Well, that’s that then. Mum’s flat is sold; we completed on Wednesday and what an emotional roller-coaster of a day it was! Emptying the flat of everything was as if she’d died again. The poor removal men must have thought they were dealing with a very weird woman who burst into tears when all they’d asked was “Is the headboard going?”.
What a wrench! And the new owner has gone straight in and ripped up carpets and started pI’ainting – all things I’d have done if I’d been given a mortgage – yet her doing this, with what is now her property, feels like an affront and that she’s disrespecting Mum’s memory. How silly!
It’s all be made worse – stranger – by the fact that I’m homeless. Now, it was one thing being asked all sorts of impertinent questions by mortgage companies, but when the owner of a tiny little flat in Westcliff, who had already seen I have a guarantor, had run a credit check on said guarantor, had seen evidence of my income, had had it confirmed that I didn’t have any pets, then asked to see the last three months’ bank statements I flipped! I know that he doesn’t know I’m an honest person who will pay the rent on time and take care of his property, but it seems as if he – and several other landlords whose properties I’ve seen – are more than happy to take tenants on housing benefit, presumably because they know they’ll get it every week, irrespective of how those people may treat the properties. And some of the properties I’ve been to see defy description.
It amazes me – and bear in mind I’m a landlord myself – that agencies produce lovely information brochures on rental properties that aren’t even clean. I asked one agent as he showed me round a house that had last been decorated circa 1979 and had a floor to ceiling black damp stain on the bedroom wall, having just left another one where the bathroom must have carried a modern day mutation of the Black Death judging by the colour of the bath and toilet “Don’t the landlords or yourselves clean these places?” “Well, we sort of expect the tenants to,” he replied. And these places are not cheap. What irks me most is that I’ll now be having to pay at least £250+ more in rent than the mortgage the banks all said I couldn’t afford to pay! As they might say in the States: Go figure!
What a good job it is that the Sister, who’s a kind, wonderful woman, has taken me in temporarily, even though she’s having building work done to her place; that I have the world’s best daughter; that I’m in the Ladykillers; that I have a great circle of friends; that Singles’ Holiday is becoming a stage play; that I have Actors’ Factory; that I’m going to Antigua on Wednesday for a short stay in my beautiful Avocado Cottage; that I’m healthy and that life is interesting, abundant and beautiful.
All I need is somewhere nice to live……
