The Lazy Landlord
27-04-2011I'm not sure I have ranted about him before, but our landlord (as in myself and the lady friend's) is quiet possibly the laziest person I have ever met. Lazy with an extra helping of cheapness to boot.
Our first indication of this was when he tried to get a months rent out of us before we had even moved in, having put down the security deposit and signed the papers. Sure, absolutely, have a rent payment for a month that we won't be living there. That's normal!
Then last summer the heating element in our boiler broke, so there were a sizeable amount of tepid showers being had. After a dozen phonecalls, mainly with me getting annoyed at him and then him cancelling plans to come out and fix it, we finally got him to fix the damn thing. This coming after his brilliant idea of "turning down the heaters in the rooms we don't use will heat the water in the meantime" falling on its arse. Even then he tried to convince me, with a plumber and electrician in the apartment, that the heating element was fine. Which made the discovery of the clear snapped/worn/broken heating element left behind by the plumber all the more hilarious.
Lies and cheapness and laziness it would seem.
Don't get me started on when the pipes burst during the Big Freeze and his response was for me to "flag down" a council worker to get it sorted.
Sadly our landlord just happens to be the management company for the entire building as well. This is why we can only get Sky-conjobs to provide us with television, because he got a nice backhander. But at least we don't have to pay any maintenance fees, since we are only renting the place.
Although as great as it is not paying the fees, it would be better if he did his damn job and managed the place. There is a bulb that has been blown in our hallway for the past five months, yet to be replaced.
But justice is a dish that can take a long time to prepare and recently he got served a nice big old plate of the stuff.
The complex has two electric gates in it, one for people to come and go and the other for cars. The electro-magnetic lock on the pedestrian gate has been broken for about six months now. Maybe longer. What has happened is the gate was slammed shut a few too many times and has push the magnet back into the housing.
Solution to fix it: take out the magnet, pad the area behind it to prevent it falling back into the hole, replace magnet. Simples. Rough cost to fix, maybe a hundred quid.
The landlord/management companies solution: pop magnet out, balance it on the housing. Put up little cardboard sign that reads 'Please close gently'. Cost, free.
Seriously, that's how he "fixes" the thing. If you looked at it and blinked really fast the wind from your eyelids would push the magnet back in. Meaning that the gate has been constantly broken for six months.
This is relevant to the story for one simple reason. Since he did not want to spend one hundred quid to fix something small he now has to spend a couple of hundred in repair fees for something else.
See over the weekend there was no telly signal coming into the complex. No real big problem for me or the lady friend, but it's nice to have something on in the background as noise sometimes. After a few angry phonecalls from herself to the Sky-conjob guys (Northern folk can be mad when you take away their stories) we get told that the reason there is no signal is simple. Due to the fact that the gate is damaged a herd (yes herd) of scumbags had gotten access to the complex and destroyed the satellite boxes that feed the signal to the entire complex. Since this was only possible because the gate was unlocked the management company has to pay for all the repairs costs.
When I told one of the work guys this tale yesterday he used the age old phrase "A stitch in time...". Never before has it been so aptly used. Although am I a certain level of bastard for finding the whole situation hilariously funny?
Blue_jester