CD Player Ruined By Plaster Dust

viveka

Last Thursday a section of my ceiling was repaired by the local council (my daughter had let the bath overflow upstairs and I had to make a hole in it to release the water) :rolleyes:

I was at work when the repairs were made and when I came home I found that they had been generally tidy (they must have used dust sheets etc.) but there was a thin layer of plaster dust over everything (all my electrical equipment included).

Now, when I come to play my CD player, it skips like mad, which it never did before. And when I dusted under the turntable the dust was particularly thick there.

I love music (I play in a band) and it's all I live for so I'm gutted. I'm on the minimum wage and as a single parent with a daughter to care for I can't afford to replace it.

Can I claim for this equipment from the council? And if so, how do I go about it?

Thanks in advance for any advice

Stonk

You can buy cleaning discs. The problem is probably dust on the lens, which you might not be able to get at because it would be retracted when the drawer is open. The cleaning disc should get any such dust off.

Then again, you might ask why you should have to buy a cleaning disc to fix a problem of their causing!

viveka

Exactly Stonk

But I'll buy a lense cleaner this weekend and give it a try

I'm just wondering what I do if it doesn't work.

Butlers1982

i think that it would be difficult for you to proove that it was by their doing that it now doesnt work properly. You could take it to someone independant and ask them to look at it-but theyd probably charge you-then you could try to get the council to recover your costs-but they may not ! !
what a vicous circle! !
Id be writting to the council straight away

calisto

Take it apart with a Philips screwdriver and blow/shake the dust out, then clean the lens with a damp cotton bud. Wick up any moisture with the dry end afterwards. If you have any isopropyl alcohol type cleaners use that, but don't go out and buy the stuff if you don't have it - I would stick with damp bud, unless there are very stubborn stains on it.

Do not press hard against the lens as they are usually mounted on a fairly fragile arrangement.

Clean up any other parts of the CD loading mechanism tray with a damp tissue. Do not wet any of the electronics or PCB. If you accidentally do then no worry, just don't power it up for a day and the damp will evaporate.

Jobs a goodun! :T

calisto

Another trick - if it really is just plaster dust, which is dry - try vacuuming at the face of the front loading tray. Any dust on the lens should be sucked off through the draw aperture, along with all the rest of it. No need to open it up then.

Take care not to scratch your player with the vacuum hose!

asea

did they not prewarn you that there would be dust though? if anyone does work on the ceiling that's a pretty inevitable consequence!

sleepy

Sorry, I don't know where you actually stand, but if I were working for the council I'd be a bit annoyed by you trying to claim anything back.

You/your daughter damaged the ceiling, they then came round a fixed it for you (for free?), you didn't think to cover up/move anything you didn't want damaged and they tried to be as clean as possible (as you've admitted). If I were them I'd be tempted to suggest it was your responsibility to look after things more carefully.

Sorry, reading it back it does sound a bit harsh, but I can't think of a nicer way to put it. I don't think they owe you anything.

asea

i have to admit that is exactly what i was thinking!

viveka

Some great suggestions, thanks everybody :beer:

But no, there was no communication from the council before the repairs were carried out.
They knew the extent of the repairs to be done and I didn't.
Surely a brief telephone call to say 'please remove any electrical equipment before repairs are carried out' is not unreasonable?

As it was i'd moved everything over to the other side of the room before they came anyway to make it easy for them to access.

I pay my rent and council tax up front anyway sleepy. Are you saying that if you'd paid to have this work done privately and had equipment ruined as a result you would have no right of redress?
Just because I rent and have the work done 'free' I should stop moaning and be grateful?

sleepy

Please don't be huffy with me, I really didn't mean it to come across as it sounded (now huffy sounds bad, hopefully you know what I mean, I didn't mean to unkind). I just simply meant that if I had someone coming to fix my ceiling I would move/cover up anything of value to me. You said it looked liked they had been careful, what more do you think they could have done?
Surely if there is nothing else they could have done, it's not their fault and you can't expect anything from them.

To put it another way, your daughter has accidently damaged their ceiling, while they were fixing it, they accidently damaged your cd player. The reason I mentioned cost, is because if they didn't charge you for the ceiling damage, it seems petty to try to get money off them for the cd player.

I've not rented from the council before so I don't know if they made you pay for that or not. I know when I've been privately renting if something like that had happened I would have to pay for the ceiling repair myself (from my deposit) because it was me that caused it, so I was wondering what the stance was with the council, whether or not they made you pay for the repair. I know you said you pay your rent and council tax, but that is entirely different to paying for the repair.