To move house asap and consider suing estate agent/landlord?

[OhWhatAPalaver]

We rent a house, have lived here around two and a half years. In January of this year we had a new kitchen fitted, which was badly needed. We thought everything was fine until we noticed a strange smell. Initially thought something had died underneath the cupboard or something but we had a gas safety check and they found a pretty bad gas leak, which is apparently now fixed. However, I happened to also buy a new kettle a fews days after the gas leak had been fixed. When I unplugged the old one (which wasn't actually very old at all, it was just crap) I was shocked find one of the holes in the plug socket all burned and blackened and there was black stuff all over the prong of the kettle plug as well. Now alarm bells are ringing. We had a gas leak and an electrical fault literally right next to each other. The kitchen could have exploded, we could have died or been seriously injured. We arranged for the landlord /letting agent to get someone in to check the plugs. They did and said all were fine and it was 'cosmetic damage.' I didn't believe them for one minute so we asked our neighbour who is an electrician and he said it absolutely would not have passed the safety check as it will be a loose connection. Not only have the people who fitted the kitchen done a seriously unsafe job but the electrician who came to check a burned plug said it was fine. I'm fuming.
Where do we go from here? We've not told the letting agent yet. Needless to say I am absolutely furious with them for putting my family in serious danger. My partner wants to sue. I just want to get the hell out. Thankfully our contract is open ended so we can just move whenever but I'm not entirely sure how to proceed other than get toon rightmove straight away!

You can sue for defective workmanship Well yes, but only the person who paid for the workmanship can have a hope of doing that. Maybe someone else if they have actually suffered a loss of some sort because of it, but I'm not sure of the avenues for that. But the OP hasn't suffered a loss and didn't pay for it, so can't sue anyone.

Also there is no reason whatsoever to think that the socket problem had anything to do with the builders. That was almost certainly a defective kettle.

The LL may be able to sue, but the tenant can't. It would be the person who employed the fitter that had the contract with them.

Yes, it is expensive to move when renting.

Right, back online. Been busy. For everyone saying it's the kettle, the kettle short circuited/tripped out, this is incorrect. I on the off chance bought a new kettle as I didn't like the one we had. It still worked, there was nothing visably wrong with it. It was only when I unplugged it I discovered the burnt plug and the black deposit on the plug of the kettle. The actual kettle still works and nothing ever tripped out. So we had an overheating plug next to a gas leak for over 6 months. That's pretty bad. We didn't request the gas check it was just a routine annual one, as I said, we thought the smell was a dead rodent or something but we could locate said dead thing and it was probably the gas leak causing the odd smell.
We haven't had an electrical safety check, the letting agents just got an electrician in to check the sockets and said they were fine. Our neighbour says this is highly unlikely.
I'm not overly bothered about suing but it has been insanely stressful living here for the past couple of months and I really do want to get out.

Sorry, to change the sockets in the kitchen only. No others in the house have been checked.

Argh, to check, not change! Bloody phone.

OK. I believe it wasn't the kettle from what you've said. Was the smell fishy? That's the smell of overheating electrical sockets. There is no legal requirement to have an electrical safety certificate. Having a qualified electrician look at the electrics is fine from a legal point of view .
I'm sure you were never in any danger. Nothing happened. But of course living with building work is always unpleasant. But surely everything is sorted now. Wouldn't moving be more stressful (and of course you have a nice new kitchen).

The building work was finished in Feb. The gas leak was not discovered until the routine safety check in July. I bought the new kettle shortly after this and discovered the burned plug. It's the knowing that we were unsafe for over 6 months that has really troubled us. Not just us either, my dad is a landlord and he is appalled. I know nothing did happen but I know what could have happened and you only have to google 'gas explosion in house' to be very scared indeed.
I will speak to the letting agents in the first instance as to getting an independent electrician in. I expect they will say they won't pay for it though.

Gas leaks are generally identified by the smell though, so I’m not sure what else the LL could have done if they’re not there?

Are you saying you’d reported the smell and they’d had people out to check (before the annual check) and they kept missing it?

