Lousy property management

Pensioner had to heat her apartment with an oven

Cold feet, cold hands and clammy towels in the bathroom - it took almost a month for the heating to work.(Bild: sos)

A mother and her toddler are freezing on the first floor, while a neighbor a few floors up is heating his bathroom with a hairdryer. The pensioner on the top floor has been fighting to keep the heating on in her apartment since mid-September and the property management has turned a deaf ear. 

Dressed in a thick fleece sweater and cozy woolen socks, Katharina (name changed by the editors) opens the door to her condominium in Bregenz. The 70-year-old had already asked the property management company to turn on the heating in mid-September. "I live on the top floor, the roof is poorly insulated and in the morning it was quite clammy and cold in the bathroom," says Katharina. The response from the property management company was short and sweet: Due to the current temperatures, it wouldn't be necessary to switch it on yet.

A few days and phone calls later - the neighbor had also intervened in the meantime - the radiators were still cold. "On the warmer autumn days, I opened the balcony door in the afternoon because the temperature outside was a few degrees higher than in my apartment," the pensioner continues.

Ventilation did not bring the desired success
At the beginning of October, she tackled the warm apartment mission again: "As the radiators were still more cold than warm, I called the property management again and asked if the temperature could be raised. I was then told that a plumber would have to bleed my radiators. They could send one by, but I would have to pay the costs."

The sprightly pensioner took matters into her own hands. One day later, last Friday, the plumber she had commissioned came. However, there was no air in the heating system, which is why Katharina called the property management again to ask for the access code for the boiler room. "My tradesman then discovered that the temperature was simply set far too low."

The pensioner picked up the phone again and asked the property manager, who had not been available in person for a long time, to take care of the problem before the weekend. But nothing happened until the evening. Finally, the janitor of the block of flats intervened and a second plumber was called. The tradesman discovered a defect on Saturday. In order to fix it, however, the property management had to give the go-ahead - and so nothing happened on Saturday either.

Mother with toddler also affected 
So there was still a lot of shivering in the block of flats. Meanwhile, other residents, such as a mother with her toddler, were also complaining about the cold. "When I get up in the morning, the first thing I do is turn on the oven so that it's warm in the kitchen. There's an electrically operated radiator in the living room," says Katharina, describing her situation on Wednesday morning. In view of the 18 degree room temperature, her neighbor also resorted to special aids and warmed the bathroom by running a hairdryer.

He is also annoyed by the property management's less-than-exuberant commitment: "They also wanted to send me a plumber to ventilate the room!" He doesn't want to complain, but simply wants the property management to do their homework - after all, the community of owners would also pay for it.

After numerous calls and complaints, there was a happy ending on Wednesday after all. "The radiators are finally really warm," the happy pensioner told the Krone.