Housing/Life/Everything Troubles..... Again.....
I was hoping 2006 was gonna be a good year. I've been fairly mistaken so far.
Last October, I moved into a new house. We saw it for rent with an agency, and applied to go see. Everything was great, and we decided to move in. However, the agency caused us LOADS of problems, and both ourselves, and the landlord decided to cancel ties with the agency, and deal amoungst ourselves. It's really nice, a proper character property, with rooms in strange places (for instance, no taps in the entire house other than the basement, which is where the kitchen and bathroom reside), but this is exactly how I like it. It has three bedrooms, a front room, a dining room, a wc, and a wet room containing the shower, as well as a big kitchen and a nice southerly facing yard, with no access from the back (which is a good thing).
I moved in with Laura and Nate, who are friends of mine (in case you don’t know yet!) and a couple. I have one bedroom, they have another, and the third room we have been using as storage. Nate and I have our ‘office’ in the dining room, where all the PC stuff happens.
When we moved in, we loved the house, but hated the landlord. The landlord is called Roger, and quite frankly, he’s an ignorant tosser. I’d like to call him a cunt, but the fact is, he’s got such a wet personality that you just wanna slap him, for no particular reason other than it might instill a bit of backbone in him. I suppose I could probably get away with calling him a wet cunt, but that would introduce humour to the situation, when there is none. Also, he’s slow. Really slow. Not mentally (possibly), but talking to him is like talking to Bob Lumberg from the film Office Space, except that Roger takes a lot longer to get to the point, and then he’ll re-iterate it 3 or 4 times, even after you’ve agreed the first time, which again, just makes you want to slap him. Honestly, a semi-mute tourrette’s sufferer, complete with stutter would take less time to tell you what they mean than Roger does.
On top of being irritating on his own, he is also an ignoramus. If you ask me, there is nothing more rude than being late. Fair enough if it’s just a few minutes, but this guy really takes the piss. After we had moved in, Roger wanted to do an inspection, and so phoned us to book a time. He currently lives in Southampton, so had to travel down. I can’t remember the exact times, so I’ll estimate, but I’m not exaggerating at all.
Roger arranged to be turn up at 12pm on Saturday. It got to 2pm, then he still didn’t turn up, so I called him. Apparently he was on his way, and mumbled something about traffic, so would be here by 4pm. He never turned up. By 7pm I called again, at which point he re-arranged for the following day, Sunday, at midday. Sunday midday came and went, and still no sign of the ignorant fuckwit. I phoned him again, to find out where he was. Time was shifted back to 5pm. Come 5pm, and he STILL hadn’t arrived. I phoned him and told him if he wasn’t gonna turn up soon, he might as well not bother.
He eventually arrived somewhere around 7pm, at which point I had guests. He wanted us to be present for the inspection, so we left our guests in the front room, and went to the kitchen to start. Unfortunately, it would seem that Roger takes as much time to look at stuff as he does to talk about it. In fact, I would say it takes even longer, because he looks at it, THEN talks about it. On numerous occasions I asked if he could perhaps stop staring blankly at the walls and hurry up a bit, as he’d already been an hour, and I had guests. I was met with “….hmmmm…yeahhhh…ok……right…the ceiling……………………” accompanyed by vague mumblings and vacant gazing.
Two full, boring hours later, and after much disjointed talking about nothing Roger was finally ready to go. We had established throughout the inspection that not only was Roger abysmally dull, but he was also anally retentive, and by that I don’t mean he loves to keep cock up his arse (although he probably does). We discovered that despite the fact the decorating had been done by someone with about as much skill as boneless chicken, Roger didn’t want any nails in the walls. In fact, he kicked off about bluetack being stuck to the walls.
So only now we discover what an arse Roger is. However it’s too late then, as we’ve already moved in. It’s also too late for him, because although we originally dealt with the agency, and they Let us the place, we were now dealing directly with Roger. This meant the first time he met us, was when we already had a 6 month contract signed and were living in his house.
We always got the impression that there was something about us Roger didn’t like. It was probably the minor chastising I gave him about being late, but that was his fault, not ours. However we all talked (at great length -time, not content- thanks to Roger’s superb communication skills) and made it clear that we had moved a lot the previous year (I moved three fucking times) and we wanted to stay in this house for a long period of time, ie, definitely over a year. Roger agreed that a long let would be best, and assured us nothing would change for a long time.
