Ok, so perhaps a slight exaggeration of the current saga but it feels appropriate! David = Lee & I, Goliath = Hall & Woodhouse.
This story pre-dates me & Lee, Peter who had the Oddies before me and probably a good few tenants prior to that. And the story starts with a damp wall. A damp wall that when I took the pub on looked like an eye sore. Brown patches coming down the wall to the right hand side of the door with mouldy patches too, so H&W sent a decorator to paint over the damp as they told me that it was an irrigation problem and that "problem is fixed" as I was assured and that "it just needs to dry out". ***massive eyeroll
As we've been decorating the pub we've noticed the wall to the left of the door soaking wet. I am NOT exaggerating. It had rained 3 days all day and when we took the paintings off the wall to paint the paint was flaking off and the wall was actually wet.
My BDM (business development manager), Ian, was due in that week to look at the work Lee had done on the pub but instead he was confronted with my pointing out the absolute state of the walls along with the mould spores growing in the gents toilets. We have a chat and I'm asked to report it through the property maintenance desk which I do.
I get a call from the building surveyor who tells me that rising damp has been an ongoing problem and that we would need to close the pub in order to rectify it. Hmmmmm me thinks. Close the pub, I'm already running at a loss so closing the pub seems a bit daft. The mould spores would also be rectified by a de-humidifier. Electricity and water didn't mix the last time I read the manual but perhaps it has been re-written? Anyways, back to the damp walls and the rising damp. The clue is surely in the title "rising" damp means it comes from bottom up where as the damp we have is coming from the top down. Lee puts on his Sherlock hat and digs out his magnifying glass and we identify the problem. The downpipe is built into the wall and sits on a small ledge that runs the length of the building. This is not waterproof, there's plants growing out of the ledge and a huge number of other indicators that there is a very real and current problem with the down pipe.
We try to explain this via email, in detail, to H&W but get very little in the way of a positive response. I ask for the report from the survey that was done last June which claimed it was rising damp and that it required the pub to be closed. After asking for the report twice I lose my temper a little. I write one of my well crafted emails with Lee's help on the technicalities of the building and I send a fairly well constructed email to the building surveyor, my BDM, the 3rd party contractor and Mark Woodhouse. Obviously the catalyst that was required as the following evening I had a call from a guy who I've labelled as "The Fixer" in a Reservoir Dogs style.
They turn up en masse the following day and finally, finally, after a good inspection agree with Lee's synopsis of the problem. And agree that he should carry out the works. They've also arranged to decorate the men's toilets and get rid of the mould. All being well this means that we will slowly but surely get the problems solved.
Next on the list - an internal wall that's now wet. We think perhaps related to the heating as it does seem to have started since I've been putting the heating on but they're coming Monday to look at that. They've requested Lee's presence too which made me chuckle!