Summery of the day: I nearly had to crap in a bin.
Background: Last year, god knows when, our boiler broke. Just stopped working one afternoon. We tried to get hold of the landlord but no luck - turns out that his house flooded and his mobile phone (the one we have the number for) was destroyed and he only rarely checks his emails so it wasn't until two weeks later that he got in contact. Someone came out, the boiler was fixed and all was well. A month or so later the boiler broke again but a couple of weeks later magically started working again. It was OK for a while but then broke again. Contacted the landlord (again) who got a plumber out and he fixed it - this was just before last Christmas. We then get the winter water bill - it had gone from about £60 a month to £250 a month. WTF? Turns out the "fix" that the plumber did was only meant to be temporary and the landlord was meant to get a new one installed ASAP. The temporary fix meant that the boiler was using massive amounts of electricity but not doing much with it until finally the boiler tripped all the electricity in the flat - this was in Feb.
From February until recently we have been attempting to get hold of the landlord with no luck - he wasn't replying to emails or anything. When he finally did get in contact again he said he thought that the boiler had been properly fixed the last time the plumber came out. Bearing in mind we had repeatedly emailed him telling him that it wasn't.
Anyway, back to present day. Landlord bought a new boiler - was going to be installed last Wednesday but the one delivered was damaged. Fair enough, things happen. So, a new one gets delivered today, I haven't been feeling well so I stayed in bed and let my other half deal with it. At about 1pm (the boiler arrived at 10:30am) I woke up and stumbled out of the bedroom and into the hallway (where the boiler is) to find the boiler cupboard doors propped up against the wall (fine, would had been hard to work around them) and a plumber drinking tea and looking over the instruction manual of some sort by the new boiler. The shiny new boiler. Oh how I have wanted a shiny new boiler for soooooo long.
Guess what the landlord didn't ask for or get (hadn't even occurred to me to be honest)? Measurements. Of the cupboard. The one where the shiny new boiler will go.
So, this is the result -
Doesn't look bad does it? From this angle, nope, looks fine!
From this angle? Can you notice what the problem is?
Those runner thingies above it are where the doors are meant to fit into - the damned boiler sticks out so much you cant put the doors back in. I measured it - its 5inches too long. Wide. Whatever.
I now have a monstrosity of a boiler for everyone to see as soon as they walk in my front door (the door you see is my front door, I live in a flat). Lovely.
Just for added decoration here are the doors (ignore the metal panels, they will be fitted onto the front of the boiler once its finished).
So, it's just gone 1pm and I realise I need to go to the loo. In both senses of the word. The water is still off, I cant go round to the neighbours (I don't know them) and obviously I cant use the toilet. I thought, bugger this, I'm off back to bed.
I wake up again at about 4pm, the water is still off and I'm busting to go to the loo. I kept looking at our bedroom bin wondering if the plumber, or my other half, would hear me if I did my business in there. Thankfully, my wondering lasted just long enough - the plumber put the water back on before I took desperate measures. Wonderful! I don't have to crap in a bin.
I go into the bathroom, at a leisurely pace of course and sit down. My eyes wander to the bath which had a hose pipe in it. Ok... God knows what the plumber was doing with that. Then this little pile of dust/dirt catches my eye.
I'm puzzled and look up to find two holes in the tiles. I think my eyes bugged out of my head for a second.
A close up of the big one of the left -
I finish up in the bathroom and go straight into the living room where my other half is and glare at him. I did one of those shouting whispers, you know the ones I mean, saying that there are holes in the bathroom tiles. He says, "I know" with this look on his face that either meant "I don't care" or "Nothing I can do about it". Poor man had only had one hours sleep so I didn't get grumpy.
Apparently, when the plumber had been drilling in the cupboard, my other half went into the bathroom and saw the holes, he shows them to the plumber who pulls his glasses down his nose, looks at the holes then pushes his glasses back up and says, "Those walls are thin" and went back to work.
Yes, the walls are thin. Now I would have thought he would have realised he had drilled right through the wall the first time but nope, he did it twice. I can't say anything more on the matter otherwise I will end up smacking my head against the table I think.
After all this do we have hot water? Don't be silly! Course we don't, we have to wait until someone else can drill holes through our walls first!
Well, what a wonderful day.
Please excuse the rant and the amount of pictures. I'll have a happy, harvest themed post for you soon.
