Complete Rubbish - Sunday

‘Oh deep joy.’ I say, visibly drooping.

‘What?’  Questions my wife. ‘It’s only a bit of gardening. It will make a change for you to do some hands-on work.’

I’ve been press-ganged into shrubbery cutting on my weekend off. Working alternate Saturdays for a lifetime, hasn’t been my greatest love but it does mean I’ve often managed to swerve some of those traditional manly jobs involving wrenches, power tools and remembering whether it is righty-tighty, lefty-loosey - or the other way round.

‘Anyway I do a lot of hands-on.’ I grumble.

‘Not that I’ve noticed.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Let’s just get cutting.’ Says my wife. ‘We can do a couple of trips to the tip over the weekend, then.’

And that’s why I was complaining. Now I’m all for penguins not choking on plastic bottle tops and I’m right there with the next man in ensuring Polar Bears don’t run out of ice - as long as they remain on someone else’s continent. But the misery of a trip to the Municipal Tip is unsurpassed. Overnight, when people began to recycle and separate rubbish into different colour-coded bins, the staff at the local tip became neo-Nazis. I believe the French call the town dump a dechetterie, which seems about right, as it’s a shitty experience.

I see the little Hitlers, in hi-viz jackets watching me even as I open the car tailgate. They also watch little old ladies struggling with bin bags bigger than they are, but never move a muscle to help. I’m guessing health and safety - or bone idleness.

‘What you got there?’ Demands a particularly ratty-looking operative, as I struggle with a defunct set of full-length blinds we no longer need. Yes, my wife has decided that as we are going to the dump, not only are we going to dispose of the thorny-cuttings that have made my arms look like I’ve gone twelve rounds with a tetchy tiger, but we can ditch all the other detritus clogging up the garage that never houses a car.

‘Metal.’ I say, heading for the appropriate giant bin. I’ve identified it as the most likely deposit-point, as its not general waste, green biodegradable garden mater, paper, cardboard, or approved plastic suitable for processing (check local providers for re-cycling suitability).

‘Nah mate.’ Says the camp guard, holding up his hand like a scruffy traffic policeman. ‘That’s got fabric.’

Yes it has. Well done Sherlock. Those are the bits that keep the sunlight out and helped the product  get its name.

‘So, general waste?’ I say, not entirely confidently.

He looks at me as if I’m the one smelling of rotting fish.

‘Not with metal on it.’ Counters captain Haddock disdainfully.

‘So you had to detach each fabric panel before you could dump them separately’ Laughs my wife as I tell the tale. ‘Maybe he just realised you were an estate agent, saw the sticker in the car window.'

‘I took that out.’ I tell her grumpily.

‘Probably just as well.’ She says giggling. ‘Nobody loves an estate agent - oh, apart from me.’ She adds hurriedly, and not entirely convincingly.

‘It’s not funny.’ I snipe. ‘They were even checking the green bags to see what sort of cuttings I was ditching.’

‘You’ll know what do to tomorrow then.’ She says slyly. ‘There’s two more big bags of garden waste to go.’

There’s a queue right out to the road on Sunday and I can feel my temperature rising. After ten minutes of gridlock I decide to sweep into a space outside the gates and walk the bags in.

‘No mate.’ Calls an angry voice as I unload. Well he’s wrong already, I’m no mate of his.

‘Can’t do that,’ says the SS trainee. ‘Got to drive in.’

‘You’re not serious?’ I spit back angrily. And the jobsworth points to a camera on a pole. ‘We’re watching you. Evidence.’

After the event, I think of a vitriol-laced diatribe demanding if I now have to sort deciduous, from evergreen before using the appropriate garden waste bin. But in actuality, I do a three-point turn and rejoin the queue. At the back.

You can see why people fly-tip.

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Show Some Backbone - Monday

‘Oooh, dear. What happened to you?’ Asks my chiropractor, with an unwelcome chuckle. A tsunami of sarcasm isn’t best directed at someone who will have you bent double in your underpants shortly, so I just grimace and remind him I wouldn’t have booked an emergency appointment at £45 a pop, without a whole lot of agony.

I hobble awkwardly in to the waiting area, where two other people are slumped in the leather armchairs. Clearly hypochondriacs. I shuffle straight to the upright chair and lower myself gingerly to the squab. I look like one of those losers who ship up at A and E of a weekend, with a foreign objet wedged up their nether regions. Only I didn’t fall on to the vacuum cleaner nozzle while doing the housework naked - at least not this time…

‘What happened?’ Asks the chiropractor wearily, once I’m in the treatment room and down to my underwear. Socks still on. There’s no way they are coming off until he straightens my spine. It took my wife several goes to put them on me and she’s usually telling me to take them off when I’m on the bed.

