To expect a working toilet?

[demirose87]

I moved into a housing association maisonette about 6 months ago. So far I've only had one repair which was a leaking window which meant whenever it rained one side of my bedroom ended up saturated. It took them 4 weeks to repair. Yesterday I noticed the toilet wouldn't flush and wasn't filling up at all, the flush mechanism completely broken. I rang them up and asked them to fit me in for a repair, I expected it to be that day, but they told me it could take up to three days. I said that is completely unacceptable, I'm 8 months pregnant and have been in and out of hospital with suspected early labour and have three children, one with a disability. Their response was ' it's not an emergency, use a bucket'. I said I can't believe you're telling an 8 month pregnant woman to use a bucket. I was absolutely fuming and got very upset. When my partner came home he explained it all to them again and they did come out four hours later and repaired it. Another part won't be able to be fixed till next Monday but it's working again for now so at least I've got a working toilet.. But I've looked online and saw that a toilet repair is always classed as an emergency and has to be responded to within four hours. I rang them up again this morning and ended up with the woman on the end of the phone sounding very aggressive and nasty, told me that I'm lucky I got it fixed because "old people" are the priority. So what about someone heavily pregnant and a disabled child? She told me no other tenants have had a problem with having no working toilet for up to a week. I find this really hard to believe. I've been so upset and stressed over this, maybe its just my pregnancy hormones.

Well the good news is you have a working toilet right that they fixed it same day after the second call. And whilst it wasn't fully working the toilet could be used by using a bucket of water to flush waste away. So I'm unclear why you rang again subsequently.

I totally get you're stressed and upset but I think you should let this issue go as it isn't worth the stress on you. Hope everyone everything works out with the pregnancy b

Thank you for replies. I phoned them back because I wanted to complain about the first person I spoke to last night and to check what their policy was, as I'd already read online that it is an emergency if it is your only toilet and should be responded to in four hours and wanted to know why I was told a few days.

It sounds like they misunderstood the problem as using a bucket is not a solution to a blocked pipe.

Maybe it's the "housing association" bit that has made some posters less sympathetic. Or maybe I'm just cynical....

AnywayYou're not overreacting OP. Your circumstances mean that you should have been taken more seriously. It's unfortunate that it took your partner's intervention to get something done.

Good luck with the birth.

This is one of those horrible threads where everyone jumps on OP because the first couple of posters did. Have some bloody sympathy. If I was dealing with everything she is, the toilet would have tipped me over the edge too.

People post on here for support. This is why they call us vipers you know, this exact shit.

Sorry OP. I've been on your end of one of these threads too. If you'd posted 10 minutes later you might have got different responses. I hope it's all sorted soon and good luck with the baby!

Well I imagine they told you it wasn't an emergency as you told them what you wrote in your OP, that the toilet flush mechanism wasn't working, in which case using a bucket of water is totally fine.

You are now saying something completely different - that the water won't go down the toilet. Which is a totally different matter and a huge coincidence that it happened at the same time as your flush mechanism breaking. You can hardly complain about someone reacting to the scenario you told them about rather than a completely different one that they couldn't have known about.

What did you want them to actually do though? The toilet had been fixed. If you really want to make a complaint then an email is likely to be more effective. I'd look up the complaints procedure online. Calling and complaining to someone paid to answer a phone is pointless as they won't actually be in a position to deal with your complaint properly anyway. If you'd just ring to rant at someone then I can understand that but also I can equally see why the person on the phone got annoyed with you. From her point of view your problem was being dealt with and you were wasting her time complaining about theoretically being made to wait for days when they'd actually come out within 24 hours anyway.

It's classed as an emergency repair. Op has every right to expect it to be fixed quickly. Which they obviously realised when her dp rang back.

Thank you to everyone who has been kind. Maybe it is because I live in housing association, but my partner works, so we do actually pay to live here.

I can understand you being stressed but I would expect the policy to come out within 4 hours is for a toilet that is not usable. If you can use a bucket to flush, then the toilet is usable. Obviously poorly phrased on the website.

It's not ideal but I don't think it's an unreasonable suggestion that you use a bucket to flush in the interim. It sounds like they could have communicated a bit better initially by telling you how to use the bucket. However, if you were upset and angry with them, they may have responded in a defensive way.

It can be difficult when you're upset but discussing things calmly generally gets a better response.

The bucket solution isn't unreasonable however I'd be angry too if I was having the pregnancy issues this lady is having and lifting a heavy bucket is not going to improve her situation.

Op in your situation I don't think you were being unreasonable. I hope that the remainder of your pregnancy is settled.

I think you need to call them and insist they come and repair it. A toilet is a basic human need, ignore all the use a bucket comments. I rent in military housing and we put up with a lot of crap but I wouldn't put up with no functioning toilet.

You 've got a partner. Stop being so dramatic!

Urm what has that got to do with anything?

What an overreaction. Just fill a bucket of water and pour it down.

Could you not have called a plumber yourself?

Drama fucking lama

Jesus what is wrong with people today??? Is there any need to be so fucking rude?

Forces- its already been repaired.

Whoa lot of hostility on this thread! I guess it's because you're in a ha property how dare you expect a functioning toilet how grabby you are!

Lot of people just see aibu as chance to stick the knife in.

YANBU OP, if you want anything fixed in a local authority property you need to hassle the shit out of them daily. Someone should have shown you how to flush it with a bucket of water if that was a temporary solution.

What a relief OP, I missed that post!

Whoa lot of hostility on this thread! I guess it's because you're in a ha property hmm how dare you expect a functioning toilet how grabby you are!

Indeed.

Glad its sorted OP and for the record my HA do view no working toilet as an emergency (I have kids so not sure if that makes the difference)

I missed the bit about the blockage. Unless it's something that shouldn't be put down the toilet like a toy, that's really easy to sort out yourself.

Throw a load of washing up liquid, liquid soap, shampoo or similar down the toilet. Dump a bucket of very hot water on top (NB not boiling as you may crack the bowl and then you'd really have problems). Wait for the water level to go down. Repeat with more water.

It can take a few repetitions but so long as it's biological waste and toilet paper causing the blockage, it will clear quite quickly.

Yes its been repaired for now as a short fix solution but plumber said it's not going to last till the pipe round the back is completely replaced. If it is because I'm in a housing association then that is very sad that people look down on others like that. My boyfriend works full time and I'm a SAHM to my three kids and a carer to my daughter so we do work hard.

The blockage is the pipe connected to the water system outside, where we don't have access to. It's a twisted pipe. I'm not a qualified plumber so I wouldn't have a clue where to start and probably wouldn't be allowed to touch it anyway so I dont want to go messing round with it, but thanks for everyones tips.

I can't speak for anyone else but I myself have had to go a few days at a time without a flushing toilet on a few occasions, as a private renter, a homeowner and when I was a teenager living at home with my parents. On all of those occasions it took at least a couple of days to replace the flush and we tipped buckets of water down to flush it. I don't think HA tenants are less deserving of help than anyone else and wouldn't expect them to put up with anything that I wouldn't consider reasonable for myself, regardless of how hard they did or didn't work. If my toilet was leaking sewage I would have it fixed immediately, no question, and would expect a HA to do the same for their tenants. If the flush mechanism broke we'd fix it when we got round to it, we now have two working toilets so might take longer but if it was our only toilet we probably wouldn't want to faff around with a bucket for more than a few days if we could avoid it. My response had nothing to do with the fact that you're a HA tenant and I hope I haven't come across as "aggressive" as that wasn't my intention at all.

Why is your partner only living with you for two weeks??

He's living with me for good hopefully. I meant that he only moved in 2 weeks ago.