The Landlady has boiler trouble

You may recall that last week I was in receipt of a call from one of my Hastings tenants claiming their boiler wasn’t working. I say one of my Hastings tenants as if I own half of Hastings, which I most certainly don’t. Given the current climate in Hastings, which is as flat as a Staffordshire Oatcake, I am very glad that I don’t own half of it and that I only have a share in two seafront flats. One of the flats doesn’t even have central heating, which is a bit of a blessing as there is no boiler to go wrong. I’m sure our tenant doesn’t feel quite as blessed when the North wind starts blowing…

“I’m sure our tenant doesn’t feel quite as blessed when the North wind starts blowing”

My reliable Hastings plumber, who knows the boiler well and has indeed raised it from the dead with the plumber’s equivalent of CPR several times over the years, said that he wasn’t available until Friday, which was four days away. I didn’t feel happy that my tenant would have to suffer with no central heating or hot water for four days. Trust me, I’ve spent the long winter months in a South London flat with two toddlers and a broken boiler, which the landlord refused to fix, so I know how unpleasant it is. Besides, you get through hundreds of pounds’ worth of kettles boiling hot water for baths.

I therefore asked the letting agent to send one of their plumbers in. The following day, I received a call from my letting agent telling me that the plumber had been round and ascertained that the problem was not with the boiler, but with the meter which, somewhat embarrassingly, as a pay-as-you-go meter, merely needed money putting on it. D’oh!

So, somewhat amazingly, I now find myself with October behind me and still no boilers need fixing, re-booting, or replacing at a cost of thousands of pounds, although I am perhaps forgetting the fact that over the past three years I’ve spent well over £6,000 replacing both boilers in my rental flats in Brighton. Somewhat ironically, the oldest and most battered boiler that I possess is in my own flat. Not only is the boiler probably older than me but, rather than give The Big Son actual cash to burn in his bedroom, I have systematically removed all the parts which allow him to turn it up to unacceptable levels while I’m not there, so that it now resembles something Mad Max might live in. Roll on summer, that’s all I can say.