‘I just woke up like this.’ I tell him pathetically. If he asks if I jumped amorously off the wardrobe the previous evening, I’ll take my business elsewhere - at least when I’m able to walk without resembling Notre Dame’s most famous bellringer.

‘Try and bend forward to touch your toes.’ Suggests the man softly.

He might as well ask me to levitate and do a trick with stale loaves and fish leftovers.

‘My, that is tight.’ Says the bone-bender. No shit Sherlock. ‘You’ve got yourself in a bit of a pickle haven’t you?’ He continues, as I resist the urge to verbally flay him with derision.

‘Now just try and relax.’ Says the man as I lie face down and he tugs at the waistband of my underpants. If anything I tense even more, and that’s before he really shafts me with  a bill most high-class hookers would baulk at on a cost per minute, while bent over making animalistic sounds.

‘This is going to take several sessions.’ Suggests the chiro, as the treatment table rises with a soft swishing. Now why am I not surprised? I’ve known for years that alternative treatment practitioners in the private sector have a vested interest in stringing out your treatment for several return visits. They need repeat business. The polar opposite of my experience with NHS staff.

I still recall, with bitterness, the clueless NHS physiotherapists my GP sent me to see after several bouts of back trouble. Bored-looking middle aged women, with cheaply photocopied handouts I could have obtained on the internet, spent most of the sessions filling out my medical history on their laptops. They never once touched my lap, or asked me to take my top off.

After several pointless sessions they were just eager to sign me off their caseload, with less hands on than a children's rugby game. One did refer me to a pensioners’ pilates class. It’s a sign of how desperate I was to break the pain/spasm/pain cycle that I attended. Some memories you wish you could erase forever. My mother disorientated in the old people’s home, father in a hospital bed, mute and terrified post-stroke - and a cobwebby crotch in a gaudy-coloured leisure suit, three foot from my face. ‘You might want to move up the mat a little Mabel, you’re a bit near that gentleman’s head.’

‘How’s the housing market?’ Asks the chiropractor, as he instructs me to roll on to my side and to clutch my opposite shoulder. Does he really want to know? Or is it just distracting small talk to fool me into relaxing, before he tries to get several vertebrae to audibly explode, like popcorn in a microwave.

I sometimes wish I could keep my identity secret from the pain-givers, but this guy, my dentist and my bank manger all know what I do. I give him a property platitude.

‘Deep breath in.’ He instructs, as my buttocks clench. ‘ A little discomfort coming.’

As I’ve been predicting.

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Numbers Up - Friday

‘How did it go?’ Asks negotiator S, as I come back into the office wearing my disappointment like a tramp’s overcoat. I thought she was better at reading body language, most women are, but then again it might be just as well she can’t tell what I’m sometimes thinking…

‘Some people just won’t listen.’ I tell S dejectedly, as I walk towards the message book with trepidation. Bad news tends to hunt in packs, and after a pair of idiots convinced the market will support £50,000 more than their bog-standard end of terraced house is worth, I’m not expecting a call from The National Lottery. 

‘I think people get the estate agent they deserve.’ Opines S pensively.

‘The greedy gits do.’ Agrees  assistant manager T,  joining the conversation as he re-enters from the direction of the gents’ toilet. Terrific, I was hoping for some contemplative time in there with the dog-eared copy of FHM, now I’ll need to leave it a while.

‘Those tossers across the road had been in before me.’ I say nodding toward the opposition agents, not  wanting to read the message book quite yet. ‘Told them their house was worth fifty grand more than it is. Ignored the fact that two identical homes in neighbouring roads have both completed at £10,000 less than my suggested asking price, in the last three months.’

‘Let them waste their time marketing it.’  Suggests T insouciantly. ‘Nobody will pay that sort of silly money.’

I hope not. But then demand is strong, supply is weak and there are an awful lot of idiots out there.

‘Even if they did,’ says S. ‘Their surveyor would down-value the sale price and everyone would be back to square one. Complete wast of time.’

Time-wasters are never in short supply - sadly, sensibly priced homes to sell usually are.

I finally glance at the message book. A couple of vendors to call back, a survey finally booked on a long-standing sale in progress - not bad - then a note to call back my bean counter boss. Sales falling through, feel like a sickening kick in the stomach. Everyday house moving problems, like a slow drip Chinese water torture. And a pedantic, figure-fiddling, frustrated accountant with about as much real-life knowledge of the property market as the last couple I’ve just visited, questioning your every move, is akin to someone grasping your gonads and slowly, incrementally, twisting.

‘What did he want?’ I ask rhetorically.

‘He didn’t say.’ Answers S, with a shrug and an endearing half-smile.

‘Board penetration not high enough?’ Suggests T with a shake of his head.

‘Financial services ratios too low.’ Offers fat mortgage man M divisively.

