A Maidstone couple were forced to call the fire brigade when their housing provider were unable to retrieve a set of keys they dropped down a lift shaft.

Garry Baillie and wife Sharon were leaving their Midhurst Court flat for an evening out when their keys fell through
a gap.

Despite pleading with Golding Homes to send somebody to help recover them, the pair had to call 999 because of worries over their medication.

Mr Baillie, 47, said: “I pay a service charge so I shouldn’t have to phone the fire brigade. We pay a communal charge for the lawns and cleaners and they didn’t send anybody out.

“The fire brigade could have easily charged us for coming out because it wasn’t
an emergency.”

Mr Baillie had to give up his job as a kitchen porter when he suffered a heart attack in 2014.

His wife Sharon, 35, is also on prescribed medication for type-two diabetes and the couple’s medication is stored at their seventh floor flat.

Mr Baillie said: “Me and my wife went out to have a good time. We have lifts in this building and my wife dropped her keys in the lift shaft.

“Her hands were full and so were mine and she dropped them. She tried to pick them up and they fell through the gap and slipped down the lift shaft. The gap there shouldn’t be as big as it is.

“She phoned Golding Homes and it couldn’t do anything. We had no choice so we had to phone the fire brigade. They unlocked the lift and jumped down to retrieve the keys.”

Mr Baillie was thankful for the help provided by Kent Fire and Rescue Service who helped the couple out during the ordeal on Friday, May 19.
He added: “Golding Homes has an emergency number so why didn’t they send someone to help us.”

Golding Homes' Head of Property Services Chris Francis said: "We are sorry that Mr Baillie is unhappy that we are unable to send someone to retrieve his key from the lift shaft.

"However the response he received from Golding Homes is in accordance with our published policy whereby residents are responsible for additional keys, lost keys and lock changes.

"As a landlord Golding Homes cannot reasonably be expected to deal with the many requests we get to replace lost keys and we do not have lift engineers on constant standby to deal with unfortunate situations like that by experienced by Mr Baillie.

"We understand that Mr Baillie is particularly unhappy because he needed access to his medication but our systems do not indicate that Mr Baillie has any vulnerability or medical issues which may have been considered as circumstances in which we would have made an exception to our policy.

"Where customers have medical issues we do recommend that they keep a spare key with a friend or family member in case of emergencies.

"We will update our records if Mr Baillie wishes to inform us about any notifiable medical conditions which may allow us to make an exception in future."