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Original poster

Neighbour has spilled petrol and my whole house stinks

114 replies

Heysiriyouknob · 14/04/2021 06:38

Ok, so my powers of smell are obviously shit and I thought it was a gas leak (in my defence it's the living room that stinks and there is an old gas fire in there we don't use).

Called the "if you smell gas" emergency number they came out within half an hour. He immediately knew it wasn't gas but checked everything. He knocked next door and after much swearing (our next door neighbour is a fucking joy), was told that he had spilled some petrol on his patio.

This was at 11pm. The whole down stairs of my house stinks now.

Am I being stupid about worrying about fire risk from next door? I didn't go to sleep last night worrying there would be a fire next door.

I can't tell you how much my living room stinks. Front windows open all night (another reason for no sleep, we live in a crap area).

A night of no sleep so anxiety is off the scale this morning, always worse on no sleep so I'm not really thinking.

What do I do?

OP posts:
Notavegan · 14/04/2021 19:36

Environment agency will only be intetested if its entering a watercourse. I'm glad your landlord is sorting things now. I very stupidly spilled petrol in my car when I was a teen (18). It took weeks of driving with my head out of the window, but the smell did go. I hope your possessions can be saved.

DobbyTheHouseElk · 14/04/2021 19:46

What a star ⭐️ your LL is. I’m really glad he’s come to help you.

What has NDN been up to. Sounds seriously dodgy.

For context I spilt a teeny few drops of petrol today outside. No smell after 1min. My gloves stank, but they’ve been washed and are fine. The petrol was on my gloves. Only a teeny amount when filling the mower, but it’s all gone from my gloves.

It must be a large amount of petrol in NDN house. Which is very scary.

CornishTiger · 14/04/2021 19:47

Sorry I’ve been reading it as though the landlord was of the neighbours property. Who owns his property?

Bargebill19 · 14/04/2021 19:48

I just wanted to say, your landlord is an absolute gem.
Really hope it’s resolved very quickly and you can move home swiftly.
Your neighbour is an absolute pollock, the fumes from petrol spread incredibly distances and are still highly volatile.
Again, your landlord is fab. Good luck and hope you get a good nights sleep.

Original poster
Heysiriyouknob · 14/04/2021 19:48

@CornishTiger

Sorry I’ve been reading it as though the landlord was of the neighbours property. Who owns his property?
The ndn owns his house.

We are renting.

OP posts:
beginningoftheend · 14/04/2021 21:56

The upside of renting! Hope your ll gets somewhere.

AOwlAOwlAOwl · 14/04/2021 22:04

Glad your LL is turning out to be a good sort. Hope you sleep better tonight.

MNWorldisCrazy · 15/04/2021 10:38

@Heysiriyouknob Any update OP?

Your Landlord sounds ace!

Original poster
Heysiriyouknob · 15/04/2021 13:31

He spilled petrol all over his front room. Ndn has apparently been doing some work, all the floors are stripped back to board, skirting boards off. The petrol has seeped under and into the walls in that room and it's especially bad where he has ripped the fireplace out.

He let our landlord in to look last night. He didn't tell him why he had a load of petrol containers in the house.

LL is a btl LL with a lot of properties and a property developer so he's got his own contractors. They are taking up our lounge carpets and seeing what damage has come though onto our side.

I don't know what he's doing with NDN he said that not much attempt has been made to clear it up properly. Last I heard he was going to get the contractors to have a look of ndn would let them in.

Long story short, he has a flat that some tenements moved out of earlier this week a couple of miles away, we are going to temporarily stay there as it's furnished while he sorts it all out (we can't stay at in laws for too long).

It's a bloody nightmare and I'm just glad we don't own the house!

OP posts:
timeforanewnameagain · 15/04/2021 13:34

What an absolute plank!

AOwlAOwlAOwl · 15/04/2021 13:51

Christ. NDN could be in some real bother there. I hope he has insurance.

