Charity Begins - Monday

Hurrying across the park I spot the aggressive begging group. I need a quick detour, even though I haven’t go time for the “cup of tea” they expect me to believe they’ll be buying with any cash extorted from passers by.

I’ve done the charity bike rides and the sponsored walks - even estate agents need some good publicity - but I’m starting to tire of the excessive demands for my hard-earned  income. It won’t be long before one of these be-whiskered drunks - probably the one that popular opinion has it is a woman - starts to quiz me for my bank details and expects me to sign a direct debit form.

‘Oi can see you city boy.’ Yells one of the group, gesticulating lewdly in my direction. I’m rather pleased with the boy moniker. It’s one only appended nowadays by pensioners and the chronically myopic, but the universally accepted tosser motion I can do without.

‘Yeh. How about helping the homeless you capitalist bastard!’ Screams a high-pitched voice. That’ll be the woman then, unless the cold nights sleeping in our office doorway have affected the collective testosterone. 

I continue my circuitous route around the group, offering another universally recognised sign. A wide-armed, hand wobbling gesture to convey a shortage of money. It’s not that convincing, but probably wiser then the single digit riposte I nearly deployed. The nights are dark and I still need to get to the car park every evening.

‘We knows where you work.’ Hollers a third drunk throatily. And I know where you sleep, I think sourly. I’ve swept enough human detritus into the gutter over they years - and I’m not just talking  metaphorically.

‘You alright?’ Asks negotiator S with a look of concern, as I scurry through the door.

‘Yes, just being hassled by the unlicensed bandits.’ I tell her briskly.

‘The new lettings agency?’ 

No. That’s a whole other story. I enlighten her.

‘Oh it’s not their fault.’ Says S.

 It probably is.

‘They’ve just had a few bad breaks.’ She continues, as I shrug off my coat. Try having three sales fall-through on a Friday morning, I think uncharitably. Then daytime drinking is understandable.

‘They are all scumbags.’ Insists fat mortgage man M, waddling towards his office. ‘I’m damned if I’m feeding them.’ I know, but open goals are never as satisfying.

‘Look, if I thought they’d spend it on food or even the dogs they all seem to have, I’d give them some money.’ I tell S, her look of disapproval unsettling me. M’s disdainful dismissal of the rough sleepers even made me bridle. It’s not easy fluctuating between left of centre, right of centre and completely off centre.

‘You shouldn’t help them out it just makes things worse.’ States B from her lettings desk. ‘Anyway,’ continues B. ‘You may have repossessed some of their homes, so you’ve probably done enough already.’

I don’t actually repossess them. It’s the lender with the power of the courts and a pretty scary bailiff behind them, but I’m there along with the locksmith.

‘They should get a job.’ Suggests assistant manager T, joining the conversation. ‘And maybe try living off commission if they really want something to drown their sorrows over.’ S looks at me with a frown. 

What? It’s not as if I decided to flog off all the social housing at a discount, make the planning process so labyrinthian it takes years and not build enough homes for a burgeoning population.

And I haven’t personally been responsible for impregnating females and fathering the best part of the 750,000 births per year, statisticians say the UK has. In fact, the beggar offering the wanker gesture was closer to the truth.

‘Well I won’t be renting anything to those types.’ States B firmly.

‘They need somewhere to live.’ Says S passionately.

‘Other than our office doorway.’ I add, wishing immediately I hadn’t.

S scowls at me and I shrug and walk towards the message book, change jangling in my suit pocket in a copper, zinc and nickel chiming admonishment. 

‘Can you help me with a pound for my bus fare home?’ Asks a scruffy girl as I cross the park later.

Well, what would you have done…?

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Court Order - Monday

‘I need a man to come with me.’ Announces loose lettings lush B to an awkward silence. I stifle my inappropriate reply and by an act of immense projected will - and a warning scowl - manage to ensure that nobody else taps in the open goal.

‘Difficult appointment?’ I eventually offer after running several potential answers through my head as a precautionary measure. I don’t need a sexual discrimination claim, no matter how spurious. With the amount of booby-trapped legislation swirling round employing people I really should have paid more attention at school and studied to become a lawyer. On reflection, I’m glad I didn’t say booby-trapped out loud, too.

‘I’ve got to do an eviction for a landlord at eleven o’clock.’ States B, shaking her head. ‘And there’s no way I’m going there alone.’ Momentarily a mischievous inner self wonders if the fact she’s asking for a man to come with her isn’t a tiny bit sexist, but laws often work on the pendulum principle. Correct one injustice and the over-compensation creates another one. I’ve see enough matrimonial home sales to know that.

