Economy measures
I spoke to the managing agents of the block of flats I live in yesterday, to report some problems with the electrics. Basically the 'Economy 7' circuit timing is all to cock, the storage and water heaters are coming on in the day instead of the night, meaning everything is cold when I get up for work, and everything will be running on expensive day rate electricity.
Anyway, I phoned them back a little later because I remembered that the heaters in the communal areas haven't worked all winter, so I'm getting cold draughts under the front door etc etc. The conversation went something like this..
M "The heaters in the corridors haven't worked for some time.."
A "Yeah, we pulled all the fuses for them, they were costing a fortune in electricity"
M "Well, I'm not happy at all with that"
A "We asked all the property OWNERS and they agreed, you're just a tenant [emphasis hers], you'll have to complain to your landlord"
M "Well I only LIVE there.. what's next, are you going to turn the lift off to save money?"
A "Ah but the heaters aren't essential; most of the developments we manage don't have them, and the lift IS essential.."
M "But the heaters are fitted, and were there when I moved in, anyway the lift isn't essential, there's stairs..."
I strongly suspect that after my advice, next week the lift will be switched off..
I'm still trying to figure out how pissed off to be about this, it's not so much about the ambient temperature in the corridors (I dont exactly linger in them) as the fact that my heating bills are going up because my hot air is leaking away. My bedroom backs onto the stairwell as well, so thats colder now; the wall in question is freezing.
Thinking about it, what probably happened is that the agent wrote to the service charge payers, saying something like "Due to the rising cost of energy, the service charge will rise by X% next year, unless....". The (supposed) net reduction in the charge will reduce upward pressure on rents, so possibly my rent is lower now than it would have been, etc etc but my own electric bill has now risen by a certain amount as a result...
The main reason that I'm miffed is the fact that I didn't even know; they could have at least put a poxy notice up (after all, they have put notices up after the smoking ban that imply that we can't even smoke in the flats, which is incorrect). It would of course be poetic if in the future they had to shell out to repair damp and mould problems, caused by the lack of heating...
They DO earn back 0.1 Martin Point for NOT trying to 'enviro-bullshit' their way out of it, I expected some bollocks about "reducing our carbon footprint" (it's amazing how often this desire happens to mesh perfectly with the organisation in question saving money..).
Thoughts?
January 6th, 2010 - 21:05
They’ve got you by the balls mate. All you can do is move out, otherwise you either fork out for better insulation and/or more heating… or shout “vandalissmo” and smash the poxy place up (then they raise your service charge to pay for it all).
You’re not going to get any satisfaction out of a company that exists to make a profit out of you.
January 6th, 2010 - 21:07
Oooh, better idea. If it’s REALLY cold in the corridor nearest the door then spill some water and let it freeze. Then when you have a little “accident” on the ice, threaten them with some funky compo claim unless they turn the heaters back on.
January 7th, 2010 - 17:02
@Nick: It’s not cold enough to freeze, thankfully. As for vandalism, we already have a few vandals resident, and seemingly the ‘NO SMOKING!’ signs keep disappearing…
As for “You’re not going to get any satisfaction out of a company that exists to make a profit out of you.”- I would disagree (somewhat). The problem in this case is that they have an entrenched position without any real competition. It’s the same problem you get wherever there is a monopoly, or long contracts etc etc. Where goods/services are offered in a competitive market with ease of comparison between different offerings (and ease of ’switching’) such problems tend to disappear.
IMO the function of government and regulation is to deal with the situations where the market fucks up. Unfortunately the government (due to a monopoly and very little competition, and only then in the run-up to an election) fucks up as much as anything else.. but thats an issue for another post/show