Londonward

Last night, after a day that seemed like it had lasted years, I made it home via a quick bite at the pub. I like it in the new place - the warm light in the stairwell shining through the front door is not ecological but really, really welcoming. Equally welcoming were my tipsy housemates who, giggling, informed me that they had a confession to make. For a second I thought that there was something serious I was about to be told but it turned out that they had drank the wine I brought and hadn’t saved me any. Phew, sigh of relief.

The bottle they had had and the subsequent one we corked made for lots of laughter and revelations. I had wanted to learn a bit more about the people I live with, and I got a heaping portion last night, from relationships to relatives, including a sister who’s in a successful bubblegum pop group.

The landlord is supposed to come round to do something in the house today. Since the place could nicely be described as looking “lived in” we decided to work some magic and clean the kitchen and hallway then and there, at a quarter to midnight. With the help of some loud music and division of labour we got the place looking really nice quickly. That, too, reminded me why I was attracted to the flat despite it being a bit inconvenient for my usual commute. It just looks and feels nice and welcoming, despite (or maybe because of?) IKEA prints and trimmings. Now just to make my room as pleasant to be in.

I didn’t remember that London air tastes so acrid, and it’s not just because of fireworks. Still, it feels nice to be back - but I do miss the ease and comforts of life in Helsinki.

Contributors to an immediate rise in blood pressure upon arrival are the good-for-nothing landlord’s inability to fix our erratic central heating (and other outstanding issues) and the insane amount of work coming up. Here’s to 2008, may it be better in all ways.

I went out on Monday night to have a drink with a friend who was leaving London for the summer. Everyone else in our flat was out as well that night. I had my phone on silent because who honestly expects to be able to hear it in a crowded pub anyway, so I couldn’t hear the landlord calling umpteen times.

Riding back home in the bus I listened to the one voicemail message he had left. “I am outside the property” he said, speaking after 9pm. “I am here with the plumber, but no one is in.” Well no shit buddy, maybe we could have been in if you had bothered to call? Anyway, I had written him a rather sour email before going to the pub. He called me the next day, quite clearly pissed off.

“Listen, the first thing I have to tell you is that this is what I do for a living. I manage and let properties, my assets, to my tenants.”
(I’ll venture out and say that he’s not doing it very well if he employs just one plumber, who is also contracted to other people, can not get the rental contracts to his tenants in a month after the tenancy has begun and seems to not be able to get his shit together and come around on the days he says he is.)

“Thus, my interests are in keeping my properties in good condition. Now, you say that the plumber has not come round despite him telling you he was going to. You see, this plumber works based on emergency and priority. And to be fair, the work you guys need done is low-priority compared to this woman’s broken boiler.”
(Sure, so a broken boiler takes 3 days to fix? And he doesn’t seem too concerned about dripping pipes that cause god-knows-what to grow between the plywood casings and the wall. Sure, it’s not as high priority stuff, but come on, a month?)

“Thankfully, I visited two other properties last night with the plumber, and got things going in them. So it wasn’t all just a waste of time.”
(Oh, so I’m a waste of time as a tenant if I’m not miraculously home on a warm summer evening when he doesn’t bother to call well in advance? When he does call, and I hang around the house doing nothing useful as a result of him not coming around, that’s not a waste of time for me?)

“But these things happen. Kai, what I want you to know is that I visit my clients usually between 5pm and midnight. So I’m not going to be doing these things in the daytime.”
(Oh, is that because that living you make on properties is somehow different from the living you make 9-5? And midnight? So I guess I should have not been expecting him to automatically apologize and arrange another time when he called that one time after 10pm, but instead should have told him that “Sure! Come around whenever you want, we’re not going anywhere in the morning!”)

“You asked about the Tenancy Deposit Scheme in your email. Listen, you’re the first tenant asking about this scheme. If you want to be a part of it, it is possible, but I have not looked into it. What you will need to know is that the government will do nothing for free when it introduces new schemes like this. So if you want to be part of this, all the costs will be then passed on to you, the tenant. You have to understand, that the tenant-landlord relationship is based on trust. Your £1100 deposit is not going to cover you making a hole in a wall. I trust you with my assets, you can definitely trust me with your deposit.”
(When exactly have you shown yourself to be worthy of my trust as a tenant? I am living in your property without proper documentation and contracts, with serious work that still needs to be done, repeated calls and assurances that everything will be sorted that evening, yet nothing happens, and you’re talking about trust? Sure, he’s been reasonable in letting us move in a bit early and having the contract start later, but in terms of professional air he doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

The deposit scheme is the law. I need to look into if he can legally have a clause in his contract saying that we won’t enter into the scheme and sign away our rights to complain at the end of the tenancy. I’m so glad the LSE has a housing office where you can ask these kinds of things.

Besides, there need not to be costs, and they certainly shouldn’t be levied from the tenant.)

I had arranged for the landlord to come to the flat to sign the rental agreement and to look at our list of issues still to be resolved. He was supposed to come at 6 pm on Thursday but I didn’t honestly expect him until seven. That’s when I tried to call him, but could only get his voicemail. I left a message asking him when he might show up. He eventually called back at 9:30 pm, saying that he had some urgent business near to the flat he would attend to, print the agreements and then come right over. I grudgingly accepted, since I was going to be home anyway.

An hour later (10:30 pm) he called me again saying that he had some problems with the ink that he bought for his printer, and could not get the documents out. Additionally, he said that he would be in Spain the following morning, and would only come back on Sunday evening! By this time I was rolling my eyes pretty heavily, and asked him to mail me the contracts so we could sign them and return them at our leisure, and asked him what we could do with the washing machine that doesn’t work. That’s the most urgent thing, really. We can live with the crappy boiler, peeling bathroom paint and other issues, but washing clothes at a laundromat can get expensive quickly. He did rent the place with a washing machine, so I expect it to be fixed or replaced. “I know a washing machine repairman, I’ll give him a call,” he said.

Maybe he’s quicker to arrive than the plumber that hasn’t called us nor come around for three weeks. Apparently, he just “keeps forgetting to call, but will come around tomorrow or the day after”. Yeah right.