Heart attack

Monday, February 15, 2016

Boiler Problem . . . Almost Sorted

We spent a particularly cold night. No heating doesn't help. We considered our options. We had mentioned the situation with Mark Sherratt, pastor of our church, Milton Keynes Christian Centre, on Sunday morning, which was before we'd attempted to contact our landlord. This morning we decided to go and see Mark at church and ask for advice as to how we could resolve the problem of the dysfunctional boiler. He said that we had several options, pay for the work which had been booked with British Gas this Friday, go to Smart Move, the rental agency which we'd used originally to rent the house or go to Milton Keynes Council as they were very likely to have our landlord's details on record for Council Tax and other purposes. So, once we'd finished at church we drove into the city centre and parked where we usually park in the multi-storey carpark near Debenham's and walked through the shopping centre towards the Council offices. The receptionist was very helpful and told us we'd need to phone from the council office, as she gave us two numbers to ring. There was a considerable wait as several other people were waiting to use the telephone ahead of us. When we eventually got through, we were informed that they would be able to find our landlord's address in their database and that an officer would need to come to the house to inspect the boiler. More, I think, to prove that what we were telling them about the boiler was accurate before contacting our landlord. Having finished at the Council offices, we walked back into the shopping centre and went to Marks and Spencer's to do a bit of shopping and then returned to the carpark to get to the car and drove home. It was barely minutes after we got in the house when the telephone and the officer from the Council said that he'd be visiting at around 2 o'clock. He didn't actually arrive until 2.30, and had a letter to put through the landlord's door detailing the boiler situation. At around 4.30 the landlord telephoned, having got in from work to discover the letter on his doormat and saying he would attempt to find a boiler repair man to deal with the boiler misfunction. He later rang to say that he would come after 7 o'clock with sufficient cash for us to pay for an engineer who  will come out in the morning and didn't want us to pay ourselves. So, hopefully, by mid-morning we will have some resolution to this whole situation. We now have the landlord's address and telephone number in case of any further problems we may have with the house.

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