‘Lettings department doing more business than sales?’ Contributes B, from her one-woman dating desk, unhelpfully.

‘Perhaps he just wants to see how you are?’ Pipes up trainee F, to riotous laughter all round. ‘What?’ He says, crestfallen. 

My God, he’s got a lot to learn.

‘How is he?’ I ask the bean counter’s secretary. You need to cultivate the gatekeeper and although I would’t shag her, I’ve done my best to stroke her ego for the last few years.

‘Bit of a grumpy mood.’ Answers the frumpy middle-aged woman, who if I didn’t still believe I was twenty-five inside, I’d concede is younger than me.

‘Any idea what it is this time?’ I say flatly.

‘Well he’s been hunched over his laptop all morning.’ Replies the woman.

Porn or the P and L accounts then. Either way it’s going to be hard.

‘Your available stock figures are worryingly low.’ Reveals the bean counter after the cursory, insincere, pleasantries. No shit Sherlock. I hadn’t noticed every time I go to the filing cabinet for property details, then return empty-handed like some malnourished Oliver, to apologise to hopeful buyers about the dearth of homes to offer. Hadn’t twigged we were slowly starving. Hadn’t realised the opposition were deliberately mis-leading sellers to win the initial instruction.

‘Increase your suggested asking price by another 10% each time.’ Says the bean counter. ‘I want market share.’

I have market despair. 

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No Tea Or Kindness - Tuesday

‘We’re not giving it away.’ Echo the retired couple in unison. This pair have been together so long they even state the obvious in stereo. They’ve probably even defecate in tandem - thank goodness there’s a bathroom plus a downstairs cloakroom. Some things just have to be done in private.

I’m sat in their run-down living room, a space they insisted I describe as a drawing room on the sales particulars. I was sorely tempted to call it a lounge at the time but I’ve swallowed more pride than a Preston prostitute, so it became a dated term for a reception room - in a dated house.

The couple have been on the market for over a year and I must have spent hundreds of pounds on marketing their home. It’s a substantial 1930s family home on a quarter acre plot, in a sought after location. Well drawn covenants mean demolishing the house and erecting close-density units for maximum profit, remains unlikely - at least for now. I took the initial instruction to sell at a price that was bullish to the point of sporting horns, but the market has moved towards the intractable pair and now I have a good offer at a good price. Only this dilapidated duo are seemingly not for moving.

‘We know what you lot are like.’ Snipes the grey-haired wife as I try to tear my gaze away from her face, which has several antennae-like wiry hairs sprouting from the chin that could probably receive a deep-space message from Voyager 2.

‘Yes,’ agrees her husband shuffling his dentures back and forth with a nauseating clicking sound. ‘You just want your commission.’

No shit Sherlock, I think sourly. On a no-sale, no-fee basis, I’ve earned precisely nothing from the couple so far and the only cost they’ve incurred is the increasingly marginalised Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) and they’ve yet to cough for that. If they take the property off the market, something I’m half expecting now I’ve confronted them with the reality of moving, I’ll end up with that worthless piece of paper and a bad debt.

Agents Note: Dear posturing politicians, the general public have about as much interest in a rough and ready guesstimate of how energy efficient their future purchase might be as a eunuch does in Kitemarked condoms. If the home they fall in love with is 150 years old and has the insulation qualities of a colander they couldn’t give a toss which energy band it falls in, or how many polar bears slide off melting icebergs while they wait for a mortgage offer to come through. They just want the keys.

‘You see nothing on the market is a nice as ours.’ Continues the woman, staring wistfully at the faded family photographs on the dusty mantelpiece. That’s bollocks, but pointing it out isn’t going to make my negotiations any easier.

‘What we’d really like to do,’ begins her husband as I think, don’t say it, please don’t say it dementia denture man. But it spills forth as readily as his last two meals have, judging by the state of his jumper. ‘Pick ours up and put it somewhere else.’

‘Somewhere closer to town and the doctor’s surgery.’ Says his wife, warming to the theme.

‘On a bus route.’ Contributes her husband. ‘We’re not getting any younger.’

Neither am I matey, and you haven’t even offered me a cup of tea, let alone a biscuit - or any other any crumbs of comfort.

‘If we take it off the market, we won’t have to pay anything will we?’ Asks the wife, after fifteen fruitless - and beverage-free - minutes. One of them will have to come out feet-first before I get the survivor to sell. I remind then off the EPC and it’s cost. 

‘You kept that little bombshell quiet.’ Grumbles the husband. I didn’t, it’s in writing in the terms and conditions contract. 

‘It never used to be.’ Gripes the wife. No lady, not for the other four times you’ve been on and off the market without selling.

‘I am a pensioner you know.’ Complains the wife, as I leave empty-handed.

And so will I be before they move. 

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