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Hi all, a general landlord-tenant question. I live in WV, if that helps. At
the beginning of the 'cold' season, my landlords hired a heating company to
come and clean out our gas furnace....the rental compan owns many complexes,
so I guess they had the heating company clean out all of the furnaces, a
maintenance thing I suppose. Anyway, shortly after the cleaning, we turned
our heat on one day and a loud...and I mean LOUD, boom occured. It was loud
enough to blow the front cover of the furnace off! It scared the crap out of
me, but after that, the heater basically worked normally. I could still hear
the 'woosh' everytime I turned the heat on, but that was basically it.
On Friday evening, I turned on the heat and it came on normally....but
through the course of 45 minutes or so of the heat running, THREE of those
booms happened...granted, none of them bad enough to blow the cover off of
the furnace this time, but loud enough to once again scare the crap out of
me! Someone told me that I needed to call the gas company and have them come
and make sure there wasn't a gas leak somewhere. I did that...mind you, this
was on Friday night....in the middle of the first big snowstorm of the year
here. The gas guys showed up, looked at my heater and said that whoever
cleaned the furnace had turned my pilot light up to about 3 inches high! I
know nothing about gas heaters, but I take it from the way the gas guys
reacted that this is NOT a good thing.
They "red tagged" my furnace and turned all gas off to it until I could
get it fixed. We were on the phone with our maintenance man (since the
rental company owner/manager/whatever he is) can't be reached after 5pm or
on weekends. The maintenance man offered to bring us electric space heaters
until the heating company could get here on Saturday morning and fix the
problem, which the gas company guys diagnosed as some sort of faulty valve
which is allowing too much gas to build up in the chamber, then, with the
pilot light 3 inches high, it was causing mini-explosions. To me, the words
"gas furnace" and "explosions' makes me VERY uncomfortable! We turned down
the maintenance man's offer of space heaters, since we like it chilly when
we sleep anyway and figured it would be no big deal to wait until the
morning.
Saturday morning comes and no heating company. We call the maintence guy
again...he says that his boss has called the heating company, they ARE
coming, they just don't know when. We wait...wait...and wait some more,
without the heating company showing up. We call maintenance AGAIN, he calls
his boss and says that the boss assured him that the heating company IS
still coming. In the meanttime, because of the snow and ice, the power in
our town goes out, so no dryer nor over to try to heat the house either! The
power finally comes back on, but still no heat for us and still no heating
company to fix the heater!
Around 4pm, my hubby calls the maintenance guy again and gets the same
story....they're still coming, blah blah blah....BUT..he says, if you look
at the time (by this time, it was 4pm on Saturday), I doubt they would be
able to get any parts they needed at this point anyway....so let me just
bring those space heaters to ya. So, he brings 2 small electric space
heaters to us....our apartment is 3 large rooms downstairs, plus laundry,
and 3 large rooms upstairs plus bath....its a pretty big place...he gives us
TWO small space heaters to heat the whole house! These things don't throw
out much heat at all, and my whole house is freezing. I had my daughter in
the ER TWICE last weekend for the flu, ear infections, and a 105 fever, and
she is just getting over these problems. It is FREEZING in my house, but
now, my maintenance guy is saying we have to wait til Monday at some point
for the heating company to come.
There are quite a few other companies in our phone book besides the one
that my rental company "uses" that offer 24 hour emergency service. Am I
within my legal rights to call one of these companies and bill it to my
landlords? I am desperate here...we are FREEZING, its freezing outside (20
degrees) and this house is NOT insulated very good. I am having a hard time
typing because my fingers are so cold!
Can someone please give me an answer ASAP because this is Sunday morning
at 8am...I HAVE to call someone today, I cant put my family through another
day and night of this. Thanks all.
Nancy
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