - Perth has the best weather ever.

[stevek.livejournal.com]

Whilst he certainly deserves the full weight of the HSE to come down on his sorry arse, you need to be careful that he decides to keep your deposit as punishment for getting him in the shit.

Nevertheless, if he and the agent have broken the law they need to be punished.

Good luck.

[reddragdiva]

He wouldn't be allowed to keep the deposit for having made an illegal rental in the first place. And I'm sure the courts would be less than favourable to any claim he had on the deposit whatsoever.

[stevek.livejournal.com]

If the courts weren't favourable then there's no justice in this country! Hopefully it wouldn't come to that. :-\

[narnee.livejournal.com]

I believe that a landlord has to keep a rental property in liveable condition or else put the tenants up in another property or a hotel. Additionally, the tenants are not liable for rent during the time in which their residence is unliveable. I would doublecheck on that for the exact wording of the law, but I'm fairly sure of the general gist.

[redcountess]

He did offer us his vacant property to stay at while this was fixed, but that place could be just as bad as this one, and we have the cats to consider.

[ksta.livejournal.com]

hmmm, I'm getting suspicious. They ALWAYS act surprised and say 'oooh, they don't make them like that anymore'.

Either there are 10000000000000 types of ancient boiler, or they want people to shell out more to upgrade.

[redcountess]

That is my suspicion as we haven't heard back from him, yet I was able to find details of the flue needed from Googling, and also a place that has it in stock (in Kent, admittedly, but still).

[sister-stella.livejournal.com]

New gas fitter showed up. He looked at the flue with a "wtf" expression on his face and ... promptly wanted to take a photo for Gas Installer himself.

The landlord could always finance the new boiler by making an exhibit out of the old one and charging admission.

I do enjoy the visual you inspired of anvils circling Canterbury "in an orderly fashion" like eerie silent vultures.

I applaud your actions against this fuckwit.

[mouseworks.livejournal.com]

I'm still not sure what to do about my fuckwits, but I decided to go away yesterday and not come back until this afternoon.

Had a wonderful lunch with Chip Delany, and came back to find that the work, predictably, hadn't been finished even though they'd showed up yesterday but hadn't bought the correct handed tub. But at least I got a shower and bath (took both) in an amazing cheap for New York hotel (Red Roof Inn just off 5th on 32nd Street, $109.99 business rate). I'm tempted to bill this to them.

I recommend seeing if you can board the cats with a friend and fuck off out of town for a couple of days as soon as possible.