Good afternoon Laura,

Thank you for your email.

I was extremely upset yesterday after calling Marion, as mentioned in my previous email, after contractor attended we have received an email where Marion asked us to call her to discuss. However when I called her I realised that there will not be any discussion, after she told me 'No, can you listen to me?' in a very irritated voice. She told me that landlady will not be paying for contractor as we failed as a tenants to find the leakage. I did listen to her and after she finished I said that we do not wish to pay for contractor, as...... At this moment I was interrupted and told that she will hung up on me as I was raising my voice. I am not going to lye and say that I was not irritated, but I was never rude. I did unscrew the fridge and tried everything possible to get it out. As you probably imagine it is not very pleasant to live with horrible smell for almost 4 weeks. However I could not even explain that to Marion, as it was extremely difficult to say a word during that call. One thing that I have to say that you will not resolve situation by hanging up on the customer.

Perhaps Marion should have waited for the full report handed to her before accusing us of not looking after the property. We are looking after the property and maintaining cleanliness at all times.

Regarding the cat in the property, I did explain Marion the situation. Due to unfortunate circumstances there was no other person who could look after the cat. I did also say that we are happy to move out at any given notice by landlady and pay for any damages made by cat to the property. However I did not receive any more emails regarding this matter.

I also work in an open office and my colleagues could not believe to what had happened. I then had to spend whole afternoon writing complaint and searching where I should forward my complaint.

Thankfully James was eager to help as he always does.

Kind regards,

Natalia


@Reviewer1 No, landlady does not have to pay for spillage behind the fridge. If you read carefully you will understand that spillage was inside of the fridge not behind and skirting board was siliconed in, hence I could not clean it, see it or find out where the smell is coming from. They have now agreed that we are not liable

So just to check....... you split something behind the fridge and that's the landlords job to pay to have it cleaned up.Next time my car gets dirty ill go back to the garage I brought it from and say I'm too short to clean the roof so you have to pay for it to be done!

Dear Natalia,

Thank you for your email dated 10th February 2015 regarding issues you have had with the Management Department. I was extremely surprised to receive your comments about Marion Gardner as the feedback I have received since she joined the team is that she is friendly, helpful and incredibly professional at all times.

I have now investigated and confirm the following:

All Management issues are logged and I cannot see any call from you with regards to an electric or gas meter, however I can find information of a request for a water meter made by yourself on 28th August 2014, whereby Marion Gardner advised your Landlord of this immediately. Your Landlord then carried out some investigations to see if the installation of a water meter would be more cost effective, and she decided eventually on 1st September that she did not want to change this meter, at which point we advised you of her decision.

As part of our Management Service for the Landlord we carry out inspections six monthly. It would appear that we have carried out one inspection during your tenancy on the 20th January 2015. At this time you advised Goodfellows that the Landlord had inspected the property on 2 occasions already, which we were unaware of and had no involvement in arranging.

After our inspection the department received your email asking if a smell had been detected in the kitchen, and we informed you that we had not noted any smell. We asked if you could possibly try to identify where the smell was coming from in order for us to try and assist with the issue, by checking the cupboards and behind the fridge etc as this would help the contractor on his visit.

During the email we made mention to the fact that you have a cat in the property and this had not been mentioned previously and was not agreed at the time you offered on the property. The contract has a clause clearly detailing “no pets” therefore you were in breach of your tenancy.

On 3rd February, an e-mail was received from you to state that you had tried to move the fridge and that you could not get it out, and was afraid you may break something, and that the smell was still there. Unfortunately, due to staff sickness this e-mail was not picked up until Monday 9th February at which point an apology was given due to the lateness of the reply and information as to what action had been taken to investigate and locate the smell. You advised that you had cleared out all cupboards, and that you could not get the fridge out, and you were unsure if the smell was from the fridge or from the cupboard next to the fridge.

Approval from your Landlord was sought and a contractor was requested to visit this morning. On this visit it was identified that there had been a leak previously in the fridge, which had dripped into a tray underneath the appliance.


This was cleared out by the contractor and reported back to our offices. As a result of this being an issue with the cleaning of this tray we would usually look to yourself as the tenant to pay for this callout. Marion called to discuss this with you and make you aware that it may be a cost that you would incur as the tenant because the client would not be happy to pay for contractors to clean an appliance. It would appear that you were upset by the call and raised your voice making it extremely difficult for Marion to continue the conversation. We work in an open office and the conversation was heard by everyone present, they have confirmed that Marion was extremely upset by your shouting and asked if you could kindly let her finish or the call may need to be terminated until you had calmed down. It was noted for me to call you later today to discuss.

We have now received a full detailed report from the contractor who attended this morning, and he has stated that the Fridge freezer is an integrated appliance, and that the skirting board, which was siliconed in, needed to be removed in order to access the tray that was full of the leakage from the fridge. As a result of this information, the landlord will not be looking to charge you for this contractor visit, as it is clear that you could not access this particular part of the appliance to clean it and we have made this clear to the landlord.

My apologies that this information was not given to us sooner, or the conversation with regard to your liability would not have occurred this morning.

With regards to the admin charge for a reference this is something that most agents in the area charge and is clearly detailed our charges are detailed clearly on our website. This is not part of your tenancy between your landlord and yourself.

If you wish to discuss any of the above please do not hesitate to contact me.