Estate Agents
Estate Agents: don't ya just love em?
Here at Bellclose Road we certainly don't. It all started about six weeks ago now while during the night, unbeknownst to any of us, a 'For Sale' sign appeared outside our house. It would have been alright if we had actually put our house up for sale, but given the fact we had recently signed another two-year contract and considered ourselves fairly well settled into our shabby little home in West Drayton the sudden appearance of the 'For Sale' sign certainly was a shocker.
Perhaps more shocking than the 'For Sale' sign was the fact that Cameron Estate Agents didn't even bother to tell us that they have decided to sell our house despite the fact we pay them a disproportionate amount of rent for the size of our house, and given the fact they must have known they were going to sell our house when we signed a new contract! To make matters even worse they have the gall to pretend to us that they're selling to Landlords only and that our tennancy is safe. Normally I'd be inclined to believe them, but given the fact that all the viewings of our house have been by families with new children it would suggest to me that they certainly wouldn't be wanting to rent their newly purchased house out to four hairy students!
So, our estate agents are lying to us, they're looking to sell our house, they're doing deals behind our back and they charge us more to live on account of the fact we are students. Great.
But it gets worse.
If all the secrecy and lying wasn't annoying us all already, and if our neighbour Jez being turfed out by the same estate agents wasn't enough to really get our blood boiling then the visitors we had yesterday really just took the biscuit.
At 4pm yesterday there came a knock at the door.
A tired and slightly peeved me (I had just settled down to another session of reading), stumbles downstairs and answers the door.
I'm greeted by a smiling estate agent with family in tow.
"Hello, are you Mark?"
I shake my head.
"Doesn't Mark live here?"
"No..."
"Oh, there must be some mistake then. I must have the wrong house. Do you mind if we look round anyway?"
There really wasn't much I could say to this last comment. I know the lady estate agent had messed up, but really the audacity was somewhat shocking. I waved them in with gritted teeth.
The house viewing went on in awkward quiet conversation. I then followed the family upstairs. It was at this point they got to the bathroom. I admit at this point I was trying to stay away from them as much as possible as I knew they were just going to annoy me with their polite conversation and comments about the house we are all rather attached to. For this reason as they approached the bathroom I decided to hide in the hallway. As I did this I could only catch snatches of conversation - something about mess and something about "boys will be boys". I've got to say this really did irritate me as I was already in a bad mood with them, but I let it pass and showed them all out to many appologies and much thanks for the impromptu viewing of our (very messy) house. It was as they left that I went up to the bathroom to see what it was that had caused their consternation, thinking perhaps the bathroom was dirtier than I thought it was. I enter to find everything is pretty much in good order and the whole room was pretty much as clean as it's ever been. I wondered to myself then, just why the bathroom had drawn the "boys will be boys" comment.
It was then that I looked up to the window.
There, scrawled on the outside of the dirty window-pane, was a giant graffiti penis. And to think they might have thought it was me who had done it! Obviously, any of you who regularly read my blogs and articles will probably have a fair idea as to the source of the window-penis. Let's just say his name begins in "Th", and ends in "omas". He really is a 5 year old sometimes :s