Sorry, this is long, I'm waffling as really upset by this. My landlord had all my windows replaced in my flat last week. Obviously I had no control over this process and just had to prepare as best I could. It was a three day job, I worked from home the first two days as I don't like having men/people in my flat without me there, they could have completed the work in two days as they worked roughly a half day each day. On the third day I had no choice other than go into my office as I had in person meetings I couldn't get out of. On the third day the contractor arrived alone, previously he had had two other men working with him and two vans. He explained he had put the other two on another job for a man who gives him a lot of work and who he needed to "keep sweet". He had previously told me this last third day was saving "the worst job for last" replacing the kitchen window at first floor level.
The previous two days the other two men had put dust overs over everything and it was still quite dirty afterwards but I accepted here would be some dirt in addition to the significant disruption. They had a Henry hoover they used to clear up afterwards.
As I had gone to work he literally didn't cover a single surface, I have three sets of freestanding shelves as the kitchen has no cupboards space along with wall mounted shelving and a dresser, EVERYTHING for my kitchen is on these shelves, from plates to packets of pasta. EVERYTHING was covered in 100 years worth of dust and dirt from the windows.
When I got home on Wednesday I could see the contractor had used my brand new hoover as it was out in the hallway and full to the brim. I had closed off the living room and bedroom and had stored as much of my kitchen stuff as I could move in my living room. I hid the vacuum in the closed living room as it's a brand new Dyson V10 £329 that was a gift, less than two weeks old. He had gone in to the closed living room and searched for the vacuum, found it and used it on the rubble from the window and broken it. It is full of plaster and rubbish that has gone up into the mechanisms and completely buggered it.
I immediately tried to call him, it went to voicemail, I tried to empty the hoover but could see it was broken, I emailed the estate agent and told them it was broken. The landlord had insisted he visit early the next day to see the windows before he paid the final invoice. I showed him the hoover and cried I was so upset about it, he was quite sympathetic and said he'd sort it. I now haven't heard since Thursday and have spent literally all weekend cleaning my kitchen, removing every item from the shelves and cleaning everything.
I've felt really badly about this, I was really good to the window company, one of them actually thanked me for making them so much tea as he said it doesn't often happen. I even bought them doughnuts on the last day as a thank you, as I am grateful for having new windows even if I didn't ask for them, my flat has been freezing and noisy with original 1906 windows.
It's really affected my mental health. I feel really really upset over having a new hoover and he used it without permission and broke it. I literally never have any nice or new stuff, my boyfriend bought it for me as he knew I struggled with my old hoover, the flat is really hard to keep clean. I'd wanted a hoover like this for years, to have this bloke go into my private space and take it and use it and break it has really profoundly upset me and to have no resolution from my landlord yet feels like they are going to try to duck out of it and I'm the one who loses out and have done nothing to deserve it.
I emailed a formal complaint to the agent, she just called me and said it's completely out of her hands as the landlord used their own contractor.
AIBU to expect my brand new hoover to be replaced?