Your neighbour, did he complete a check or has he just told you its a loose connection based on what you’ve told him?

OK OP. So what, in your opinion, should the LL have done to prevent this? And importantly, what do you want to happen now? And why exactly do you want to move out? I assume you no longer feel in danger?

(Also the gas leak must have been minute, otherwise the smell would have been overpowering.)

Also having one faulty socket doesn't make any of the other sockets more likely to be faulty too so they definitely won't agree to another electrician being called.

(I have no idea why I'm so invested in this thread - it's really not that exciting :) )

Also, I thought electrical installations needed to have a certificate? I hope other posters can confirm, I’ve had a quick google but can’t make sense of it.

I’m just sure when I had a rewire, I’d been told I needed to get an installation cert but I may be remembering incorrectly.

If LL was given an installation cert then he’d be under the impression it was safe and completed correctly.

The smell of a dead rodent is entirely different to the smell of gas which is instantly identifiable. It all sounds a bit dramatic to me.

POPholditdown electrical installations have to be done by someone qualified in electrics. That's it as far as regulations go. Periodic (five year) electrical safety certificates are mandatory for houses in multiple occupation, but not for normal rentals.

It could be different for a whole rewire though - that's major work. But the sort of electrics involved in fitting a kitchen, or an electric shower or whatever - then definitely not.

Thanks TCN, I’m just having one of those moments where I remember something, but not entirely sure what!

If your Dad is a landlord then presumably he is able to tell you why you have no claim unless the electrics are faulty in someway and then the claim is limited to the damage to the kettle.

@ShalomJackie ha ha. Just what I was thinking but had decided not to say.

Partner is a gas engineer. He says any gas leak would be minimal if it did no harm to you or the property in six months. On that basis, you were never at risk of the house exploding.

Whilst responsibility for maintenance remains with the landlord, responsibility for reporting leaks is with the occupant. If you suspect a leak you call National Grid on 0800 111 999 immediately, not after six months.

And a gas leak smells nothing like a dead animal!

If you want to leave then give notice and find somewhere else. Don't catastrophise over something that didn't happen.

The gas safety guy said it was quite a big leak. Needless to say our gas bill has increased significantly. I think possibly the smell was confused because of the added smell of the faulty socket.
I don't really blame the landlord as such, he just got shit people in to do the work and because we thought the smell was a dead rodent we didn't inform him immediately. It wasn't until after the gas check and upon the finding of the dodgy plug did we get in touch about it as we obviously wanted the plug fixing. As it stands it is still the same. We aren't using it as I don't believe it's safe so I'm just going to have to speak to them about it again.
Our neighbour didn't have a look yet as he was just on his way out but he's going to have a proper look later.

You had a gas leak, which was fixed promptly once the landlord knew about it (I'm very surprised that you didn't realise the smell was gas, but then I have the sense of smell of a bloodhound and could smell a leak that was only detectable with a leak detecting device). You had some discolouration on a socket, which an electrician said is not faulty, but you believe it is. I can't really see that you've got a beef with the landlord, he's responded in a timely fashion to both problems.

If you still believe the wiring is faulty, you can get your own safety check done, but it will cost*. But you will then have the peace of mind that all is fine, or you will have the information you need to get it rectified and to get peace of mind that way.

I think an annual electrical safety check should be compulsory in rented properties. I bet there are more electrical fires than gas explosions in the private rental sector.

• In the bad old days before privatisation, the nationalised electricity supply companies used to do these for free. If only they still did!

You didn't notice the significant increase in your bill? What was your monthly usage (actual usage, not what you are paying) before and now?

What do you want to happen now?

Honestly, dodgy plug plus gas still does not make dead animal smell!

There was NO damage to the kettle!!

Sorry cross post.

We pay by direct debit so it was only when we had a meter reading that we had the increase.

What was the change in readings? A change in direct debit cost could be down to several things.

It was a really odd smell though. Even the gas man said it could be gas but he wasn't certain. He said to see if it goes away once he fixed the leak. It didn't, it has only stopped since we stopped using the socket so was lost likely both smells so close to each other that was confusing. The plug is literally only about 30cm from our oven.