Glad your LL is being proactive and it's good fortune he has an empty property you can use. I hope you're not away from home for long.

Justilou1 · 15/04/2021 14:01

I wonder WTAF your dickhead Neighbour is doing? Stockpiling the bloody petrol for some kind of dystopian, post-Covid future, perhaps? What a knob! I assume environmental health will luuuurve him!

Spudlet · 15/04/2021 14:04

Wow, I wonder if NDN’s insurance will even cover that sort of idiocy?! Not your problem though op. Glad your LL is on it and you have a safe place to go to.

DobbyTheHouseElk · 15/04/2021 14:52

Crazy NDN. What was he doing? This is going to be major work. Good job you don’t own your house. Glad you’ve got a good LL with spare properties. How fortunate.

Doesn’t bare thinking about if something had ignited. Glad you and your children are safe and away from the fumes.

What an idiot NDN is!

WeatherwaxLives · 15/04/2021 15:18

What a complete fucking idiot. With that information perhaps the fire brigade would attend or at least give some clean up advice? It's definitely a fire risk if he's got petrol seeping into the fabric of the building!

Your LL sounds ace btw!

Bargebill19 · 15/04/2021 15:56

Well that’s a bad news/good news update. I’m so sorry that you have a twat as a neighbour, but so pleased you have a wonderful landlord. How fortunate he has the empty flat!

britnay · 15/04/2021 15:58

:o

Original poster
Heysiriyouknob · 15/04/2021 16:08

He's got quite little property empire from the sounds of things - he had two places that were inbetween tenants!

He said he will keep us updated but we are just not all that invested that house, it was only ever going to be a short term thing while we were finding somewhere to buy up here.

I do feel sorry for him though, it's a shitty thing to have to sort out.

Just have to give him notice now when we exchange Blush

It's a shock to have a good landlord. We've had some shockers in the past.

OP posts:
BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz · 15/04/2021 16:16

Wow! What an idiot (neighbour) keeping containers full of petrol in their home.

MNWorldisCrazy · 15/04/2021 17:11

@Heysiriyouknob

He's got quite little property empire from the sounds of things - he had two places that were inbetween tenants!

He said he will keep us updated but we are just not all that invested that house, it was only ever going to be a short term thing while we were finding somewhere to buy up here.

I do feel sorry for him though, it's a shitty thing to have to sort out.

Just have to give him notice now when we exchange Blush

It's a shock to have a good landlord. We've had some shockers in the past.

I would get looking for somewhere to buy ASAP (if you haven't already found somewhere, of course).

Meanwhile your neighbour sounds unhinged! Someone in the next town to me had a Jerry can of petrol in their kitchen and stupidly opened the lid - somehow whatever was in the room at the time, caused a MASSIVE explosion and the entire house burnt down. You could see the flames from the motorway.

I wouldn't want to go back to living next to him again, personally

Original poster
Heysiriyouknob · 15/04/2021 17:40

@MNWorldisCrazy we are buying a Place! Just been told this week that the vendors have found a chain free property. That was holding things up so I'm really hoping that we will be moving in a couple of months to our own place.

Hopefully the neighbours are a bit less twatty.

OP posts:
Original poster
Heysiriyouknob · 15/04/2021 17:41

And I feel really lucky and also really stupid for spending the night in the house. I just wasn't thinking.

OP posts:
SoupDragon · 15/04/2021 17:45

What on earth was he doing that involved having that amount of petrol inside the house?? I can't quite imagine the quantities necessary to cause that much of an issue in your house. Madness!

JackieTheFart · 15/04/2021 17:48

That’s really shocking that he had canisters of petrol in the house. There’s a reason petrol stations will only let you fill one small one.

Glad your landlord is being helpful about it.

TonTonMacoute · 15/04/2021 18:00

Petrol is not particularly flammable I believe, it's the fumes that can be dangerous as they can explode.

You are well out of there, and if I were your LL I would be worried about the whole thing going up. He sounds like he has matters in hand - more than I can say about your batshit NDN.