Finally, we reach present day. Six happy months have passed in the house, and we were looking forward to Summer arriving, and having barbeques in the suntrap that is the yard. Roger phoned me up a week ago to inform me of a house inspection. Now technically we’ve been breaking the laws of the house, because Laura and Nate own a cat and a snake (used to be my snake), and Nate smokes. If only we had children, we would have completed the set.
So we set to work on the house. Truth be told, it didn’t require much work, because the cat is very well behaved and doesn’t scratch or dirty stuff, and we had looked after the house for the six months. We tidied up the cat hair, and gave the place a bit of a hoover, and an airing, incase of any smoke smell, which there wasn’t really anyway, cos only rollys (rolling tobacco) are smoked, not wall-staining chemical packed cigarettes.
The day arrived, and Roger did his inspection. He turned up in workboots that didn’t look like they’d even heard of mud (let alone seen any), and trousers pulled up to the armpits. We’ll just say that fashion isn’t his strong point, like competant conversation. Roger stayed for about an hour, accepted a cup of tea, and then did the inspection, again taking far longer than necessary. When he was finally done I asked if he’d had any problems, and to my surprise, he said he did.
This caught me off guard, because there was really nothing he could pick us up on, and I knew it. I was right. The things he was moaning about had nothing to do with us, and was either natural - a gap in the wooden flooring in the office, due to shrinkage of the wood caused by winter/summer temperature fluctuations – and some slight damage to the edge of a tiled step in the bathroom – caused by everyday use. Neither are actually damaged. If Roger threatens to take some of our deposit though, we’re gonna threaten to take him to the small claims court on 3 separate counts (one for each of us) – that should persuade him that it’d be easier, quicker, and cheaper to give us our deposit than screw us over. Although that said, there is a burn hole in my bedroom carpet (now under my bed) that Nate did. I won’t be losing my deposit over that either though, cos it WILL get fixed.
However, right before he’s due to leave, he suddenly mentions, “Oh…and…ummm…as you may be able to tell…my circumstances have changed…I’m contracting now…and…ummm…yeah…I’m gonna want the house back…”. I didn’t say anything, but at the time, but I thought, “WHAT THE FUCK?!? You’ve waited until now to tell us?”. It seemed really backhanded. He could have told us when he first arrived, instead of engage in conversation about the house and life, and how happy we were etc. If he’s kicking us out, why bother with this inspection? He’ll only have to do another when we move out….
So… Now we have to move again. It’s not easy. I hope to move again with Laura and Nate, but at this rate, that might not happen. Since we moved, house prices for rent have gone up, by quite a lot. As well as a fixed budget, we want the following from a house:
--Not more than £750 per month for the whole house – Laura and Nate can’t afford more.
--Not below anyone - I’ve lived under people in the past and it was a nightmare, especially as I’m a bit of an imsomniac, and I can’t stand thumping on the ceiling.
--Has to have parking, or be in an area where parking is ludicrously easy - Laura has a car, and won’t go out in the dark in case she gets raped or mugged – therefore in winter months, she wants to park the car very close.
--Has to be in certain areas. Nate doesn’t have transport, so the house must be close to major bus routes (ie town) but not near Nate’s work (as he hates the area). This isn’t really a problem, but does narrow our search.
--Ideally with a garden or outside space – I don’t think Laura and Nate are fussed about this, but I’d like it if possible, especially with summer coming up. a 3 bedroom place – we all want this, as it gives us room for storage, and an office for the PCs.
--Somewhere that accepts pets - because of the cat and the snake, but mainly the cat. Although this condition isn't really important, as we've already proven we can keep a cat in a place that doesn't allow them and get away with it...
--Somewhere that allows smoking (this is where a garden comes in handy too), although this is the same as the cat.
So basically we want a good sized three bedroomed house with parking, garden or similar, with quiet neighbours for less than £700 a month. It’d be perfect if we could find one that didn’t mind pets or smoking as well, but we can get round this if need be. However, I can't see us finding somewhere that fits all, or even most of our conditions, especially as we only have until June the 3rd to move out completely.