‘Are you expecting trouble?’ Asks assistant manager T warily. He’s already manoeuvring not to go with B. Those designer glasses and his penchant for expensive suits don’t lend themselves to a filthy flat and a punch to the face.

‘Single Mum, two kids by different Dads, aggressive men friend visitors and a viscous looking dog.’ States B taking up a whole days news content for The Daily Mail.

‘She’s had notice of eviction I assume?’ I ask, knowing already I’ll have to go with B. Some things you just can’t delegate - unless you’re my spineless bean counter boss.

‘Of course.’ Replies B dismissively. ‘But she is holding on to be formally kicked out so she can get re-housed by the Council.’ There was a time when I felt sorry for everyone losing their home, but after seeing some of the deliberately wrecked properties and the way some people abuse societies' safety net, my liberal left leanings have become a bit tarnished.

‘This has to be it.’ I state rhetorically to B as I pull up in the car, at 10.45am. We are nearly opposite an unloved terraced house in the “cheaper” part of town. The windows are peeling, a gutter is at a crazy angle and an overflow pipe is pumping water on to the crowded forecourt. Most of the neighbouring homes have cars squeezed on to what was once a small front garden before boundary walls were demolished. All except the property we are visiting. It has an array of rusting white goods dumped outside and a small mountain of overspilling bin nags. I’m starting to itch already.

‘You got rubber bands?’ Asks B, ferreting in her handbag, past the pepper spray and the rape alarm. I sigh heavily and shake my head. Schoolboy error. ‘Too bad.’ Says B leaning down and fixing a pair of those thick red rubber bands the postman sheds, around her trousers. Now I know why she didn’t wear her usual short skirt and jacket combo. I can almost sense the fleas sensing me, and the itching returns twofold.

‘Is she going to be difficult?’ Asks the bailiff when we are all at the front door bang on 11.00am. The court official has the look of a nightclub bouncer, head shaven and gym-pumped frame straining to escape his clothing. I take a half-step back. He’s the one being paid to take the hits, I think, as the muscled man bangs the door loudly then stoops and yells through the letterbox. A dog starts barking rabidly and I bump into B awkwardly, as she too positions herself behind the bailiff.

‘Wasn’t too bad.’ Says B once the woman, dog and two kids have gone straight to the Town Hall,without any resistance.

‘More than I can say for this place.’ I answer as we survey the spitefully trashed house, detritus everywhere, walls crayoned over in a juvenile hand.

‘I’ve seen worse.’ Replies B with a heavy sigh. ‘You start to hate these people after a while.’ Before I can disagree something bites my ankle sharply.

Sadly, you do.

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Batting For Both Sides - Tuesday

To a corporate day out at the cricket, I’m only going because the guy in Land and New Homes had a better offer, but gift horses and mouths. And yet even as I walk through the gates and flash my all areas access pass the long-buried punk rock, angry socialist feelings regurgitate like a bad kebab.

I wrestled with my conscience for years, particularly through my first property recession when the repossessions came thick and fast. I felt a bit better when I snatched back a flat a fellow, but dodgy, agent had mortgaged to the hilt. To fit the stereotype he’d sub-let illegally, hadn’t made any payments, taken the tenants money, then stripped all the fittings out days before the bailiff and I arrived. Even so, I still feel I shouldn’t be there in multi-million pound homes, or executive boxes with a dozen braying hoorays. There is a free bar though…

‘Champagne sir?’ Asks a comely waitress as I shake a few hands and apologise for the fact I’m a stand-in guest. I nod and smile, then detect a briefest flash of distaste from the girl as I grab the long-stemmed flute, dripping with condensation, and gulp down the bubbles. She’ll have to work on her facial expressions if she wants to make it in sales. The pavilion clock shows a shade after 10.30am.

‘So how’s the second hand market doing?’ Asks a hard-faced, yet curiously attractive, woman from the Developers footing the bill for the gig. She’s dressed in power skirt and jacket combo and will be thrown out of the ground if she walks on the pitch in those vertiginous heels.

‘There are deals to be done if buyer and seller are realistic.’ I tell her with a stock phrase from my mental basket of answers.

She laughs. ‘Yes, people are always bleating about the market, but we are shifting plenty of new units.’ I nod a non-committed response. ‘The trouble is the lenders are too picky on who they’ll advance to, then their valuers carp about the price.’ She continues, then pauses and looks me up and down. Briefly I wonder if she fancies me, until she says. ‘Has it always been like this?’ It must have been the bubbly. I’m as delusional as 75% of vendors.

