Monday, July 31, 2006
Two Guys, A Girl, And A Leaky PlaceTruth be told, this happened a few weeks ago but I was so busy with work that I didn’t have time for blog updates … and then when I wasn’t busy with work I was preoccupied with being lazy. Meh. It happens.
It started with a few errant drips and a small pail on a Thursday night. A few hours later, we cut the electricity when a light switch started to make funny crackling noises. By the next morning, the errant dripping had turned continuous and instead of one pail there were two buckets, a glass bowl and an assortment of strategically placed plastic containers parked on the floor, in a row, in our living room. 
Like any tenant would do, we called our landlord to have it checked it out and get it fixed. Like any good landlord, he stopped by the same night to see what had happened.
Because our little flat is privately owned but part of a bigger building, our landlord, Raheel, explained to us that he would have to contact Sweetings, the company that manages the property, to have the leak checked out. Should be no problem. They’ll call a plumber, get the leak fixed, dripping stops … right?Well, this is where the proverbial shit hits the fan.
Sweetings turned out to be not so helpul after all. The people who live in the flat above ours were out of town; a neighbour advised that they’d gone on holiday. So, Raheel called the fire brigade in on Friday afternoon to break into their flat as this could be done if they could unequivocally determine that the flat in question was the actual source of the leak. Unfortunately, they couldn’t determine this and so they weren’t able to break into it.Dead end number one.
Matt, Neil and I had all gone to work and, by end of play, no plumber had come. By then, the leak had moved across our lounge and started to spread down the opposite wall. The water was visible through discoloration of, and a slight bow in, our roof. And by the time we got home, we were discarding half full garbage pails of water into the street because they were too heavy to lift and empty in the kitchen sink.
We thought to call Sweetings’ 24 hour emergency line only to discover … they don’t have one.Dead end number two.
Raheel became inventive and found some way to contact the property manager’s son whose response to the emergency was, “Can you write a letter to the company explaining your predicament?” Like, you’re kidding me – right? Sadly, no.
Dead end number three.
The fire brigade did, however, suggest that Raheel call the local authorities. After being strung around for more than four hours by the plumber he contacted (who knew it was an emergency and promised he’d come around by 10:00 PM on Friday evening but then never did), Raheel called the police who proceeded to ram down the door of the flat upstairs. But – turns out the leak really wasn’t coming from their flat, although their living room floor was soaked right through. Yikes.Dead end number four.
By 1:00 AM early Saturday morning, after many doors had been knocked on by the bobbies, after beating Matt at a candlelit game of Scrabble, more than 24 hours after the leak began – it had finally been determined that the leak was coming from the flat above the flat above ours.
The girl who lived in that flat had had a plumber in on Thursday afternoon to have some work done … which, of course, was the same evening our leak began. Go figure.
Luckily, she was going out of town so it was of no inconvenience to her to shut her water off for a few days while the leak was being fixed. However, it was inconvenient when Sweetings’ plumbers made a complete mess of her flat on Saturday morning and still hadn’t fixed anything until Tuesday afternoon …
… on top of which, because they were acting on Sweetings’ behalf, had no problem breaking into any flat they wished. A bystander was locked out of her flat because the plumbers had broken in to check a pipe, screwed her door shut and then wouldn’t return her calls. She consequently had to wait an hour for a locksmith who she then had to pay £100 to get back in to her own place.
And just when you thought the story couldn’t get any worse …
Left in Sweetings’ wake last, but certainly not least – our upstairs neighbours, who had been on holiday. They came home to their flat (which they own) only to find the front door broken down and their living room soaked through. They had to gut the lounge, toss the carpet and throw out the entire underlay. Where had they been? In Barbados ... on their honeymoon.A nightmare for everyone involved? Hell, yes! But everything is fine now.
The thing that really burns my ass? The complete and massive irresponsibility of Sweetings, the property management company, to act in anyone’s best interest … especially when these people – our landlord, their tenants – all pay exorbitant fees which are supposed to be put towards solutions for problems such as these.
It would’ve been as simple as acknowledging Raheel’s phone call when the leak first began … at which point, someone should have realized that a plumber had, indeed, been called in the same day to do some work directly above the flat directly above ours. Hmm. Not rocket science.
If I’m not mistaken, I do believe a few lawyers may be called in and the masses organized to back the complainants up. That’s what the rumblings tell me, anyway.
Even so … may karma hunt their sorry, selfish, lack of common sense, moral irresponsibility asses down and strike vengeance upon thee.
# posted by @anatingor @ Monday, July 31, 2006 
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