Saturday 6 January 2007

Angry and wronged

The Agents are coming back. We had a telephone call from Dosh last night, who owns one of the middle flats of this wonderful old house-made-into-flats. He says the Agents will be showing people round over the next few days. Pastry's not coming back: she moved up North before Christmas and Dosh has set the Agents onto finding him a new tenant.

We used the Agents when we rented out the top flat. Our tenant, Kar, had just left to start her own business with balloons and the flat was empty. We called the Agents. Round they came, smiling, with double-breasted grey suits, sunglasses and clipboards. They took some flattering photos, which quite frankly isn't hard, because it's an attic flat, the ceilings are inverted V shapes, and the woman we bought it from was an interior designer, and knew what she was doing. She was also 150,000 pounds in debt, as we discovered thanks to the bailiffs calling everyday after contracts were exchanged and she'd scarpered, but that's another story.

So the Agents came, took photos, and left. Two days later I get a telephone call from Agent Number 2 who says he's got a lady who's very interested. I say no. Mostly because I suspect she's his girlfriend and I don't want to see his fizzog creeping down the stairs at 7.30 every morning. Also because the lovely lady has a teenage son who plays rugby. 'No'. It's definite. My walls have been professionally ragged by a heavily-in-debt interior designer and I'm betting that paint cost a fortune.

A month passes and Dig takes a call in the office from Agent Number 2 saying how delightful it is that the lovely lady is moving in that afternoon and can we pop up to meet her and the rugby playing son when they're settled. Dig says 'What lady?' 'She's very lovely' comes the reply. 'I don't know anything about any lovely lady moving in' says Dig. 'Your lovely wife was over the moon to have her in your lovely flat' smarms Agent Number 2. Dig comes through to ask me if I've agreed to rent out the top flat to the lovely lady. He's clearly suspicious thanks to slimeball being so convincing. I can see Dig's not sure: he thinks I've had some memory turn and agreed to the rental, and that I must be going mad if I've forgotton.

For 15 minutes then, Agent Number 2 put me in the position of being on the back foot, denying madness and deceit to my own husband. At that moment, if I were ever see Agent Number 2 again, I'd break both his legs.

I'm planning it now. First, I intend the tongue-lashing to have fatalities. I've equipped the kids with the legs of a broken chair I've dragged out from under the eaves in the top flat this very morning. They think Christmas has come again and have been hammering the legs on the kitchen table for the last half-hour.

And if he doesn't show his lying face round here over the next few days I might just hunt the slimeball down, as he cowers behind his office desk.

Wronged women are never nice.

4 comments:

Michelle said...

You just need to be such ghastly neighbours that the agent undervalues the rental potential of the flat, such that Dosh decides it would be better to realise the value of the property by selling it instead - and then, voila! you have 80% of the house. Or actually, follow your plan as no one would move into a property where the other residents inflict ABH on you as you try to go up the stairs. It's only a form of pest control anyway isn't it?

Michelle said...

Didn't notice a paint effect on the walls of the top flat. It's just white isn't it? Subtlety is lost on me I'm afraid.

My ex-step-mother did a paint effect on the walls of the house she shared with my father. Dad liked to refer to it as Jana's retch effect.

Can't imagine why they're no longer together.

Grit said...

hi michelle! the back room of the top flat has a sort of sand or suede effect on the walls which i know i will never reproduce; that's going to be the kid's new bedroom and there's a list of fines and penalties already in place for touching the walls. She's also done the kitchen walls in a textured style along with a bright blue decorative effect which makes me think of a greek cottage by the sea. perhaps that's just me. I like the idea of a retch effect.

Michelle said...

I think I was shown dinosaurs and models and we looked at views (not having any far reaching views at home I'm always looking out of other people's windows - I liked that you can see green fields in the distance from the back windows). Seem to remember the kitchen being a surprise when you walked around the wall. Not a shock - a surprise, so it must be nice. I will have to come up to see how you can fit three beds into that back room!