To be charged for this?!

[knit1pearl2]

Full disclosure, I'm probably being U!

Flat flooded due to issue I've been raising with management company/LL for the past year. I've been dealing with all the admin surrounding that, including cleaning, drying out, trying to sort out all my damaged possessions etc.

One thing I did was hire a dehumifider as that can help dry a flooded property. I hired it for a week (LL paid). My receipt states a weeks hire and the very long email with instructions states I need to organise collection. After around 5 days the flat was pretty much ok, though smelly, so I turned the dehumidifer off to save on electricity.

Today I suddenly realised it was still here, it had been 10 days, and chased up company who were supposed to collect. They say I need to pay for the extra days. No idea if LL will pay for my mistake.

Now I fully appreciate the company can't hire it out to someone else while I have it, but it seems like poor customer service not to send out any kind of reminder or check in? I'm guessing they make a lot of money by people forgetting to organise it themselves.

Obviously they won’t email you to remind to organise collection, they make more money this way!

sorry for your stress OP but YABU on this one

Come on, you know you are being totally unreasonable! And do not expect your landlord to pay for your mistake, though if I was your landlord I would have reminded you.

Why do you think this is anyone else’s fault but yours? You hired it. You knew the terms. You knew you had to arrange the return and you didn’t. Of course you have to pay for your own mistake.

I don't disagree with the unanimous opinion

I do wonder at what point they would have sent a reminder (and hefty bill) though!

oh for goodness sake Op

own it

you cocked up

Of course YABU. Anything you hire is your responsibility to return it whether in person or arranging collection.
You should have contacted them as soon as you'd finished with it to arrange collection. They may have thought you weren't properly dried out so extended your hire period by default.

I did indeed!

I do feel they should send out an email along the lines of "You hire period expires in X days. If you do not arrange collection by X date, you'll be charged £X per day" just for transparency.

However, you live, you learn, you get a huge bill for a late dehumidifier!

They may have thought you weren't properly dried out so extended your hire period by default.

Certainly, but why not just send an email saying so! At what point would they stop extending the hire period and chase you up with a massive bill?

I agree that a courtesy email from the hire company would have been good customer service.

It's a bit like all those subscriptions that are so easy to set up but cancellation requires a phone call from your great-granny on the third Thursday of the month, between 08.00 and 08.10 to an obscure number that is not listed anywhere online. Sorry OP, hope you're all dried out - I might switch the dehumidifier on again for an hour or two to check the humidity

Take it on the chin, it's your fault. Of course an email reminder would be nice but it's not in their interests and it's your responsibility not theirs.

YABU