Renting. No central heating for weeks now....longish - bear with me as am a bit tearful at present.

[SpikeandDru]

Okay - it is mild, I have stand alone heaters which are helping BUT the Rayburn which does all our heating has broken down
(a yearly occurrance). This time the small glass panel (which you look through to see the pilot light has caught) broke about three weeks ago. I woke up at 5am - strong smell of oil and found the glass bit was broken and the Rayburn's "lock out" light had come on.

I phoned the heating man direct on the advice of my Landlord and he came and took the glass bit off and said "Never ever known one of those to break before - am going to have to order the part and they are not simple to get"

This was three weeks ago. Today I phoned him and asked if he'd had any success obtaining the part and he was - not to put too fine a point on it - really abrupt and off with me.

He pointed out that the part was not something you could just get off a shelf (fair enough but I didn't know that).

Secondly he said "and I have to ring David (my Landlord - his pal - big surprise) and talk about how much all this is costing him because the Rayburn will need servicing too".

He then abruptly said "you should be paying for the servicing and not him". I must admit I was a bit floored and could only manage "should I". He was adamant that Yes I should - and that it was standard for tenants to pay for upkeep and servicing of appliances.

He then went onto say that he wouldn't do anything without the Landlord's permission. I pointed out that the Landlord had told me to phone him direct and he said "I accept that but I still need his permission to do anything" (Fair enough) Plus "I won't have that part anytime soon". So am guessing we are without central heating for the duration.

Tbh I was a bit shaken when I put the phone down. All I wanted to do was find out if he'd managed to get the part and if I could expect the heating back by Christmas and feel as though I got an opinion that I was a nuisence and a burden to the LL - rang the letting agent and said "OMG my LL has been paying for this servicing - is it really my responsibility" They said "No way - it does your central heating and the LL is responsible for the heating AND SERVICING" Have checked the rental agreement which says the LL has to pay for "servicing and maintainance of the central heating system"

House is utterly freezing without the stand alone heaters. DS is 4 and his room is like an ice box in the night so he usually climbs in with us at some point with icy limbs.

TBH I feel like crying at the moment - DH is away until Xmas Eve.

For what it's worth we have NEVER had any rent arrears and pay bang on time every single month but this man has left me feeling like a parasite.

Thanks for being patient - needed to get it off my chest a bit.

Appalling. Your landlord is responsible and you have been more than patient.

Yes, I tend not to deal with any of the service people directly, they have no idea (or should have no idea) of what is in your contract with your landlord. I'm currently struggling as well as my landlord changed agency and the new one is utterly rubbish at doing maintenance! A pity as you don't want to live in a dump, and also don't want to fork out money to do the maintenance. The new agent even went as far as to say, "we don't fix things unless it falls apart" .

I think you can write a letter of complaint to your landlord, his friends has no business with you.

Oh dear what a nightmare, as a fellow renter I can sympathise.

I'm not sure what the offical legal thing is but pretty sure whatever appliances your landlord has in place when you move in then it is his/her responsibilty to get serviced/fixed/ replaced. Along with the yearly gas/electric checks or whatever.

It's awful.

We live in a block of flats with a communal central heating and hot water system. The block was built in 1929 and the heating/hot water system are the same age as the building and desperately need replacing. But we have no control over that, as the building is managed by a very large company - we pay a huge management fee, and a heating/hot water bill, but barely have any say in anything. The heating/hot water have broken down over 20 times since September and there is f all we can do about it.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.............

What a rude man it is the landlords responsibility this happnened to my sister last year and the landlord sorted it out within a week.

I would make some noises to the landlord about contacting CAB .

Hope it all works out for you soon

Your landlord is absolutely responsible. Are you able to get hold of him directly to tell him how bad the situation is instead of dealing with this 'mate'.

If not I would find out where you stand on getting someone else to fix it quicker and send him the bill. It is really unacceptable.

Thanks for all your responses. Am going to phone the Landlord tonight and make sure he is aware that we are still without heating. On the whole he is a nice man but he seems to have an aversion to spending money on this property. Hence the fact that the Rayburn is only serviced once a year when it breaks down - in other words when he HAS to spend the cash.

The kitchen paint has been peeling off the walls ever since we moved in 3 years ago. He paid a man "cash in hand" for painting the house and kitchen - the "cash in hand" man used the wrong paint in the kitchen hence the peeling.
Recently he agreed to pay for someone to
re-paint it all and suggested - you've guessed it - Mr "Cash in hand" man again who apparently is "a bit slow to do things and needs regular reminders to come back and finish".

The downstairs loo has a suspicious looking bulge in the ceiling that I reported to him several weeks ago. His response was that he would get a "builder mate" to look at it but that he feared the verdict would be "the back area needs re-roofing". Have to say my thought at the time was "I can tell you the back area needs re-roofing - you don't need a builder to tell you that". Has the "builder mate" materialised - has he heck!

All in all I am a tad pissed off at present. I can cope without the heating - I know that many families are in the same boat where heating is concerned. I do have hot water as that part of the system is electric.

All in all though I think I'll be looking for somewhere else come the New Year.

Am still reeling that the heating man felt he had the right to give an opinion about the terms of my tenancy - especially as he was wrong. Makes me wonder if my dear LL is actually doing some moaning about the costs. Well good luck to him - if he wants to let us go with our regular and reliable rent then so be it - he'll have a hard job letting this place to anybody else in this state.

I'm a landlady and you sound like a really good tenant - you've been there for three years, always paid on time, take trouble to let him know when things go wrong. So why don't you just look for somewhere else to live? If you tell him that youare considering that, he will be forced to make the repairs to the house to keep you and if you go anyway, he will be forced to do them to get a new tenant and may end up with a void that will cost him money. You are paying (I'm guessing) a market rent and he needs to realise that you are not doing him a favour by staying there.

Thanks lll. Left a message for my landlord last night - just waiting for him to phone me back. As I say - he is a generally nice man and I hope we can sort this out amicably.

Okay - Landlord has now returned my calls and supposedly sorted it all out with the obnoxious heating man (his mate). Still no heating - we are frozen given the weather but I am looking for somewhere else to live.

My LL is a nice enough bloke but only services the heating when he has to - ie when it breaks down.

So am now waiting for the heating man to ring me and tell me he has the elusive part the Rayburn needs. Am not holding my breath to be honest - the man was so arrogant that even though he KNOWS the heating needs sorting out I cannot imagine he will make the effort to call and arrange it - no - he will wait for me to ring YET AGAIN.

More than anything what galls is that he spoke to me as though I was nothing - a week later nearly and I am still reeling.