It's Behind You - Thursday

‘You’ve got a ghost house to look at.’ Says trainee F triumphantly, as I walk through the door.

‘Is it going to disappear as soon as I turn up?’ I ask him sarcastically.

F looks hurt, but sticks and stones will break his bones and words won’t - or he’d be in intensive care by now.

I don’t need to visit and market another home with a supposedly interesting angle that I can’t quantify to a belligerent Trading Standards officer, or some prissy pen-pusher still living at home with their parents, who works in a bubble at the Advertising Standards’ Agency.

‘You know ghosts don’t exist, don’t you?’ I ask F flatly.

‘You don’t know that.’ Interjects negotiator S. Good god, I hoped she’d be a bit more level-headed - maybe those enormous breasts are canting her forward again.

‘Well the lady who lives there says she’s seen the ghost lots of times.’ Persists F.

‘After the second bottle of wine, by any chance?’ Asks obese mortgage man M. He may be a peddler of pointless policies, but he does live in the real world. McDonald’s mostly…

‘And she wants to sell, does she?’ I press, starting to lose the will to live.

‘Yes,’ confirms F. ‘I’ve booked you a valuation this afternoon.’

‘Nobody is going to want to buy a haunted house.’ Says loose lettings lush B from her desk.

Thank you, I think fleetingly, until she adds. ‘She should rent it instead.’

‘I think it would be cool.’ Says S enthusiastically. ‘We could get loads of publicity in the local press with an angle like that.’

‘And you’d be inundated by every nut-job in the area.’ Says M, shaking his fat face. ‘Loonies and losers with a credit score lower than Greece.’

‘And they are the type that look but never buy.’ I add. ‘Any normal person isn’t going to be enthusiastic about buying a house with a resident poltergeist. Most people prefer the furniture moving to stop once the removal men have left.’

Now I love a home to market with an unusual story. Not least because you can indeed get the press, and social media, to lap up tales that might allow a sensational headline with a stock photo from Getty attached. They say any publicity is good publicity, especially if it’s free, but ghoulish stories and things that go bump in the night don’t exactly enhance your hopes of a quick sale, or a good price.

‘What was she like?’ I ask F wearily. Let me guess. Eccentric.

‘A little bit flaky.’ Confirms F.

‘Single?’

‘How did you know?’

‘With cats?’ I venture.

‘Three.’ Confirms F, looking at me as though I’m the supernatural one.

‘Flowery skirt, with greying hair too long for her age and a fleece covered in animal fur?’ I ask.

‘You know her don’t you?’ Demands F.

No. But I know the type.

Time was, I used to revel in selling homes with well-known residents from the past. I have even sold a couple with those Blue Plaques on the walls, over the years, detailing famous historical figures who once lived there. But the laws as they are preclude any spurious tales about a home’s history, unless they can be verified and quantified. It’s why estate agents’ particulars are so uniform sanitised and dull. Don’t blame me, blame the consumer lobby who assume every buyer has had a full frontal lobotomy before they were given their first credit card. Caveat Emptor is as dead as the Latin language.

‘So why does she want to sell her home,’ I ask F, after scanning the message book. ‘Surely she loves the company?’

‘Apparently the ghost spooks the cats.’ Says F, in apparent seriousness. 

Now I’m starting to like this  apparition. I’d love to be able to frighten away every little spiteful fur ball that has stuck it’s claws into me over the years. They seem to know a cat-hater instantly, even before I start sneezing; and kicking some malevolent moggy while the owner isn’t looking makes a valuation even harder than it is.

‘Good luck.’ Says S cheerily as I leave later. ‘Do you think she’ll be sensible on price?’

Not a ghost of a chance. 

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Upgrade Available - Thursday

‘F**k it.’

‘Not a chance.’ Mumbles a sleepy voice.

‘Not literally.’ I tell my wife, before adding. ‘Are you awake then?’ Which on sleepy reflection wasn’t the smartest response.

‘I am now.’ She replies sourly.

‘What time is it?’ I ask wearily. I have a good idea, as I’ve woken at the same time three night’s running.

‘It’s nearly half-past two and you have your own watch.’ Comes the testy reply. ‘Now go back to sleep.’

Not a hope in hell, I think, as I sigh and clamber out of bed to the sort of feminine groan that used to signal slightly more success than waking your partner, before making a solitary cup of tea.

If I wanted to be picky, I think drowsily as I stumble down the stairs, I’d have pointed out to my wife that her time check was a tad inaccurate. The moment I woke up, praying it was after 6.30am, was 2.22am precisely. Like one of those endless Paranormal Activity movies I’ve been pinging awake at exactly the same time for several days now, but the only levitation around tends to involve lifting inappropriate nighttime snacks from the fridge. Needless to say the suggestion of a fixed camera in the bedroom received a frosty response.

Despite loony ladies’ claims to have ghosts residing in their home - still not a great sale clincher - the only poltergeist I have found is the malicious one in my head. A spectre that has me fretting over sales figures and management accounts at sparrow-fart o’clock. Paradoxically, the more you crave sleep the more elusive it becomes, no matter how dog tired you are.

Tossing and turning doesn’t work for me - particularly the tossing as my wife is a light sleeper - so I inevitably end up sloping downstairs for a piss and a cup of tea. Sadly the bladder seems to be weakening along with the mind.

