There is a serious and long standing issue with respect to the heat and hot water service provided at the Lancaster West Estate involving the replacement or refurbishment of the boilers. Apparently, there are at least three of these I learn once again after reviewing the communication from the Lancaster West Estate Management Boaard (EMB) and the TMO/EMB Area Manager from this period of time in 1997 some nine years ago.
If a boiler replacement had been undertaken with coincident modernisation in 1997, this whole problem with respect to the central heating being left on throughout the summer could have been avoided. Further, costs and efficiencies could have been addressed as well. These benefits are described in the EMB newsletter. Apparently there was an ultimate decision NOT to replace the boilers in 1997 which has been repeated at this time again when such a decision was in the offing. Instead, the central heating valve is being replaced in each flat of the Lancaster West Estate which has some 900 residential units.
At the time when there was a decision to be made with regard to a replacement or refurbishment of the boilers in 1997, I received on 20th June 1997 the Spring issue of the EMB newsletter which described the boiler replacement which was about to take place. Apparently, this was not done, and a refurbishment was undertaken as described in the then Area Manager's letter to me.
My verbal discussion at that timee with the Estate Officer indicated that such a decision was being contemplated which finally settled on refurbishment instead of replacement. He indicated to me that he thought this decision was wrong, and I agreed. While the EMB newsletter received on 20th June 1997 described a replacement to begin at the end of July 1997, a subsequent letter from the TMO/EMB Area Manager to me dated 28th July 1997 indicated that the "refurbishment" had not commenced at that point.
During June and July the hot water outages became an issue among others. On the 17th of June 1997 I notified the Estate Officr with a one line fax that the hot water was out just to inform him in case he didn't know thinking that it was larger problem. He called to send someone over since he thought it was unique to my flat. I agreed but then later noted that the hot water was lukewarm which indicated that it was a larger problem. I then ran into a neighbour who complained that his hot water was out that morning too. I didn't want uncessary work done with regard to my flat alone if it was a wider problem.
The Estate Officer then sent me a fax noting that he had just discovered that the hot water outage was not an isolated event. He wrote "Two of our communal boilers are dowwn for insurance inspection and the third one is not working properly. Our heating engineers are now working on the third boiler. Thanks for calling me about this hot water problem."
As a result, I sent the Estate Officer the following comment as part of a fax on Wednesday, 18th June 1997:
"Heat & Hot Water
"Thank you for your fax yesterday explaining the problem. I note that it has been restored this am. I do not mean to lecture so please forgive me if I sound that way, but it seems logical to me that this kind of maintenance activity ought to be reported to the tenants in advance so that those especially with children who have to be gotten to school and infants can plan their lives with minimal disruption and aggravation. It also seems that there is a communication problem within the EMB as you did not know about the shutdown for 2 of the 3 boilers. What this looks like from this point of view is a lack of care and concern regarding the tenants [emphasis added] when planned maintenance activity might impact their lives, and this appears to be true within the EMB as well impacting your effectiveness in dealing with tenants. I would ask you to seriously consider my suggestion for putting a bulletin board and table by the main entrances of each building so that notices of this kind can be easily posted for all to see. It would be easy for you, inform the tenants and demonstrate an attitude of care toward the tenants."
*****End of Fax Excerpt*****
The Area Manager, Lee Page, responded positively to this with a letter dated 18th June 1997 and noted that he was addressing the communication problem. He also dealt with the issues other than the hot water.
Once again the hot water was out over the weekend and on two consecutive Mondays at the end of July 1997. As a result I sent the following fax on Monday, 28th July 1997, to the Area Manager, Lee Page:
"In your letter dated 18th June 1997 you noted the need for effective communication regarding boiler outages and your effort to rectify the communication breakdown which had occurred.
"Further, it was noted in the recent newsletter received Friday, 20th June 1997, (Lancaster West EMB, Volume 2 Issue 1, Spring 1997, p 2: Boiler Replacement [for a Spring newsletter it was received on the very last day of Spring]) that boiler replacement will be conducted from “late July 1997 until October 1997", but says nothing about any expected outages.
"Last Monday (and Sunday too) and again this Monday the hot water has been out in the morning.
"This is once again a situation which was brought to your attention with regard to notifying the tenants about outages which you said would be addressed, yet these outages are occurring when the tenants are in most need of hot water first thing in the morning.
"I brought this to [Estate Officer] Mr Fawehinmi’s attention last week both verbally in our meeting [Monday, 21st July 1997] and in writing. His response was to only tell me that 
boiler refurbishment was being accomplished but said nothing about the outages, when they might occur and what was being done about them. (Actually, he told me I could sue the Council, who was responsible for the heat and hot water, which I thought was a pretty useless thing to say.)
"If and when hot water outages are anticipated, this should be communicated to the tenants so that they can make proper allowances in anticipation of their daily needs.
"As the Estate manager, I would assert that your are responsible for both knowing and communicating this information, and you cannot blame anyone else."
