Renting Flat: Caught fire

Amnesia180

Hi All,

This morning I woke up to a thin layer of soot in the flat... the kitchen is absolutely covered and the little utility room that has a boiler with a few towels in it has been annihilated!!

During the night our timer (which controls when the boiler is turned on or off) caught fire and and has totally melted off of the wall. It's caused damage to the carpets, walls and kitchen.

However, the fire alarms didn't go off! (We have them in hall way and the kitchen) and the main buildings alarms didn't go off either!

I've called the letting agency but they are saying they don't know if they can get someone out to clean it up/install a new timer today or later in the week?! Surely this should be urgent and done TODAY?!

I'm just grateful we don't have gas!

Any advice would be great!

N79

Amnesia180 wrote: »

Hi All,

This morning I woke up to a thin layer of soot in the flat... the kitchen is absolutely covered and the little utility room that has a boiler with a few towels in it has been annihilated!!

During the night our timer (which controls when the boiler is turned on or off) caught fire and and has totally melted off of the wall. It's caused damage to the carpets, walls and kitchen.

However, the fire alarms didn't go off! (We have them in hall way and the kitchen) and the main buildings alarms didn't go off either!

I've called the letting agency but they are saying they don't know if they can get someone out to clean it up/install a new timer today or later in the week?! Surely this should be urgent and done TODAY?!

I'm just grateful we don't have gas!

Any advice would be great!

Sorry but LL's do not have a magic wand and can not conjure workmen out of thin air. Conducting the repair this week is not unreasonable, in my opinion.

Premier_2

In an ideal world it would be, but if there's no one available to do it, there's no one available to do it. What can they do? Deal with it!

Isolate supply to boiler.
Buy some cleaning materials, cloths etc and clean the mess up
Buy a kettle if you need some hot water

...or live in the mess til someone comes round to tidy up for you.

Amnesia180

I seriously hope you people do not rent properties... that would be appalling service.

They should come round themselves and do it then!

janey_uk

Can't believe a LL/agent would be that complacent - you could have died!!!

If you need an electrician to make the electrics safe, or need a gas plumber to do anything then you need to ask specifically. If the boiler is gas then both LL and Agent are being extremely complacent about the fire.

All workmen can be conjured out of thin air - it's called an emergency callout fee. Tell the agent you expect them to cover it, or that you will do it and deduct from rent.

Might be worth notifying the local fire service/council if the building system failed it probably isn't working/maintained which could be a breach of health and safety law. council as well, to check that the electrics were properly certified.

daleigha

i rent, and if this happened to me, as long as they were doing all they can to get it fixed as quickly as possibly i would be happy. if the repairmen already have jobs on there isnt much they can do about it.

when we moved into our current flat the heating was broken, as no one had lived in it for about 6 months. they got it fixed the day after we reported it, which i was happy with - i didnt expect it to be fixed on the day i reported as the repairmen had jobs prebooked.

if you owned the house its not likely you would be able to get someone out to fix it on the day, so as long as the LL is treating it as urgent thats reasonable.

maybe you could ask the LL to get the repairman to give you a quick call and advise you over the phone in the meantime what you could do to minimise any more risk?

LittleMissAspie

Why should the landlord clean the soot off?

They should be getting someone round to look at the fire alarms though. I'd be more worried about those not going off than a clean kitchen or working timer.

janey_uk

Electrical fires are a bit different though. Dodgy wiring can cost your life.
We recently had a light fiting start smoking after being up safely for years. We called our electrician (who did not install it I should add) and he was an hour away on another job. He was with us in an hour and ten minutes.

A modern electrical RCD panel should have tripped with an electrical fire - a new electrical inspection doesn't sound at all unreasonable to me!

poppysarah

Electrical inspection is the very least I'd expect -

Contact local council for advice - the private rented sector team in housing should be able to help.

Vampgirl

janey_uk wrote: »

All workmen can be conjured out of thin air - it's called an emergency callout fee. Tell the agent you expect them to cover it, or that you will do it and deduct from rent.

If only this were true! When our heating broke down during a cold snap a couple of years ago it was several days before we could get an engineer round. Both the landlord and ourselves spent the first couple of days calling every heating engineer we could find details of but they were all fully booked due to the cold weather so even emergencies had to wait. If there are no engineers available then there are none available, there are only so many to go around and if they are already busy on other emergency call outs then you simply have to wait. As a tenant, I feel that so long as the landlord is making all possible efforts to get it fixed then there isn't much else you can expect them to do.

To the OP: if you think that the boiler (or anything else for that matter!) is a fire risk then call the fire brigade and ask for a Home Fire Risk Assessment - they will come round and advise you on such things. You mention you don't have gas, so make sure the boiler is switched off at the mains for now and clean the area ready for the engineer's visit as soon as it can be arranged.

domcastro

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

Why should the landlord clean the soot off?

.

Because they let out a house with potentially fatal electrical problems - the least they can do (for nearly killing you) is to clean the mess (soot is murder to clean), fix the timer and fix the fire alarms. And you should get a big apology