Come the lunchtime break I’m wondering round the public areas, legs Bambi-like from free booze and not enough vol-au-vents. It feels good to be back with the public. Momentarily, I’m tempted to buy a sweaty looking hog roast in a bap, but I move on. I’m a man of the people at heart, I think, until I see the snaking queue for the gents’ toilets. I head back to the cordoned off area, nodding convivially at the dayglow-jacketed bouncer on the gateway. He gives me another unguarded look. Probably seen which box I’m in. I decide he’s one of those House Price Crash doom-mongers who sit in the same room they’ve occupied in the parents’ house for the last forty years, stalking message boards exchanging prophesies of meltdown to like-minded men in their pyjamas – all waiting for homes to become affordable.

‘There are winners and losers in all walks of life.’ Pontificates a sweaty-browed lawyer I’m sat next to on the balcony, as the number three batsman departs for a duck.

‘The trouble with all these people whining about property prices is they’re not prepared to graft.’ Continues the man, turning towards me and blasting a garlic-laced typhoon of bad breath my way. I’ve said something similar myself; after all it was never easy. But still, like the chilli and rice I opted for an hour ago, it doesn’t sit well with me. Like the time I tried to set up are new home router, I realise I’m not that good at networking. I want to go home.

‘How much introduction fee do you get from the conveyancing firms you recommend?’ Asks the lawyer earnestly, revealing his true interest in proceedings. We’re not supposed to take any secret profit without reporting it to our client nags the inner voice from a long distant man who studied the Estate Agents’ Act.

I have his business card – just in case.

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Behind The Green Door

‘That twat from number 21 was on the phone when you were out.’ Announces assistant manager T before I’ve taken my coat off.

‘The repossession?’ I query, feeling another problem growing along with the incipient ulcer bubbling away in my stomach.

‘Yes, he doesn’t seem to understand it’s not his house any more.’ Grumbles T.

‘Give him a break.’ Counters negotiator S, looking at me for the support her bra is struggling to give. ‘He’s lost everything.’

‘Should have kept up the monthly money then.’ Says T callously.

‘Or taken out some payment protection insurance with me.’ Adds moribund mortgage man M to looks of disbelieve.

‘It never pays out.’ Snaps S, turning her ire on M.

‘Pays pretty good commission, or used to.’ Chuckles M, his jowls vibrating like jelly on the Circle Line.

‘What does he want?’ I ask T, trying to avoid a full blown internal argument when I can take my pick from half a dozen public spats, daily.

‘To speak to someone in higher authority.’ Says T his eyebrows rising towards the heavens where I’ve found nothing but a thinning ozone layer, to date.

I’ve detested repossessions since my first round of snatch-backs in the late eighties. A certain, there but for the grace of a God, feeling has dogged me on every appointment with bailiff and locksmith. The, I’m only following orders and if I didn’t do it someone else would, line wears a bit thin when you’ve pasted scores of goods and chattels notices on newly secured front doors, giving the ex-owners 28 days to remove their remaining possessions before the house clearance lads turn up with a skip and a steam-cleaner.

‘Couldn’t you sort it then?’ I ask T wearily.

‘Idiot says he needs several hours there.’ Replies T. ‘I told him we can’t wait around that long while he loads bin-liners. There’s sod-all worth keeping there anyway.’

‘It’s probably sentimental value.’ Suggests S with a rather magnificent pout. Don’t go there, says the internal voice admonishingly – it’s someone else’s property.

‘He says we can leave him with the new key and he’ll drop it back.’ Continues T, before adding sneeringly. ‘As if we’re that stupid.’

It’s not unheard of for evicted non-payers to break back into homes after the court order has been executed. I’m guessing the lender wouldn’t take too kindly to more lengthy legal proceedings if we hold the door open while a squatter takes up residence, no matter how altruistic the intent. The corporate department wouldn’t be too pleased either. They nurture cosy reciprocal agreements with banks and building societies involving much mutual back-scratching and long expenses paid lunches. I take the number, appropriately enough a mobile one, and ring the man. If hate could pass across the airwaves I’d be long dead. I agree to stay for an hour maximum.

‘F***ing parasite.’ Will have to pass for a thank-you.

