Last October I wrote this post about the trials of trying to get hot water over the weekend. As it turned out, we decided to let the landlord know about the lack of help from his agent and he was as shocked as we were.
A few days later, I got an email from the land agent informing me that 'procedures' have been put into place to avoid such problems in the future. The 'procedure' was to call the owner of the land agent company. It seemed like a plan. The landlord also called us to apologize and gave us his own number in case of another calamity. It seemed that everyone was on the same page.
Fast forward to Sunday morning....
Yep! I went to take a shower about 9.30am and there was no hot water. I called the appropriate mobile number and got a message, so I left a message. In the message I heard, there was another number, so I left a message at that number, too. The lady at the second number called back within a half hour to say that she couldn't help but the first lady could and she should be contacting me soon because she 'checks her mobile constantly'.
*Insert cricket sounds here*
About noon I decided that I had waited long enough and called the landlord. I guess nobody is home on Sunday mornings except us, so I explained in a message what had transpired.
A few hours later, the landlord returned my call and got the process started to get us some hot water (It eventually took until Monday night to get hot water, but at least we got it.)
I guess the land agent doesn't understand what the word 'service' means because I never heard from anyone who Harcourts. Not that day or any other time up to now.
The landlord was, of course, not happy that the 'emergency procedure' didn't work so well and told me he was going to change agents.
There are two land agents that work out of Stratford besides Harcourts.. I'm glad I didn't have to tell him our brief-but-not-impressive encounter with McDonald's Realty because they manage another of his properties and he's not impressed, either.
The only other realty is Taranaki Farmer's Realty. They managed our last house. While they tried to deal with an absentee landlord (we saw him once in 3 years and he wasn't about to invest any money whatsoever in the house), they showed up every stinking month to 'inspect' the property (glance around and ask if we had any problems) even though we took care of the property and didn't bother them unnecessarily.
So, is this a sign of the times around the world or is it just in NZ? Either way, it's not a very pretty sign.
**For the record, Hubby came in from work at 6am on Monday morning and made himself some bath water. Then made some for me, too, by heating water on the stove, in the microwave and in the kettle again to have some bath water waiting when I got up on Monday morning. How sweet is that?!
1 comment:
apathy is pretty wide spread. I'm not saying all are like this, but too many want just the paycheck with little effort toward doing one's job. :(
Post a Comment