People Recount The Time They Got A Taste Of Revenge

“I used to work as a housing inspector for a government body.

One day I received a complaint from Mr. X. Mr. X stated that his housing provider, a giant housing corporation that employed thousands of people, was ignoring the tickets he was lodging with their maintenance department.

I conducted an inspection of his property. Mr. X stated that the maintenance team had inspected and deduced that the damp was condensation arising from his poor upkeep of their property. All of the rooms appeared clean and tidy.

In the corner of one of the rooms, I found clear evidence of damp penetrating in through the wall and across the flooring.

On the exterior, I found damage to the masonry that was clearly allowing rainwater to enter the structure.

As per our standard procedure, I sent an email to the company outlining the issues identified and gave them 28 days to resolve the matter. This type of housing company signs up to best practice standards for all their properties and is meant to operate far above the legal minimum for rentals.

After a few days, I received an email from the head of their maintenance department stating that the issue would be investigated, but also, in so many words, asking if I was confident in my findings. I scrolled down to find a long email chain that had gone from pillar to post around their maintenance team, everyone that had ever visited the property, stating that there was no damp and implying that I didn’t know what I was talking about.

One after another, all disputing my competence. Some managers will forward email chains like this as a non-confrontational way of saying what they’re thinking.

As someone that could take legal action due to the state of this property, I found this lack of respect indicative of their attitude towards their housing standards and wanted to take some action, but I’d already granted them a time period that needed to expire before I would take action in relation to this case.

I forgot entirely about this incident and carried on with my busy workload. That was until several weeks later when one of my colleagues called across the office to me asking if I could take a phone call in relation to housing disrepair. I said that I was snowed under with cases and asked her what it involved.

She said that it was another tenant from the same housing company, complaining about the standard of their repair work. She said that another officer could deal with it if I didn’t have the capacity.

It was like she’d handed 8 year old me my main Christmas present.

I told her ‘I guess I’m not so busy after all, send it over.’

My colleague transferred the call over. It was a very distressed man stating over and over ‘They’ve put guttering in my living room and the water is still coming in.’

I asked if he meant on the outside of the building from his living room. He said ‘No’ and then repeated the statement over and over.

I said, ‘Are you available right now for me to come take a look?’ I moved around my other appointments and was there within 30 minutes.

I entered a spotless top-floor apartment, only to find the following: A hole in the ceiling with water pouring through, a bucket, guttering across the roof of his flat, emptying into the bucket.

It seemed that the roof had a leak which had caused the ceiling to collapse.

Instead of repairing the leak and the damaged ceiling, the company’s maintenance team had run guttering along the length of the leak, and a drain pipe that emptied into a bucket.

It rains constantly where I was working. The man had been in a state of limbo for several days, having to empty the bucket every few hours as not to let the apartment flood.

He was severely sleep-deprived and stated that he was afraid to venture away from the bucket for too long. The repair had been conducted several days prior, and he was on his last legs. His significant other had also accused him of lying over the phone, with her stating that he couldn’t be at home, as she could hear heavy rain in the background.

At that moment, many questions went through my mind.

I wondered why the company thought it was okay to not repair the defective roofing.

I wondered why the roof hadn’t at least been patched prior to a full repair.

I wondered why the repairman hadn’t run the down-pipe out of the window to avoid the need for a bucket.

I wondered why the tenant had not been temporarily rehoused with his roof collapsing.

I wondered how this maintenance team would ever have the stones to question anyone else’s judgment.

I was a mixture of utterly perplexed, astonished, and delighted, all at the same time.

I decided to write an email as professionally as I possibly could, with no reference to terrible repair works.

‘I can see that your maintenance team has already conducted repairs to try and remediate the damp. It doesn’t appear that these works have been sufficient in resolving the issue.

Please find enclosed a notice requiring works to be undertaken.’

However, I sent the email complete with pictures of the room, with the new water feature as the centerpiece, and a legal notice attached referring specifically to issues arising from ‘internal rainwater goods’.

I’m aware that legal notices are viewed by higher-ups in the company and permanently stay on the property file.

I could just imagine the maintenance team, their higher-ups, and their legal department, all sitting around appreciating the repair works.

This was deeply satisfying by itself, but even more so when they completed the repairs to both properties within weeks.”