Our house is an old Victorian terrace with slate tiles. The whole terrace, about 8 houses, has slate roofs. Our neighbour is having her roof relaid and the “roofers” started about 4 weeks ago and *icked about for 2 weeks before they were kicked off site. They made a horrendous mess and had no idea what they were doing.
Luckily, before they left they’d laid and battened down the felt. They did a terrible job of it mind, but still it was better than sleeping under the stars. She’s been living in this tent of a house for the past 2-3 weeks waiting for a proper roofing company to start.
Yesterday during the storms I noticed a few drip marks in the ceiling of our upstairs bedrooms. I dashed into our loft to find water dripping in all along the join to her house and there’s a clear line of no tiles, just felt, for half the roof!
I knocked on her door but there was no answer. Later after placing 5 buckets in the left to catch the worst of the drips, the neighbour from her other side came over and said, oh, she’s gone on holiday for a week!? She didn’t leave us a note or mention it to us and I thought we got on pretty well and it would have been the decent neighbourly thing to do considering the inconvenience she’s created for us.
So, other than meet her at the front door with a pair of bombers, how best to approach the topic that should she be picking up the tab for re-decorating the ceiling and walls?
