It wasn't like this the last time.
Yesterday I went out to view the flat I hadn't been able to view the previous Saturday because of the non-appearance of the Estate Agent and guess what? They didn't show again. I waited for fifteen minutes, in the rain and dark of rush hour Wellingborough (the flat is on the main road through the town centre, so that rush hour detail is relevant), and once again the Estate Agent didn't turn up. I had their number with me but this time I didn't bother calling it. If they can't even turn up for appointments, how reliable are they going to be as landlords?
Mightily pissed off, I walked home, stopping at a convenience store for a loaf of bread and some energy-reviving lucozade along the way.
Then my existing landlord came to my door. Jesus, I thought as I opened the door and my porch light illuminated his face in the dark, don't I get even two minutes' break from this house moving business? But I kept my exasperation to myself and invited him in.
He said the notice to quit (for February 28th) had been a legal formality pushed on him by the woman who owns the house, and that in reality it was unlikely I would have to leave for a couple of months after that. No one had ever sold a house in one month, after all. So don't pack all of your boxes just yet, he advised me. When it's time I will help you find something else.
Which was a relief, in one sense. The prospect of having to leave so quickly when I have no savings to pay for the new deposit, the administration fee or the removal van was pretty daunting; at least with a couple of months grace I can put a bit of cash away. But can I trust the landlord to have judged the situation right? What kind of man is he? He certainly looks genuine, and even morally upright--he used to be a soldier, and a policeman before that--but is his knowledge of the game good enough for me to place my faith in him? What if I wait for him and he can't find me anything suitable in time?
Some people think I should keep looking. Some people think I should trust him.
I think I should not make a decision tonight with wine clouding my head. In the morning I'll be reading the runes.
4 comments:
Bruce, I think I would trust your landlord. But I would also keep looking. But at least you know that the situation isn't quite as urgent as you thought. Now maybe you have time to find something you really like and at the same time hopefully save a little money. Five years ago I was living in a beautiful apartment on a lake. The best place I've ever lived in. The new owners kicked me out and I ended up living in a trailer in the lumberyard across the street for 4 months. I affectionately call it my "Trailer-Park Period". I think the story of my living in a trailer will make for interesting reading on the dust jacket of some future book I might write.
Bruce
Whether you're making big plans, or just little ones, it always pays to have a plan B up your sleeve in case somebody decides to crap on you. There are so many loose bowels out there that I find the crap factor applies all too often.
Simon
Leo, meet Simon, my big brother--a gifted photographer like your good self.
I think you're both right, by the way...and I'm sober now, so I have more confidence in my thinking. You have to trust somebody until they shaft you, but trusting anybody completely, "to the max" as that great rhetorician George Bush would say, may be to put too much pressure on any fragile human being. I have let so many people down in my life it embarrasses me even to think about it.
But then, I'm not fragile. I'm just an arse.
Bruce
I agree with Leo and Simon. But what is particularly deplorable is the way you're being messed about by those ineffectual, thieving no-hopers who call themselves estate agents. They'd be biting your hands off if you were buying rather than renting, the evil shitters. Just let us know and Simon and I will rush out and crush them with our Land Rovers. Keep the old chin up.
Martin (aka Dad)
PS: How do I stop this thing calling me anonymous. Anonymous? Moi?
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