‘You lot love this. It’s an easy sale.’ Snarls the dishevelled ex-owner later, as he and his tattooed partner lug bags of threadbare clothes, some forlorn looking children’s toys and a few ropey electrical appliances on to the front lawn. Their man with a van hasn’t arrived and it looks like rain judging by the blackening sky.

‘You know you are selling this way too cheap.’ Says the heavily inked woman. I tell her the asking price has been set after two independent surveyors’ valuations, but she’s far from convinced. Granted three others in the road are on the market for twenty grand more, but they won’t be selling in a hurry.

‘I’m never buying again.’ Spits the man as I look at my watch surreptitiously. No you won’t be mate, but not for the reasons you’re thinking. His credit score will read like a Greek budget report.

‘I don’t know how you can do your job.’ Sneers the woman, eyes colder than a dead fish. ‘You are all part of the conspiracy.’

I’m not that sophisticated lady I ache to say. I’m just trying to keep a roof over my own family. But sometimes you need to know when to stay silent.

‘Good day?’ Asks my wife. I just shake my head and open a beer.

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All Too Typical - Monday

‘I’d rather you go in first.’ Says lettings lush B as she pauses on the doorstep of the flat with the dodgy tenants. She’s given the requisite notice to inspect but as they haven’t paid rent for three months and the chavvy woman in the flat opposite - who is still watching us - has told us they are long gone, I’m not expecting a welcome.

‘Cautiously, I move forward, heart pumping audibly in my chest. I’ve had a few punches thrown at me, and several pieces of office furniture, but usually there’s a bailiff when we’re taking possession of properties. Obviously it looks better for the company if male members of staff get assaulted, and they only pay for rape alarms for the women, but I feel pretty vulnerable.

‘God knows what you’ll find in there.’ Says the fat neighbour with a hint of glee. Her mewling baby is demanding a feed and the dead-eyed toddler is tugging at her tracksuit bottoms for attention, but she’s too busy watching the show to take any notice. No sign of either of the Dads.

‘Ugh, what’s that smell? Asks B throatily. A stench of something decaying has almost physically assaulted us as I swing the door open to reveal a dank hallway full with black plastic bin bags. A big bluebottle zigzags towards the light and not for the first time I wish I’d paid more attention at school.

‘They’re dirtbags.’ Suggests the neighbour disdainfully and for a horrible moment I think she’s referring to the plastic liners slumped ahead of me. It wouldn’t be the first time my day turned into a bag of shite. But I realise she’s referring to the late, none to lamented, tenants.

‘I’ve had to call the police, the social and environmental half a dozen time.’ Moans the woman as I think uncharitably, they’ve probably got your number too love. ‘You lot shouldn’t let scum like that rent in here.’ Continues supermum as the toddler starts to whine about missing a Peppa Pig episode. There’s a sty here you can wallow in kid.

‘Who’s going to clear up all the mess?’ Persists the woman as the baby paws at her ample breasts and my stomach churns unpleasantly. I’m just waiting for her to ask about compensation but B shoves me inside the hall and pulls the door shut. ‘Fat slapper.’ She spits ungraciously. B’s never been called fat as far as I’m aware but a pot, kettle, black line runs through my head until I see the kitchen and much darker cooking utensils.

‘Oh terrific.’ Moans B surveying the detritus. The hob has several months’ worth of spillages baked onto the enamel and the work-surfaces are covered in unwashed crockery and saucepans. By one of the gas rings I can see the remains of home made baking of some description. I’m no expert, but a tarnished spoon, some tin foil and half a dozen spent matches doesn’t look like they’ve been cooking cupcakes.

  

‘Junkies. I knew it.’ Says B gloomily. ‘Who the hell are we going to get to clear this mess up? The Polish guys have gone home and nobody local will touch this place for sensible money.’ She has a point. The flat needs stripping, disinfecting and redecorating before any new tenants can be shown round. I have a feeling group legal will be getting involved.

‘This is what you get if you give low-life’s free accommodation and drug money.’ Rails B in a Daily Mail moment.’ God, she’s got it worse than me. From bitter experience I look to the fridge. Yep. It’s been unplugged.

‘Watch where you tread, there might be needles again’ I advise B, as I decide not to open the grubby Electrolux door. The maggots will wait. I’m just here to make sure B isn’t assaulted, other than her nostrils.

‘God.’ Groans B looking into the bathroom in disgust. ‘The water must be off. The toilet bowl looks like that rainy festival when I had to have a dump in the chemical loo. There were things in there nobody should be excreting.

‘I f***ing hate humanity.’ Says B - ahead of me for the first time.

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