This is the kind of story that makes my blood boil. Pensioners living in a housing development in Gloucestershire have been told by their landlords, a company by the name of Jepson, that their letterboxes no longer comply with current health and safety regulations and must be replaced. The cost of a new letterbox is, apparently, between £50 and £90, but the cost to fit will be up to £300 as their contractor can only manage to replace two letterboxes a day - really??! Added to which, Jepson is unable to explain how the Pensioners' old letterboxes do not comply with the regulations; it simply says they don't. Given that all their front doors are currently fitted with a letterbox, how on earth can Jepson justify a charge of £300 simply to remove the existing one and fit its replacement? All the major time-consuming work has already been done - an oblong hole of the correct size is already there - and I know from personal experience that fitting a replacement letterbox takes no more than an hour. Since when did a British handyman charge such an exorbitant amount for such a simple job? Jepson - there's obviously a 'drink in it' for them - and their contractor are, to my mind, as scurrilous as the rogue builders who prey on pensioner householders and extract huge sums of money for completely unnecessary 'work'. What next, I wonder. Will this vulnerable group be told that their doorbells contravene 'elf 'n safety by being too noisy and must be replaced with a quieter model at a total cost of £1,000? Or that their CRT-based televisions consume too much electricity and their toilets flush too much water? Anyone preying on vulnerable groups such as pensioners should be prosecuted, fined heavily and/or imprisoned and permanently barred from being a company director.
