Leaseholder Blues

"Hi Michael -

Thank you for your letter regarding the required fire safety upgrade which I received this evening, taped to my front door. I would ask that in future you simply post any letters for my attention into my letterbox. The letterbox may not be 'smoke sealed' but I find it adequately serves its intended purpose, and I do not appreciate correspondence being attached to my front door in the manner of an eviction notice."

Not to sound like a conspiracist or anything, but Hackney Homes are trying to kill me. Or at least turn me into a cranky wizened old bitch who writes passive aggressive emails like the one above. Yes, I actually sent that. Yes, I'm aware there'll be a swarm of civil servants standing around Michael's computer screen tomorrow morning laughing their heads off (what is the correct collective noun for civil servants? A cluster? A herd? A murder?). I came home this evening to find a notice stuck to my front door, informing me that the London Fire Brigade had deemed our building unsafe and that our properties would need to be altered accordingly. My letterbox must be sealed. A door stopper must be installed. And, most disruptively of all, the grill must be removed from my front door. I understand, HH. I get it. The grill is a fire hazard. If a fire spontaneously lit itself somewhere in the flat, if I managed to sleep through my smoke alarm, if I forgot the not-so-secret place where I've left my keys every single day of my life that I've lived here (the key hook) and didn't manage to unlock it in time, the grill could, in theory, prevent my escape and lead to my untimely death. If I was a council tenant and I was injured in a fire because my council flat did not meet appropriate safety standards, I would be mad at the council. I would sue their faces off. But I am not a council tenant, I'm a leaseholder and Hackney Homes do very little for me except debit £125 from my bank account each month in exchange for dousing the lift with bleach twice a week. I don't imagine for one moment that HH are genuinely concerned for my safety. If they were, they would be willing to acknowledge how much more likely it is for me to be burgled than to die in a fire, and they would understand why I would rather have the grill on my front door. As I have found to be the case with so many government organisations, their main prerogative is ensuring that a certain box gets ticked. My only feeble means of retaliation is to scorn them via email. Council bureaucracy is incredibly marginalising and invasive for leaseholders like myself. The least they could do have respect for my front door, which happens to be my personal property.