Landlord: what do you make of this?

hgotsparkle · 31 October 2014 at 11:40AM

If you received a letter from your tenants to say that the toilet is having issues flushing and thats it not urgent but just highlighting the fact that a problem is starting to arise, would you feel the need to send a snotty letter back saying that you don't appreciate the 'tone' of the letter and to go on about how good of a landlord you are and how you fix things so quickly?

I don't understand why my landlord has done this. We literally left them a letter just to make them aware that a problem is starting to come up, its not urgent so can fixed when they want to get to it and we got a letter back basically insinuating that we sent it to be rude!! I'm honestly really angry and upset about this as its made me look to be a bad person, and as far as we thought, we were being considerate!!

tom9980 · 31 October 2014 at 11:42AM

Your Landlord is an idiot, worry not.

G_M · 31 October 2014 at 11:47AM

Seems strange reaction.

But without reading your letter it is hard to comment on the 'tone'.

On the face of it, you have been reasonable and sensible, but perhaps the LL read your letter in a way you did not intend - is that possible?

theartfullodger · 31 October 2014 at 11:51AM

Log it, keep monitoring then sue for harassment, also a criminal offence

hgotsparkle · 31 October 2014 at 11:56AM

G_M wrote: »

Seems strange reaction.

But without reading your letter it is hard to comment on the 'tone'.

On the face of it, you have been reasonable and sensible, but perhaps the LL read your letter in a way you did not intend - is that possible?

It went along the lines of:

Just to make you aware that the toilet is startin to have the same issues as before, its not urgent but just letting you know about it, in case it stops flushing again.

The landlord has kicked off over little things before, but we are helpful as our landlord is elderly, so we put the bins out for them, take their glass to the bottle bank, offer to get shopping for them in winter (we live next door to them) we do everything the landlord asks. I know its probably just a case of someone with nothing to do being a busybody but it has really upset me as we have never doubted that they're a good landlord. I am keeping all the letters we get in case the landlord takes this up with the letting agents.

quidsy · 31 October 2014 at 11:59AM

Move. It will never get better.

I do similar with my current landlord, photo or description of any issue & email them with a quick fyi type message.

I have always received a polite thank you back with a question of if I want them to send someone round soonest or if I am happy for them to just have it noted & for me to escalate if & when necessary.

hgotsparkle · 31 October 2014 at 12:10PM

quidsy wrote: »

Move. It will never get better.

I do similar with my current landlord, photo or description of any issue & email them with a quick fyi type message.

I have always received a polite thank you back with a question of if I want them to send someone round soonest or if I am happy for them to just have it noted & for me to escalate if & when necessary.

I really wish we could afford to, but as this place is so cheap, OH just going self employed, and saving for a house, we just can't because we'd never get anywhere as cheap as we have now and it'd set us back too much and we really don't want that.

The landlord seems to direct everything at me, if I sign it from me and OH, the reply is directed at me. If they want to discuss something with us, its always when OH is out.
Me an OH should back get back from work at the same time later so if the landlord tries to talk to me about it when I pull in, I shall wait until OH arries and wlk away, leaving him to deal with it. Its just upset me so much.

13Kent · 31 October 2014 at 12:32PM

From your original post it appears that you are concerned with a minor issue, you say that you sent a letter to the landlord highlighting a problem that you think may arise, but from your later post it suggests you have had similar problems with the toilet in the past. The fact that you wrote a letter to the landlord who lives next door rather than just mentioning the issue to him indicates that you want things to be on a more formal basis and you want a record of what has been discussed. Maybe the landlord felt that if it was a minor issue as your initial post suggests then you were being overly formal and making a bigger thing of it by sending a written letter rather than just mentioning it to him, and perhaps that had a bearing on the tone of the letter that he wrote in reply?

Your posts suggest you don't have a good relationship with your landlord, and unfortunately as previous posts suggest unless you can see that improving because he lives next door there is no getting away from him unless you move out I'm afraid.

hgotsparkle · 31 October 2014 at 12:57PM

13Kent wrote: »

From your original post it appears that you are concerned with a minor issue, you say that you sent a letter to the landlord highlighting a problem that you think may arise, but from your later post it suggests you have had similar problems with the toilet in the past. The fact that you wrote a letter to the landlord who lives next door rather than just mentioning the issue to him indicates that you want things to be on a more formal basis and you want a record of what has been discussed. Maybe the landlord felt that if it was a minor issue as your initial post suggests then you were being overly formal and making a bigger thing of it by sending a written letter rather than just mentioning it to him, and perhaps that had a bearing on the tone of the letter that he wrote in reply?

Your posts suggest you don't have a good relationship with your landlord, and unfortunately as previous posts suggest unless you can see that improving because he lives next door there is no getting away from him unless you move out I'm afraid.

It was purely that something needed replacing which a plumber came out to do, as was meant to come back, but never did. I'm now having a family member who is a plumber coming over to sort it as its just easier.
The landlord knows why we send letters, as they do to us because we both leave early in the morning and don't return until after dark and the landlord has said that they don't like opening the front door when it is is dark which we understand.
We've had a few issues in the pst, but we have done exactly as landlord asked in sorting these issues. In general, if we bump into each other at weekends, we have a friendly chat for a while, and we have done errands in the past for landlord when we have been off work.
It just seems that this has been blown out of proportion over a simple FYI letter.

bris · 31 October 2014 at 2:21PM

It was a letter that didn't need to be sent in the first place, the LL may or may not have went over the top but why bring up a non existent problem, it's either broke or it's not.

Sounds to me like you are a bit of a nightmare, there is two sides to every story.

moon_river · 31 October 2014 at 2:34PM

hgotsparkle, we had a similar elderly landlady before. My partner was just trying to be polite and made her aware of some issues, unfortunately she took it the wrong way as criticisms. We never meant it that way, all I can say is it sounds like they don't do such 'courtesy' calls or letters themselves, hence the seemingly rude response.

Just keep a record of everything yourself to cover your backside I would suggest, only liaise with them when you need things sorted as they are not interested in anything else anyway.

You have done nothing wrong, take it easy

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Landlord: what do you make of this?

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