The squeaky wheel get the oil

Having lived in the US for so long, it's hard for me to comprehend the idea of blindly accepting whatever services you can get and calling it 'good'.  I suppose the fact that NZ is such a small place with very little competition for any service-based companies fosters such attitudes, but I was not raised here and I know that people can and will do better when pushed.

Yes, I am speaking of the land agent fiasco (click here for the story) in which we had no hot water for a whole weekend because there was no land agent available to give a crap help us.

We did, indeed, notify the landlord and when he got our letter informing him of the situation he couldn't apologize enough. He was under the impression, as were we, that Harcourts Agency in Stratford took care of rental properties 24/7. Apparently his mother is a land agent in New Plymouth and they both were shocked at the lack of service.

Well, I am relieved to tell you that I got an email today that said,

 'I am sorry that you were unable to contact anyone from this office when you had problems with your hot water recently.

Procedures have been put in place with an emergency contact number on our answer service at the office....'

Which makes me wonder: Does everybody just sit on their thumbs and wait for Monday morning when they have a problem? I gotta tell ya, that's not my style.

For the money we pay for rent (a lot) and the money the landlord pays for management (not a little, I assume), it's a shame that you have to squeak so loudly to get a little oil. But, ya gotta do what ya gotta do. And we did. And now we are squeak free. For now.