*****End of the Fax*****
The Area Manager's response to this fax is the one included above. As can be seen, the hot water and boiler functioning was of some concern nine years ago. I just happened to meet the Estate Officr ouside on that Monday, 21st July 1997, and he asked me about another problem with regard to the driving and parking of motorbikes and scooters on the Estate which was quite serious at that time. While walking around the building we discussed the other problems including rubbish disposal and the hot water.
What was most fascinating about this encounter and our discussion was the fact that he brought up the idea of putting business units in the basement roads under the various Walks and asked me what I thought about the idea. I thought it was a terrible idea. The basement roads are dark and dingy places that would be undesirable for business. There are serious problems with respect to vermin infestation and security that would be associated with such busness units. Most significant of all was that fact there were all these problems with respect to the residential units that so far tenant management could not get right, under control and solved. That had to be done first before any consideration was given for the construction of business units in the roads under the Walks.
What has happened is that all these serious problems with respect to the residential units still exist as they did back in 1997 presenting serious security, safety and health risks for the tenants and residents. Along the way these have been deliberately neglected while years of time and attention were devoted to constructing 38 business units in Barandon Road at a cost of over one milion GBP which left the residents at increased safety and health risks from the central heating left on all summer for years and inadequate rubbish disposal. Repairs have not been carried out such as my balcony for over eight years now.
Worst of all, however, was that the fact that tenant management installed surveillance technology which was put in the hands of the tenants, residents and others in August 1998 to stop the person (me) who was reporting the problems in order to make believe they did not exist so that tenant management could get on with its activities which benefitted the few at the expense of the many. I was also made a convenient scapegoat target which was used to enhance tenant management and increase its membership rolls by creating problems and offering itself as the solution to the problems.
One of the key elements in all of this is the failure to address the health and safety problems properly throughout all these years while trying to engage people in the tenant management process by allowing problems to persist. I observed this first hand and have been a victim of this recruitment policy myself with the use of the surveillance technology intended to create a false enemy to get everyone to assemble around tenant management as a means to deal with this created false enemy. This is a key reason why the surveillance technology abuse is still going on eight years later with the same people running it 24/7. It enables tenant management to have something to blame for is failures whle still recruiting as many as possiblle to its ranks at the same time.
This is why I reacted as I did to Keith Stevenson's statement that I should join the "committee" when he said that on Tuesday last while we were discussing the rubbish disposal problem. Tenant management has learned to prolong problems and pretend everything is all right by suppressing the reporting of the serious nature of these problems. In my case since I was doing just that, they found it convenient to install surveillance technology to be used by scores of people in this environment.
Among its several uses it would serve to stop me from reporting these poblems, or I could be abused as being demented, i.e., "potty," when reporting them to belittle the validity of that reporting. This served as a means to create a false enemy around which to organise tenants. A smear and fear campaign has been waged relentlessly against me for all these years from the very beginning in May 1998 by the same people with the surveillance technology installed in August 1998. This has been a massive hoax, but it has sucked so many people into its trap that there is a fear of admitting the truth and participation now. Once these people went so far, they could not turn back, and had to keep working outside the law digging a hole ever deeper which required that they destroy me to keep the truth from being brought to light. There is nothing unusual about these kinds of masssive frauds. Take a look at Enron, World.com, etc. The list goes on and on. And, there is nothing unusual about this happening in the government either.
I have a great deal to report and discuss about all of this supported by extensive evidence which is another reason those using the surveillance technology and those who have a vested interest in its prolonged use as a weapon continue to make every effort to destroy my documentation and reporting about the truth of what is going on. This creates a standard of antisocial and criminal behaviour fostered by tenant management and others for their own unlawwful criiminal objectives. That's why all of this detail is extremely important, and why I am subjected to continuous 24/7 abuse of the most extreme kind using the surveillance technology as a weapon to destroy human activity and life itself.
The devil really does lie in the detail here. The real question which arises out of all of this is to what extent and how have those in charge benefitted from deliberately disregarding the needs of the tenants and residents while pursuing their own corrupt self interest?
There are those who like to create and perpetuate problems both basking in the attention this provides them and using the problems themselves as an excuse for not solving them. There are those in management positions who sadistically enjoy keeping everyone off balance by disruptive and disturbing behaviour. In this case those who do this then point their finger at someone else as the source of this disruption and disturbance when it is, in fact, themselves.
Those in charge like to see this type of behaviour for it creates a permanent problem from a conflict situation that is encouraged and allowed to go on indefinitely. They complain about just how awful it is, and how it makes their job so difficult that they cannot get anything done. They relish this for it means job security and a permanent need for them to to keep stirring the fires rather than solving the problems. This is fundamentally dishonest, game playing behaviour which Eric Berne MD has so eloquently and magnificently described in his book Games People Play, e.g., "Ain't it Awful"
Deliberate undermanagement is a nice way to achieve this. All kinds of excuses and reasons can be offered for not doing what needs to be done in order to preserve problems.