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!

The gas safety guy said the bill should come back down again by the time we have a new meter reading. We were paying 66 quid a month and it went up to 130!

You're not getting this - the DD amount is influenced by several factors (including usage). Usage is only accurately reflected by readings, and comparing to the same period in previous years.

But I get the feeling you don't want to rationalise this, you want to stick with this idea of a big gas leak (that smelled like a dead animal) and the house potentially exploding.

What do you want to happen now? Have you reported the outstanding issue, and if you want to move, have you checked your notice period and notified the landlord?

I actually (thankfully) don't know what a dead animal smells like up close but I'm guessing it's unpleasant, which is what this smell was.

I'm just going off the information the gas safety guy gave me. Why would he say it was quite a big leak if it wasn't?

Like I said, I'm not arsed about suing, that was my partner, but I do think that having an electrical fault next to a gas leak is pretty major. And then to have someone say there is no fault, when there clearly is.

There are several other issues with the house as well that have been reported an not dealt with correctly. More minor than the above though. Even the landlord was a bit pissed off with the builders as they didn't adequately treat the damp in the kitchen and still haven't. But that's another issue entirely.

Anyway. I'm going to call it a day, we have an open ended contract so can move whenever we want. I will contact the letting agent to see if we can get an independent electrician in and see what happens from that.

Hello

I'm an electrical engineer by trade, also gas safe qualified.

The electrician hired by your LL will have actually tested the socket. It doesn't sound as though your neighbour did - if so, did he condemn it?

All electrical installations should be certified to show conformance with building regs. Competent persons can self certify.

I've never dealt in house bashing so my knowledge is admittedly limited. However, as soon as the gas leak was identified, it was repaired. As soon as an issue with the socket was identified, the LL sent someone to inspect it.

You've no evidence that the gas leak was caused by the kitchen refit. Your LL has done nothing wrong from what I can gather.

Also - tradespeople very often exaggerate. They very often like to be the hero.