Tenant newsletter January 2025

Housing service

• Looking after the structure of your home, including repairing and maintaining the structure
• Carrying out an annual gas safety check and service of every gas or solid fuel heating system
• Maintaining the outside of your home, including chimneys, roofs, drains, gutters, outside pipes, outside doors and windows (including their frames) and external decoration
• Maintaining some areas inside your home, including plaster work (but not minor surface cracks), internal plumbing, power and lighting, carpentry such as floors and stairs (but not kitchen / bathroom units or cupboards)
• Maintaining the area around your home – this covers the front path or steps leading to your home and any shared areas of the building your home is part of (if applicable)
• Maintaining communal door entry systems, communal TV / satellite systems, lifts, stairwells, windows and doors (if you live in a flat)

Tenant responsibility

• Keeping a home clean, tidy and well maintained, inside and out
• Fixing, at your own cost, any damage caused by members of your household, family, visitors, and pets
• All decoration within your home, including repairing surface cracks and holes in the walls
• Replacing fuses and re-setting trip switches
• Replacing bulbs and tubes in fluorescent lights
• Periodically testing smoke alarms and replacing batteries annually
• Clearing blockages to sink,bath, and basin waste pipes
• Repairing and replacing toilet seats
• Replacing washers and dripping taps
• Replacing plugs and chains to sink, bath and basins
• Ensuring that drains and external gullies (except in shared areas to flats) are kept clear
• Replacing grids over drains
• Clearing blocked toilets if you live in a house or bungalow
• Repairing and replacing internal doors and frames including adjusting doors to close over carpets
• Repairing or replacing door locks, latches, keys, handles, bolts, and other fittings to internal doors
• Repairing and adjusting kitchen units, cupboards, drawers, doors, shelves, and worktops
• Replacing wall tiles on fire hearths and surrounds
• Keeping air bricks clean
• Clearing any blockages in outside gullies
• Maintaining and keeping the garden tidy
• Repairing or replacing gates and fencing (we will replace a fence that borders a public footpath)
• Repairing footpaths, yards, or patios that are not the main access to the front or back doors
• Replacing clothes posts, pulleys, and washing lines
• Putting your rubbish out regularly and securely, on the day of the bin collection
• Promptly reporting all repairs the council is responsible for
• Getting permission from the council to make any alterations to your home before carrying them out

Reporting repairs

Day-to-day household repairs:

Log onto Housing Online (our MyAccount platform on the council tenant section of the website) or call Mears on freephone 0800 313 4740

Mears target response times for repairs