I rent a second floor Grade II Listed flat which is owned by a private landlord.
There is also a management company who manage the whole block and a maintenance company who are supposed to maintain the outside and the communal areas. The management company seem to change regularly and the new lot seem reluctant to deal with anything (for example, a recent letter sent out with no contact email address on, and they never answer the phone). The maintenance company are supposed to clean windows etc every three months but these haven't been cleaned for years. My reminders were just ignored until I gave up.
There have been some issues with a rotting window frame in my flat which is of course the responsibility of the maintenance company, paid for via the management company, to whom large fees are paid.
The owner and myself have had no success in getting any response from the management company and the owner decided, in frustration, that he would arrange for the repairs himself. We are both aware that as the property is Grade II Listed, we will require Listed Building Consent before any external work is carried out. This too has been a stumbling block as we have not been able to obtain a response from the Planning Dept at the Council.
I made the mistake of telling a neighbour the above. She knows the guys who work for the maintenance company and reported the issue to them without telling me she had done so. I was quite annoyed that she had gone behind my back and not even told me she had done this.
Having not bothered with the windows for years, the management company suddenly panicked and declared the window "dangerous". It really wasn't - their own contractor had confirmed this. They came this morning to fix a hoarding to the window which means that the window cannot be opened.
There are only three windows in the whole flat, and the other two have been paint-sealed shut (not by the current owner) ever since I've lived here. Now the third window, the only window which opens, has been nailed shut.
The hoarding is likely to remain in place for at least a couple of months as it will probably take this long to obtain the Listed Building Consent required before a permanent fix can be made.
I do not have any psychological issues in this regard, but I now feel quite unsafe and claustrophobic at home as none of the windows in the flat open and no fresh air can circulate.
I also worry that this is a fire risk as I would not be able to escape through the window should I need to, and I cannot open any windows to allow smoke to leave in the event of a small localised fire.
If this was the situation for only a couple of weeks I could tolerate it, but the windows will be un-openable for a minimum of a couple of months and I don't think I will be able to tolerate that.
Please, can anyone advise me what I can do?