The Boiler Broke in the Dead of Winter—And the Landlord Refused to Repair It Immediately
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Being without heat in the coldest part of winter is truly awful.
In this story, one landlord’s boiler stops working in the middle of winter. He also has a tenant, so he knows he needs to get this fixed immediately for both their sakes.
He calls someone out, but considering it’s winter and there are other people who also need their boilers fixed, the repair guy can’t come out until that night.
Now, the landlord is wondering if he handled the situation in a reasonable way or if he actually is a bad landlord.
Let’s read the whole story to decide.
Reasonable time to fix boiler?
So I’ve got a lodger, and I was also freezing when the boiler went off.
When I got home, however during the day I was lucky to be in the office .
I mentioned I’d call someone out at 11am when I saw the message (Their message arrived at 10:30am)
OP tried to get the boiler fixed as quickly as possible.
I called someone out, and they said they’d come and fix it by 10pm.
I said well that’s fine. To be expected at this time of year. I also told the lodger this too.
When I got home at 6:30pm , I got complaints from the lodger saying “Tell that engineer that if you’re not gonna prioritise us, we’re not gonna prioritise your money” and effectively told me to have a go at him.
I said look he said he’d be here by 10pm however I’ll call him anyway.
The repair guy did what he said he would do.
He also said that I apparently badly organised it, that British gas would apparently come out in two hours, and that I gave him no update after the initial part of me saying that he’s meant to be here by 10pm.
So I called to get an update twice (once at 7pm ish) and once at 9pm ish both times he said he’d arrive .
He arrived at around 9:30pm in the end and fixed the boiler by 10pm.
OP is wondering if he really was unreasonable.
Would it be reasonable to get the boiler fixed in that time?
Looking online, it seems that British gas aren’t as quick as he claims they are too, unless his experience of faulty boilers is in the summer when there’s less “need” for them outside of hot water perhaps
Is the above reasonable?
I think OP sounds like a good landlord. He tried to get the problem fixed as quickly as possible, kept his tenant updated and hired someone who actually came out and fixed the problem when he said he would.
Let’s see if Reddit agrees.
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This person thinks the repair was actually done really quickly.
Another person thinks the timing was incredible.
This is a good point.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a lifeguard who saves a child only to be confronted by parents angry about the paperwork.
Another person has a suggestion.
I get that it’s cold, and I certainly don’t like being cold. However, the landlord did everything he could do. The fact that he got the boiler repaired that same day really is pretty incredible. They really are lucky that the repair guy didn’t need to buy any parts in order to fix it.
The tenant has nothing to complain about. This is a rare example of a great landlord.
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