Hous.Assos won't fix faulty fire alarm (in block of flats) what to do?

dobbie82

Hi, a friend of mine lives in a Housing association building.

its an old house made into 7 flats.

The fire alarm kept going off every few hours, HA wa called, few days later came out and said its fixed. still carried on for couple of weeks.

came out again reckoned its faulty and showed the tenants how to silence it??? thats bright.

anyway, a fire broke out on the top floor, the fire alarm didnt go off, and the tenant was lucky to be alive as he was unconcious when they found him.

I was relieved my friend, her husband and baby were ok, and thought at last it would be fixed. that was before xmas.

I went there today and its still faulty!

There are 7 flats over 4 floors, one main door, no fire escapes on the outside of the building that i can see.

Is there anyone she can complain to to force it to be fixed?

p.s. sorry for typing errors, i am feeding the baby!!

melancholly

from the housing corportation website:
http://www.housingcorp.gov.uk/server/show/nav.358#complain
which links to this pdf:
http://www.housingcorp.gov.uk/upload/pdf/Complaining_about_a_HA_March_07.pdf

Guy_Montag

Call the local firebrigade (not using 999, check yellow pages or the phone book) & ask them. There should be someone there who can give you advice about the landlord's responsilities.

tbs624

Guy's right - contact your local Fire Safety Officer. My understanding is that there are specific requirements under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (RRO) that may apply to this type of property - the common areas of houses in multiple occupation (HMO); the common areas of flats and maisonettes. AFAIAA regular logged checks on fire alarms etc should form part of a fire safety risk assessment.

If there is a fire and it can be shown that the owner/manager of the property knew there were faults and/or had asked people to switch the warning system off , I would have thought they'd be leaving themselves open to a negligence charge?

If the alarm is going off repeatedly when there is no fire you could also try the Council's EHO (Environmental Health Officer) on the grounds of noise nuisance, because presumably it also affects other people in the vicinity of the property.

mdean

I would write a formal complaint personally addressed to the Chief Executive of the Housing association.
They will probably be glad to hear about this problem as it sounds like a dodgy contractor to me

annifranakapan

Agree with all the advice before - I'm sure the local press would be very interested in a story like this, in fact the nationals would probably be interested too especially as there's already been one serious fire here.

Actually, a quick phone call to the HA informing them that you are going to get in touch with the press if the alarm is not fixed by the end of the day should do it!

Here's hoping it's sorted by the end of the day (can't believe they showed tenants how to silence it :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: )