Potientially dangerous cable - BT unavailable

blairie

I don't know where to post this and who to call. Just outside my house, at my neighbiur's chimney, is a hook which holds 3 BT phone cables. I noticed this week that the hook looks as if it is coming out of the wall.

I called Open reach, but they advise me to go to BT as this outside BT phone cable has nothing to do with them.

I called BT, stated the problem, was told my call will be re-directed and then the call gets cut off. I tried several times with the same result each time

It is possible that the cable is safe. It is also possible that it could come out during high winds or just come out. It could fling cables through my kitchen window, it could hit the carers visiting another neighbour 3 times per day. It looks like a potentioal hazard.

Does anybody know where/who I should turn to? And don't advise me to call BT or Open Reach as they are really really bad for my blood pressure.

Any advice much appreciated

tykesi

Nobody else you can turn to unless you want to get up a ladder and fix it yourself. Openreach are responsible for sorting this but they won't deal with you, they only take instruction from communication providers (CPs).

If none of the lines are yours you won't be able to instruct a CP to do anything about it and they are unlikely to anyway unless the issue is causing a faulty line. How about speaking to the neighbour and see if they will do anything about it? What 'could' or 'might' happen is pretty immaterial and if nobody is willing to do anything about it you should probably prepare yourself for just that being how it is.

teddysmum

The person on whose property the hook is fixed will need to report it to their provider.

bod1467

Openreach are responsible for the infrastructure - so I believe they lied if they said otherwise. (If that is actually what they said). However they don't usually liaise directly with the public ... any communication needs to go via your service provider (often BT retail).

JJ_Egan

Your neighbour should contact their phone provider .
Telephone cables are hardly likely to inflict damage .

Ectophile

BT don't own any of the telephone lines. With the exception of Virgin Media's cables, it's all the responsibility of Openreach.

Their page on reporting problems is https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/contactus/tellussomething/tellus.do

But be aware that Openreach operate an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" policy when it comes to maintenance. If nothing has gone wrong yet, they won't be interested.

blairie

Thanks to everybody for their advice. The person who owns the property does not have a phoneline. I guess we'll have to wait until the hook comes out completely and then see if they can restore the cables to my property and to that of another neighbour.

The cables are dangling over the entry of the 3 properties, so I can only hope that nobody will get injured.

I won't touch the cables as they are property of "Whoeveristheowner" and if I do a repair and it goes wrong I would be responsible. Can't afford to pay them damages.

Again, thank you very much for your advice and help

Blairie