Hi everyone
I wondered ifi could get some advice from you? I currently live in a rented property, and have been in since October last year. The property had just finished being renovqted so we were first tenants. Within the first week we had a problem with the drains under the house and they were backfilling into shower, bath and sinks. I contacted the landlord and sent his builder round, they couldnt figure out the problem but they put rods down the draqins and was a temporary fix. It happened twice more nd finally they sent out Dynorod. They put camera down and discovered tht the drain under the house was in some places smashed, in some places fractured and some places blocked. They sid they needed to contact landlord to arrange to come back to repair. They told us that this was affecting the en suite bathroom more so and that temporai;y we could continue using the toilet but not for solid waste, and the shower. Cutting a long story short we are still waiting for this repair to be carried out. I dont have any choice at the moment but to use the shower as i have back problems and cant use the bath, the toilet doesnt get used. there have been loads of emails to the landlord some of which he replies to some are ignored. He wont answer his phone or return any calls. when he does reply to emails he tells us that he has not forgot and they are waiting to arrange workmen and dynorod to come and repair. I haqve told hom that the water level is increasing, the bathroom smells terribly constantly which gets worse when the weather is hot, the en suite bathroom does not have the extractor wired up as the builder saud that it wasnt needed as it backed onto the main bthrooms extractor. the smell in the en suite is sometimes too overpowering to even sleep in it. the windows are opened during the dy but cant be left open as they are the old window catches with no locks on and the property is a bungalow. The main bqathroom is now becoming a problem in that the toilet wont flush properly the water level in there is rising and that bathroom permanently has a bad smell in it also. I am worried that the sewage is going to start coming up again through the sinks, bath and shower. I caqnt undestnd how it is taking this length of time to arrange for the drain compny to repir. The landlord has sent me photos of the problem in the drains, but we are still waiting to have it resolved. In every other way the property is perfect for us, it is to be a lonjg term lease which is what we need, we have a teenage son and we wanted to stay so he would be settled for his school. We are good tenants, we look after the property we keep the gardens tidy and we pay our rent direct debit every month. We have our own property which we rent out and we have had nothing but trouble with different tenants complaining abiut daft things so we dont want to cause a fuss for our landlord. But we know thzt the drains are the landlords responsibility to maintain and he hasnt. so i wondered what step we could take now, what our rights are and how to go about this without risking having our tenancy ended. Moving is something that would not be practical as I have back problems and am waiting for surgery.
Thanks for reading