So I may well be losing some great housemates, as well as the money it takes to move, and my happy settled feeling (that I was just starting to get), simply because our landlord is a dishonest cocksmoker. If I do end up losing my housemates, I’m gonna be losing a lot of cash per month, as I’ll have to get a place on my own, and that costs loads in comparison to sharing. I can afford it, but it’ll leave me without much spending money whatsoever. The ironic thing is that I probably earn about double what the average wage in Plymouth is, and I can still barely afford to live! How does everyone else manage without this much hassle?!?
So, another landlord has ruined my year. I’m fed up with the fuckers doing this, they need to pay. I’m honestly starting to wonder what the point of me coming to work is. Apart from the spare bit of cash to buy gadgets, I’ve got nothing to show for coming to this place. I can barely afford to rent, house prices are so sky high that I can’t afford anything other than a shitty flat if I were to get a mortgage (over 35 years as well!!!), and I’m not left with much money to play with. What the frig do I get up and do a job I hate for? There seems to be no benefit. At least if I was on the dole, they’d pay my housing, and I’d get lots of free time, even if I didn’t have much spending money.
I’m currently trying to think of a way to get back at Roger for this. I was thinking of pouring milk into the fibreglass loft insulation, as given a couple of weeks, that’ll really turn nasty. I might also introduce mice to the house, as the buggers breed every 10-20 days, and could be a right pain to sort out.
I don’t care what I do, but it needs to be untraceable back to me, take a couple of weeks before the results really kick in (so we get our deposit, and get outta there!), and it’s gotta seriously piss off the Roger, or the new tenant so much they wished they were living someone else.
Anyone know any good techniques for this? Oh, and I don’t want it involving excrement of any kind. If it’s mine, it could in theory be traced back to me, and if it’s not mine, I don’t want to go near it!
I fear that Society is getting too much for me. One of these days I’m gonna do a ‘Falling Down’ on everybody. There’s just too much stress, and so very little joy in my life, that it almost seems inevitable.….
Last October, I moved into a new house. We saw it for rent with an agency, and applied to go see. Everything was great, and we decided to move in. However, the agency caused us LOADS of problems, and both ourselves, and the landlord decided to cancel ties with the agency, and deal amoungst ourselves. It's really nice, a proper character property, with rooms in strange places (for instance, no taps in the entire house other than the basement, which is where the kitchen and bathroom reside), but this is exactly how I like it. It has three bedrooms, a front room, a dining room, a wc, and a wet room containing the shower, as well as a big kitchen and a nice southerly facing yard, with no access from the back (which is a good thing).
I moved in with Laura and Nate, who are friends of mine (in case you don’t know yet!) and a couple. I have one bedroom, they have another, and the third room we have been using as storage. Nate and I have our ‘office’ in the dining room, where all the PC stuff happens.
When we moved in, we loved the house, but hated the landlord. The landlord is called Roger, and quite frankly, he’s an ignorant tosser. I’d like to call him a cunt, but the fact is, he’s got such a wet personality that you just wanna slap him, for no particular reason other than it might instill a bit of backbone in him. I suppose I could probably get away with calling him a wet cunt, but that would introduce humour to the situation, when there is none. Also, he’s slow. Really slow. Not mentally (possibly), but talking to him is like talking to Bob Lumberg from the film Office Space, except that Roger takes a lot longer to get to the point, and then he’ll re-iterate it 3 or 4 times, even after you’ve agreed the first time, which again, just makes you want to slap him. Honestly, a semi-mute tourrette’s sufferer, complete with stutter would take less time to tell you what they mean than Roger does.
On top of being irritating on his own, he is also an ignoramus. If you ask me, there is nothing more rude than being late. Fair enough if it’s just a few minutes, but this guy really takes the piss. After we had moved in, Roger wanted to do an inspection, and so phoned us to book a time. He currently lives in Southampton, so had to travel down. I can’t remember the exact times, so I’ll estimate, but I’m not exaggerating at all.
