flat woes

[percival]

So, the flat is warm again. After some haggling and harassing and bombarding the landlady with phone numbers of emergency sercives, she managed to find a plumber who could come out last night and fix the problem. It was an air lock near the hot water tank, which had very conveniently been boarded up (!) behind a kitchen worktop. Normally, hot water tanks are in easy-to-open cupboards. The C.H. system is so old that the engineer had real trouble figuring out what was where.

*** *** ***

Right, Percy should be one happy bunny now?

RONG.

See, our landlady was really upset by her bad handling of the situation. She felt that it was terrible that we were without central heating and hot water for nine days. So she is seriously thinking about handing the flat over to a property company to manage.

Which would mean a rent hike of at least £100.

Yes, one hundred pounds or roughly twenty percent. From £525 per month to £625-650.

And the shower that she promised us to have installed when we moved in? The shower for which we were prepared to SPLIT THE COSTS WITH HER because we wanted to make this flat our home for our remaining time in Edinburgh?

There will be no shower.

She is thinking about remodelling the bathroom, and anyway, the bathroom is too small for an "American-style" shower anyway.

Do you know what an "American-style" shower is?

A shower with DECENT PRESSURE.

Comments

[tefkas.livejournal.com]

:-(

I'm glad, though, that you do at least have heat, and hot water and stuff. Still, a rent hike of £100 doesn't sound exactly fun.

Showers: one of the prime indicators of civilisation.

[perceval.livejournal.com]

Well, exactly. We're seriously thinking of leaving the flat - especially since there are two-bedroom places with up-to-date kitchens to be had for between £550-650 all over town. Ok, so the neighbourhoods are not as nice, but they are still fine and close to all important amenities, if you know what I mean.

Did I mention that we partly furnished the flat and specially bought three new units for the kitchen?

[shellebelle93.livejournal.com]

Grrrrrrr....

Sounds like she's taken advantage of your generous nature...

I hate that.

*hugs*

[perceval.livejournal.com]

Well, all she sees is the hassle of providing emergency servies for the flat she lets. She doesn't see the couple that is keen to make this place their home. She also doesn't realize that when she decided not to keep her promise of a shower, it would have been decent to tell us straight away and get taps with an integrated shower head instead. She knew that having a shower was very important to us.

Fortunately, there are enough alternative flats available.

[piperx.livejournal.com]

That SUX. :-(

[brightfame.livejournal.com]

Arrrrghhh!

I was on the verge of saying congrats, then when I grasped the full scale of the saga, I was once more despondent.

May you rise above all this!

[wang1961.livejournal.com]

£625-650, that is a lot of money. Ouch.

[perceval.livejournal.com]

Well, it's common to charge that for 2 bedroom flats in Edinburgh, so the price we had before was really good. But I just don't want to let anybody get away with a 20% rent hike, if you get my drift?