Two room-mates claim they were taken for April Fools when it took BTC seven months to install their phone -- because of an "unsafe'' pole.

The unhappy tenants contacted The Royal Gazette to tell of a bizarre twist of events which meant they had to wait eight months for a proper phone service.

The pair, who asked not to be named, wrote a letter to the newspaper's editor (see page 4) to relay their telephone trauma.

And Bermuda Telephone Company executives immediately apologised last night, calling the incredible delays "unaceptable''.

The customers told how: BTC told them it would take two months to install a phone when they moved into their new Warwick apartment on April 1; the service had already been ordered, two months earlier; three workmen stood around for one hour when they finally met the appointment this summer, only to decide the telephone pole was "not safe to climb''; Belco installed a new pole weeks later after a day-and-a-half of digging -- in completely the wrong place; BTC finally came to install the line weeks later -- but attaching the cables to the old, unsafe pole and leaving the new one redundant; their phone still did not work, not receiving calls and blocking overseas service; a BTC workman tried to make off with the pair's cellular unit, cordless phone, signal splitter and wall jack cable when the line was finally installed; he only returned the phone cables last Friday, one month after the phone was finally hooked up.

The Royal Gazette faxed a copy of the room-mates' letter -- without revealing the authors' names -- to both Belco and BTC on Tuesday morning.

Belco spokeswoman Robin McPhee said she was still too busy in annual meetings with executives to comment on the matter last night.

But BTC assistant vice president Karla Lacey Minors said the phone company would endeavour to make sure the same scenario never happened again.

She also appealed to the two room-mates to contact BTC so they could "get to the bottom of the issue''.

Mrs. Lacey Minors added: "This is obviously an unacceptable position for the customer to be in and we fell down in delivering service in this instance.

"Something went very wrong. A seven or eight-month delay in connection is unusual to say the least and in instances like this we would want to find out exactly what went wrong and ensure that it doesn't ever happen again.

"From the way the letter was written, it was a bizarre series of events and something we hope no customer would have to go through again.

"If the authors of the letter care to get in touch with the company directly, we would love to get to the bottom of the issue.

"It's important that we find out exactly what went wrong here.'' She said BTC would launch an internal inquiry to investigate the circumstances if the firm received an official complaint from the customers.

But she did remind BTC clients that phone lines cannot necessarily be automatically installed, even if there has previously been a service into the property.

Factors which can cause delays include the number of lines on one telephone pole and the length of time since the previous service was disconnected, she added.

One of the room-mates, who signed the letter "Call Me Sometime'', said the episode finally ended on October 9, when the cables were returned.

POLE FAULTED -- The telephone pole in Warwick which caused eight months of delays for one phone customer.