Roger arranged to be turn up at 12pm on Saturday. It got to 2pm, then he still didn’t turn up, so I called him. Apparently he was on his way, and mumbled something about traffic, so would be here by 4pm. He never turned up. By 7pm I called again, at which point he re-arranged for the following day, Sunday, at midday. Sunday midday came and went, and still no sign of the ignorant fuckwit. I phoned him again, to find out where he was. Time was shifted back to 5pm. Come 5pm, and he STILL hadn’t arrived. I phoned him and told him if he wasn’t gonna turn up soon, he might as well not bother.
He eventually arrived somewhere around 7pm, at which point I had guests. He wanted us to be present for the inspection, so we left our guests in the front room, and went to the kitchen to start. Unfortunately, it would seem that Roger takes as much time to look at stuff as he does to talk about it. In fact, I would say it takes even longer, because he looks at it, THEN talks about it. On numerous occasions I asked if he could perhaps stop staring blankly at the walls and hurry up a bit, as he’d already been an hour, and I had guests. I was met with “….hmmmm…yeahhhh…ok……right…the ceiling……………………” accompanyed by vague mumblings and vacant gazing.
Two full, boring hours later, and after much disjointed talking about nothing Roger was finally ready to go. We had established throughout the inspection that not only was Roger abysmally dull, but he was also anally retentive, and by that I don’t mean he loves to keep cock up his arse (although he probably does). We discovered that despite the fact the decorating had been done by someone with about as much skill as boneless chicken, Roger didn’t want any nails in the walls. In fact, he kicked off about bluetack being stuck to the walls.
So only now we discover what an arse Roger is. However it’s too late then, as we’ve already moved in. It’s also too late for him, because although we originally dealt with the agency, and they Let us the place, we were now dealing directly with Roger. This meant the first time he met us, was when we already had a 6 month contract signed and were living in his house.
We always got the impression that there was something about us Roger didn’t like. It was probably the minor chastising I gave him about being late, but that was his fault, not ours. However we all talked (at great length -time, not content- thanks to Roger’s superb communication skills) and made it clear that we had moved a lot the previous year (I moved three fucking times) and we wanted to stay in this house for a long period of time, ie, definitely over a year. Roger agreed that a long let would be best, and assured us nothing would change for a long time.
Finally, we reach present day. Six happy months have passed in the house, and we were looking forward to Summer arriving, and having barbeques in the suntrap that is the yard. Roger phoned me up a week ago to inform me of a house inspection. Now technically we’ve been breaking the laws of the house, because Laura and Nate own a cat and a snake (used to be my snake), and Nate smokes. If only we had children, we would have completed the set.
So we set to work on the house. Truth be told, it didn’t require much work, because the cat is very well behaved and doesn’t scratch or dirty stuff, and we had looked after the house for the six months. We tidied up the cat hair, and gave the place a bit of a hoover, and an airing, incase of any smoke smell, which there wasn’t really anyway, cos only rollys (rolling tobacco) are smoked, not wall-staining chemical packed cigarettes.
The day arrived, and Roger did his inspection. He turned up in workboots that didn’t look like they’d even heard of mud (let alone seen any), and trousers pulled up to the armpits. We’ll just say that fashion isn’t his strong point, like competant conversation. Roger stayed for about an hour, accepted a cup of tea, and then did the inspection, again taking far longer than necessary. When he was finally done I asked if he’d had any problems, and to my surprise, he said he did.
This caught me off guard, because there was really nothing he could pick us up on, and I knew it. I was right. The things he was moaning about had nothing to do with us, and was either natural - a gap in the wooden flooring in the office, due to shrinkage of the wood caused by winter/summer temperature fluctuations – and some slight damage to the edge of a tiled step in the bathroom – caused by everyday use. Neither are actually damaged. If Roger threatens to take some of our deposit though, we’re gonna threaten to take him to the small claims court on 3 separate counts (one for each of us) – that should persuade him that it’d be easier, quicker, and cheaper to give us our deposit than screw us over. Although that said, there is a burn hole in my bedroom carpet (now under my bed) that Nate did. I won’t be losing my deposit over that either though, cos it WILL get fixed.
However, right before he’s due to leave, he suddenly mentions, “Oh…and…ummm…as you may be able to tell…my circumstances have changed…I’m contracting now…and…ummm…yeah…I’m gonna want the house back…”. I didn’t say anything, but at the time, but I thought, “WHAT THE FUCK?!? You’ve waited until now to tell us?”. It seemed really backhanded. He could have told us when he first arrived, instead of engage in conversation about the house and life, and how happy we were etc. If he’s kicking us out, why bother with this inspection? He’ll only have to do another when we move out….
