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What can I do about my letting agency?

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I live in a rented house with two others, it's owned by a landlord but managed by a letting agency (we've never met and have no contact with the landlord). I've lived there about 2 years now and recently have experienced a catalogue of disasters to do with the house, some of which could potentially have been dangerous and even fatal. These include:

1) Loose rendering on the outside of the house falling off due to strong winds, smashing into our garden and next door's yard. There is another loose bit outside my bedroom window, if this landed on someone or went through a window it could be lethal. I have phoned the agency about this at least four times and we have been into the branch and reported it twice. A specialist has apparently been round to look at it and they're considering quotes on the repair work but this is going to be costly so nothing's been decided yet. This issue has been going on for over a month now.

2) A routine appointment was made a few weeks ago with my housemate for a gas engineer to come round and check the certificate, he did not turn up despite her waiting in all day. No alternative appointment was made. We told the agency about this last week. They said they would phone the engineer because they'd been having several problems with engineers not showing up to appointments but saying they had. This weekend I smelled gas in the house and called the emergency number and the emergency gasman came out and switched the gas off. I called the agency and they told us they'd rung their usual repair man who would be coming at 9am the following day. He eventually showed up at half past 12, and informed me they hadn't specified that it was urgent and that he needed to be there by 9. He found a leak and showed me that the gas had gone down from 20 to 6 on the scale, which is pretty damn serious I would think.

Is it just me, or do I have a case against our agency? I don't know where to report them though or who to tell. It's annoying especially because the last girl we spoke to there was helpful about the rendering and gas and I don't want to get her in trouble, because although she's in charge of the gas certificates, she did arrange the routine appointment in the first case and it's not her fault the guy didn't turn up. But if nobody bothered to tell the engineer to come at 9, then surely they're at fault? There was a suspected gas leak which the emergency service guy marked down as "immediately dangerous". Can anyone give me any advice on what to do? I'm sick of the agency ignoring us, they've been completely useless from day one and I want to do something about it. I wouldn't care so much if it wasn't for these being potentially extremely dangerous events. Help!

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