This is long - I apologise!
We are renting a home and have had a few issues come up over the 13 months we have been in. In each case, we have either had to phone the landlord's agents daily or wait months for repairs (or both!). Our landlord insists on using her own handyman whenever possible and will not let anyone else undertake work that she wants him to do.
Last summer, our shower started leaking and we reported it immediately to the agent. It took the landlord's handyman three months to come fix it. When we had our next inspection, the agent noted that we'd "allowed" a lot of mildew to grow in the shower cubicle, and I pointed out that we had warm water trickling through constantly for three months, so it would have been impossible for us to stop mildew growth. He tutted and we moved on.
We had a bird's nest in our chimney last year as well. I found out from the previous tenants that they had requested the cowl, which had blown off the chimney, be refitted several times before they moved out, and definitely in October 2013. We moved in January 2014, unaware about the cowl situation, but let the agents know that we could hear birds in the chimney. They built a nest, and by the time we were able to get handyman out, the nest was active and couldn't be removed until the end of nesting season.
We sent an e-mail request for a chimney sweep to remove the nest and fit a new cowl at the beginning of October. In November, the agent provided a chimney sweep to remove the nest from the chimney. The sweep was on the roof, poised to fit a new cowl, but the landlady vetoed the sweep, as she wanted her handyman to fit the cowl instead.
I have followed up weekly since then with the agent, and he keeps assuring me that he's booked the handyman, and then seems perplexed the next time I phone to say that the handyman has not in fact appeared to fit the cowl. We are now in February, four months on from our first written request, and the birds are definitely checking the chimney out, though we haven't yet started to see twigs coming down, so they aren't yet nesting, but according to my good friend google, nesting season starts this month.
What recourse have we got in this situation? I absolutely refuse to live with bird droppings / mites / assorted filth coming down the chimney into our sitting room for another summer. We are currently on a rolling month-to-month contract, so I guess I always have the nuclear option of giving notice on the house, but I'd rather not move if there is another way to resolve this.