So… Now we have to move again. It’s not easy. I hope to move again with Laura and Nate, but at this rate, that might not happen. Since we moved, house prices for rent have gone up, by quite a lot. As well as a fixed budget, we want the following from a house:
--Not more than £750 per month for the whole house – Laura and Nate can’t afford more.
--Not below anyone - I’ve lived under people in the past and it was a nightmare, especially as I’m a bit of an imsomniac, and I can’t stand thumping on the ceiling.
--Has to have parking, or be in an area where parking is ludicrously easy - Laura has a car, and won’t go out in the dark in case she gets raped or mugged – therefore in winter months, she wants to park the car very close.
--Has to be in certain areas. Nate doesn’t have transport, so the house must be close to major bus routes (ie town) but not near Nate’s work (as he hates the area). This isn’t really a problem, but does narrow our search.
--Ideally with a garden or outside space – I don’t think Laura and Nate are fussed about this, but I’d like it if possible, especially with summer coming up. a 3 bedroom place – we all want this, as it gives us room for storage, and an office for the PCs.
--Somewhere that accepts pets - because of the cat and the snake, but mainly the cat. Although this condition isn't really important, as we've already proven we can keep a cat in a place that doesn't allow them and get away with it...
--Somewhere that allows smoking (this is where a garden comes in handy too), although this is the same as the cat.
So basically we want a good sized three bedroomed house with parking, garden or similar, with quiet neighbours for less than £700 a month. It’d be perfect if we could find one that didn’t mind pets or smoking as well, but we can get round this if need be. However, I can't see us finding somewhere that fits all, or even most of our conditions, especially as we only have until June the 3rd to move out completely.
So I may well be losing some great housemates, as well as the money it takes to move, and my happy settled feeling (that I was just starting to get), simply because our landlord is a dishonest cocksmoker. If I do end up losing my housemates, I’m gonna be losing a lot of cash per month, as I’ll have to get a place on my own, and that costs loads in comparison to sharing. I can afford it, but it’ll leave me without much spending money whatsoever. The ironic thing is that I probably earn about double what the average wage in Plymouth is, and I can still barely afford to live! How does everyone else manage without this much hassle?!?
So, another landlord has ruined my year. I’m fed up with the fuckers doing this, they need to pay. I’m honestly starting to wonder what the point of me coming to work is. Apart from the spare bit of cash to buy gadgets, I’ve got nothing to show for coming to this place. I can barely afford to rent, house prices are so sky high that I can’t afford anything other than a shitty flat if I were to get a mortgage (over 35 years as well!!!), and I’m not left with much money to play with. What the frig do I get up and do a job I hate for? There seems to be no benefit. At least if I was on the dole, they’d pay my housing, and I’d get lots of free time, even if I didn’t have much spending money.
I’m currently trying to think of a way to get back at Roger for this. I was thinking of pouring milk into the fibreglass loft insulation, as given a couple of weeks, that’ll really turn nasty. I might also introduce mice to the house, as the buggers breed every 10-20 days, and could be a right pain to sort out.
I don’t care what I do, but it needs to be untraceable back to me, take a couple of weeks before the results really kick in (so we get our deposit, and get outta there!), and it’s gotta seriously piss off the Roger, or the new tenant so much they wished they were living someone else.
Anyone know any good techniques for this? Oh, and I don’t want it involving excrement of any kind. If it’s mine, it could in theory be traced back to me, and if it’s not mine, I don’t want to go near it!
I fear that Society is getting too much for me. One of these days I’m gonna do a ‘Falling Down’ on everybody. There’s just too much stress, and so very little joy in my life, that it almost seems inevitable.….
Ryaninja flipped out at 2:06 pm
Throw me a Stabby Shuriken - 2 thrown so far!
2 Comments:
Lots of houses for rent near me, walking or biking distance to train station which takes you to buses. Probably for around $1200, (L684). Not sure if the trains run from Texas to UK though.
Thanks Jeff, but unless someone's recently built a transatlantic maglev train or a teleporter, I feel the commute might be slightly counter-productive.
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