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[biggriffin]

Hard for me to say. But i agree with tunnie on this, if your not happy go to the local tile warehouse, buy some tiles and do it your self.

if something breaks in my house i,have to repair it, i don't have the luxury of phoneing the "housing association" 

[Sir Tigger KC]

If you hired a car and it had a problem you wouldn't fix it yourself or pay for repairs would you? 

[Stemo]

I am fairly sure the council will send someone round to check the work. Despite what people think of rented properties, most social landlords pride themselves on the properties they let and, these days, the rents are comparable to the private sector (up here, anyway).
It's (some) private landlords that don't seem to care.

[Entwood]

The workmanship looks fine to me, good spacing on the tiles, neat cut work around the plugs. No poor workmanship there in my opinion 

Colour? Well yes that does not match, but as others have said it's a council property. You rent it from the council? It's their house 

Sorry but I believe if you pay rent then why should you get a sub standard service, if a job is to be done then do it properly, the council create work to use up government funds so why not use them to keep up the condition of the properties they own.

I was amused by this at first, but Mr Skrunts is right.  You pay your rent and for that expect a certain level of service in return, like any other business transaction. 

It wouldn't have been a much bigger job to have knocked all the tiles off and redo the lot. It's a bodge and shows a level of disregard from the council/housing association towards their customers! 

[devil mode ON]

or does it show an understanding of the requirements of those who provide the money to do the work ??  ie taxpayers ??

Council customer .... would that be the taxpayer or the claimant ??

[devil mode OFF]

 

[Stemo]

There seems to be a level of misunderstanding from some folk here. Those of us who don't live in high rent areas i.e. London or the Home Counties, pay a similar rent for a social landlord as is paid by the private sector. There is hardly any subsidy. If someone is on benefits, then the taxpayer subsidises them whether they are in private or social housing.
In 2000 the government put in place a rent escalator so as to bring both rents into line. Our rent has increased by over 5% each year since (in fact nearly 7% this year).
We also pay our council tax, just like anyone else, and my wife probably pays more in income tax and nat ins than a lot of people earn.
As for repairs, the social landlord(ours is one of the largest in the country) have to abide by a charter, the same one that covers right to buy and so on. It is a choice some people make. Pay rent for a place you will never own and get all the repairs/maintenance done, or buy and do your own repairs.

Kate is entitled to expect a reasonable level of repair/maintenance and, should she choose to, can kick up a fuss about such things.


Now then, park your high horses and try to realise that not everyone is as fortunate as you think you are.

[Stemo]

Just to add to that, I had a quick look at the twenty houses that are local to me in our road. Five are bought, six have families on benefits and the remaining nine have working families. So, despite the perceived 'benefit culture' people on benefits are actually in the minority.

[Kevin Wood]

I'm with Mark's DTM on this. Someone has paid the guy to do the job. He's turned up, must have realised he's supplied the wrong tiles and thought "f**k it", taken the money and ran. I wouldn't accept that job and, I suspect, neither would the landlord. He's hoping he'll be long gone before there's any comeback.

He offered to find and fit matching tiles. He could have explained from the outset that they might not match, or insisted that he needs to replace the existing tiles to do a satisfactory job, but he chose to source matching tiles. Having failed to do what he offered, he expects to take the money and leave a shoddy job.

[brendan1983]

Or...   he was instructed by the landlord to just fit whatever he could find?

On another note if the house was like that when you moved in why did you? Or why wasn't it agreed before you moved/signed contracts that it would all be done?

[Sir Tigger KC]

As a landlord myself I'm finding this discussion interesting in that some folks seem to think that if a tenant is on benefits then it's reasonable for them to accept a lower level of service. 

There's a word for that...... apartheid!

[YZ250]

Those saying that this is ok are joking right? 
Admitting that he couldn't match the tiles would have been preferable, then a decision could have been made of where to go from there. 

Think yourself lucky, the tiler used to work in a Body Shop. 

[tunnie]

finding it interesting all posts on 'level of service' and 'standard' of service.

Forgetting the colour for a minute, is it a bad job? Is it dangerous, are the tiles about to fall off? Does it look like they were put up by Clarkson after a few beers with just a hammer saying 'how hard can it be'?

Simple answer is no. The actual fitting of them is fine. (at least shown in the photos)

The colour does not match, but as the council is a landlord for probably 100,000s+, I suspect they bulk buy products to save a couple of quid. So I suspect they did the best they could, with the tiles they had. The house I (well FatherT paid for) while at Uni had all kinds of tiles, some painted with paint coming off, this was a private landlord. 

If you want the kitchen to look the way you want to, then do it yourself. As I personally don't see the difference between this and someone saying I don't like them all brown, change them to blue. Especially on a council funded house were it's zero cost to you.

[slowboy]

make a phone call and find out the response

[Andy B]

....

Think yourself lucky, the tiler used to work in a Body Shop. 

Ah! A Golf Harlequin        http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/03/volkswagen-golf-harlequin-vws-strangest-idea/

[Stemo]

finding it interesting all posts on 'level of service' and 'standard' of service.

Forgetting the colour for a minute, is it a bad job? Is it dangerous, are the tiles about to fall off? Does it look like they were put up by Clarkson after a few beers with just a hammer saying 'how hard can it be'?

Simple answer is no. The actual fitting of them is fine. (at least shown in the photos)

The colour does not match, but as the council is a landlord for probably 100,000s+, I suspect they bulk buy products to save a couple of quid. So I suspect they did the best they could, with the tiles they had. The house I (well FatherT paid for) while at Uni had all kinds of tiles, some painted with paint coming off, this was a private landlord. 

If you want the kitchen to look the way you want to, then do it yourself. As I personally don't see the difference between this and someone saying I don't like them all brown, change them to blue. Especially on a council funded house were it's zero cost to you.

You suspect they bulk buy and you suspect they did the best they could. That's a lot of suspecting. Our landlord gets a man out and, if he doesn't have it on his van he goes to B&Q or the local plumbers merchant or wherever they have an account.

[tunnie]

....

Think yourself lucky, the tiler used to work in a Body Shop. 

Ah! A Golf Harlequin        http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/03/volkswagen-golf-harlequin-vws-strangest-idea/

Looks like Polo to me