At first, with the thrill of smoking a brand new car and visiting luxury homes I could aspire to if I hit my targets year-on-year, the thrill of house sales kept me running on adrenalin. No matter how hard I worked, I slept like a log. But slowly, insidiously, like water eroding a rock, the pressure of ever increasing targets and ever increasing responsibility began to take its toll. Now I wake up head spinning like an elderly hard drive. I have a feeling I’ve reached capacity.

‘Open you bastard.’ I mutter, as the ancient PC spins and splutters to life, while my cup of tea cools alongside me. The house is silent as a grave now my two sons have left for university and unless my wife starts snoring it’s going to remain that way - other than the tip-tap of a keyboard - until the radio alarm goes off.

Dilemma. Do I look at my office sales figures and the management accounts, the reason I was cattle-prodded awake at 2.22am, or do I write a blog entry and Tweet a few times to fellow insomnia sufferers? I might even have an anonymous exchange with my fellow realtors around the world. Intriguing, but not likely to pay the mortgage. I open the management accounts - eventually.

I’ve always had the gift of the gab, it’s the reason good sales people are often born performers, but mathematics has remained a foreign language to me. If the calculator hadn’t been invented I’m sure I’d be stacking shelves in a supermarket store somewhere, with the prospect of ending up like one of those grey-haired old men collecting snaking lines of trollies in the car park, when they should be lunchtime drinking and reminiscing.

Whatever the numerical equivalent of dyslexia is, I think I have it. My bean counter boss is a figure-fiddler par-excellence but couldn’t flog a life-raft to a drowning man. They say the meek shall inherit the earth, well they’ll be dull, with halitosis and an accountancy qualification.

My mind rapidly becomes snow-blinded by the blizzard of figures. My ailing computer spews out columns and lines but I’m running a drowsy Windows 2000 in my head.

It just doesn’t add up.

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Neighbourhood Watch - Tuesday

‘So anything else I need to know about your home, something I may have missed?’ I ask as I sit in the living room, details and measurements taken, sales pitch to come.

‘What do you mean exactly?’ asks the husband defensively as his wife frowns. ‘Have you heard something?’

I ask these questions to personalise property details. To take them away from the anodyne, safe from prosecution, but boring to the point of self-harm when read, particulars most agents produce. A little nugget about the home’s history, a previous well-known owner, a tale about former uses, anything interesting - apart from ghost stories. Something is amiss here. I just hope it doesn’t include claims of the supernatural. They never help a sale - just flush out more weirdos.

‘Tell him.’ Urges the wife eventually, after the silence has become uncomfortable. I nod encouragement and the husband takes a deep breath.

‘Well,’ he begins. ‘I don’t want you to tell prospective buyers, but the man next door is a complete wanker.’

‘Language dear.’ Chides the wife, blushing beguilingly.

‘Well he is.’ Counters her husband. ‘He’s a world class tosser and we’ll be glad to see the back of him.’

Now I have a dilemma I could do without. Ignorance can be a drawback in the industry - just look at F, my intellectually challenged trainee - but occasionally being unaware of an issue, can be bliss. With nanny state legislation designed to help the lowest common denominator I’m obliged to flag up all sorts of potential problems to buyers. It’s not clear which ones - you have to wait until you are in court for clarification - but I need to know the nature of this animosity.

‘How long have you got?’Asks the husband, as I hear the wretched cat flap clatter in the background. An evil-eyed moggy slinks in, looks at me with distain and jumps into the wife’s lap. I can already feel my nose twitching faster than the cat’s tail. The allergy will have my nostrils weeping like the front row at a funeral before I’ve explained the sole agency form.

‘He’s just a nasty, evil man.’Offers the wife, stroking the cat lovingly. I can see hairs floating towards me in the sunlight and my back is beginning to itch already. I really don’t need this - except I do with properties hard to come by. If they have a neighbours’ dispute going on it will come up sooner or later. If not by virtue of awkward questions from viewers, it will be flagged-up when the buyer’s solicitor sends out standard pre-contract enquiries.

‘Could you enlighten me a little.’ I probe, sniffing back a thin trail of mucus which has started to flow. Seemingly, just by virtue of the visual clue the purring hairball sent me on entrance.

‘He hates cats.’ Answers the wife indignantly. I paste on my most neutral face, one the Swiss ambassador would be proud of.

‘How so?’ I ask, trying not to look at the pulsing mass of sneeze-inducing fur. The feline is eyeing me furtively. They know, even if the owners don’t.

‘The bastard tosses cat shit back over our fence.’ Snarls the husband, eyes blazing.

‘And Tabitha only ever does her business in a litter tray.’ Adds the wife. I’ve been round the bungalow and there were no signs of human offspring. I’m hoping Tabitha is the cat’s name and there isn’t an incontinent daughter somewhere, yet to be potty trained.

I’m guessing the dopy duo think their lump of snot-causing, itch-making, allergy irritating fur-bag doesn’t rip baby birds to shreds when they’re not looking, either. Something about cat lovers I just don’t get. And don’t even start me on the single women who keep them as hirsute baby, or a boyfriend substitute.

‘There’s no way it’s Tabitha’s do-do.’ Asserts the wife, before adding, ‘And he blocks our car in on the drive.’ I was coming to that thorny issue. Post war homes with shared drives are a nightmare. Planners were just glad a German tank wasn’t on the lawn back then. Nobody thought families would own two cars.

‘Any joy?’ Asks assistant manager T on my return.

Snot a lot.

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