Better The Devil You Know - Tuesday

‘Thought you might like to do a viewing later, boss.’ Says trainee F, with more artfulness than he usually employs.

I probably won’t enjoy it, as it happens. Despite what many think, the hard sell in estate agency is winning the property instruction in the first place. That’s where the competition is and the dark arts deployed. You can’t hard sell a viewing and subsequent purchase. And if you do, the potential buyer has eight weeks or more to change their mind, once lawyers, surveyors and lenders get involved.

‘And why did you think I might like to do that?’ I ask F.

He looks uncertain.

‘Tell him.’ Urges assistant manager T, with a mischievous grin.

‘Well… you know you say match staff to similar people for appointments.’ Says F, hesitantly.

‘Don’t worry it’s not a pair of poofters.’ Interjects mortgage man M, unpleasantly.

‘God you’re such a neanderthal throwback.’ Says negotiator S, scowling at M and tossing her hair back, distractingly.

I’m deflected from F, as I now need to point out to everyone that legislation, rightly, insists we don’t discriminate against people on race, religious, disability or sexuality grounds. Rather stuffy lecture delivered, I pause.

‘Yeh, yeh.’ Says M stalking back to his office and his copy of The Daily Mail. ‘But it doesn’t mean I have to like them, or those weirdos who want everyone to use the same toilets just because they can’t decide if it’s a dick between their legs, or not.’

Quite a lot of work to do on M. I wonder if I should apply to send him on that minority awareness course I went on? He probably could do with sitting in a circle of chairs empathising within a gender-neutral environment and sticking yellow post-it notes up whenever he thinks of a situation when his dated pre-dispositions and ingrained masculine prejudices, come to mind. He’d paper a whole, f***ing wall.

‘So why me?’ I continue, looking at F.

‘Similar age profile.’ Answers F.

‘Similar grey hair.’ Interjects B from her lettings’ desk.

‘Similar dress sense.’ Says S, with a laugh.

‘And similarly grumpy.’ Says T, completing my character assassination. 

As I walk up to the cheaply converted, once proud, Victorian house, I can see what they meant. The man I’m meeting looks like a tubbier version of me. Cheap crumpled suit, badly-knotted tie, wrinkled forehead and hair that I like to think of as, the stately silver fox look, but on this guy just looks like surrender.

‘You the estate agent?’ Asks the man warily. Yep, the man with a set of keys, a clipboard and a base model company car. You’ve got me, Sherlock. I eventually answer in the affirmative.

‘I was expecting someone younger.’ The man says flatly. Yes, and I was expecting someone looking a bit more like George Clooney, bucko. 

‘No offence.’ He continues. Plenty taken. ‘Only most of your lot are barely out of puberty, kids and shitesters most of them.’ He pauses and looks at my car. ‘And with flashier motors.’

‘God this is grim.’ Remarks the man, when we’ve both wheezed our way to the top floor penthouse. I make a mental note to change the description to attic flat, even before we start ducking to avoid the sloping roofline.

‘Why does everywhere smell of cabbage?’ He asks as we take a cursory look round the grotty studio flat, dodging stale takeaway cartons and trying not to make eye contact with the ladies’ underwear on the radiators.

‘I can’t live in somewhere like this.’ States the man wearily, over the monotonous drip of a leaking kitchen tap.

Should have thought of that before you shagged you secretary, I say internally. This guy is on the wrong end of divorce proceeding and the wife will be getting the family house. He better hope the younger woman likes three flights of stairs, dodging prams and bikes on poorly lit landings and listening to other people having more sex than she’ll be getting, through paper-thin walls.

‘Good day?’ Ask my wife, when I finally get home smelling stale and disappointed.

‘Love you.’ I tell her,  causing a momentary frown.

I can’t be doing with starting again.

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Right To Rent - Thursday

‘She’s prickly today.’ I whisper to S, my negotiator, as I see B the loose lettings lush arguing with a young couple, at her desk. The pair are giving as good as they get, albeit in a sort of guttural slang English, peppered with language richer than they appear to be.

‘She’s been moody all day.’ Confides S, nodding towards B, as the heavily tattooed and heavily pregnant female she’s arguing with - an earlier production model in a pushchair alongside - starts to spout a line about unfair treatment. I grind my teeth. You don’t need accusations of that kind, no matter how false. The paperwork wipes out rain forests…

‘They can’t, like discriminate us, ‘coz we’s on the social.’ Spits the woman, as her neanderthal partner grunts in agreement. He has multiple piercings and a big ring through his nose that I’m thinking might come in handy if I need to lead him, forcibly, from the office. His tattoos are less inky than his girlfriend’s, but do extend up his neck in a fetching manner, that he might think fashionable, but pretty much precludes him from working in any public-facing position.

‘What a pair of retards.’ Offers fat mortgage man M, in a wheezy stage whisper as he waddles past us, en-route to the kitchen.

‘You can’t say that.’ Replies S, bristling, turning to me and adding. ‘Can he?’

Best not to tell her what I was thinking - pretty much a mantra to stick to all the time with S, as it happens.

‘They do seem a little agitated.’ I say to S soothingly. B is now spouting some line about her landlords not wanting tenants who don’t have their own income and employment, to cover the rent. It’s not an unreasonable request, and one I’d want to make if I could ever afford a second property as an alternative to my pitiful pension.

‘It’s f***ing guaranteed.’ Shouts the female, swooping to pick up the soiled dummy her child has spat on the floor. The chubby girl is too old to be sucking on the comforter but as her mother - and possibly her father - are still locked on to the State’s virtual tit, it seems ironically appropriate. 

Actually, when the state paid rent direct to landlords it was a fairly safe vehicle for buy-to-let landlords, but once the benefits were diverted to the tenants first, the problems started. The off-licence and the drug dealer, sometimes got the cash before the landlord. It’s a cliche, but most cliches are rooted in unfortunate fact.

‘You shouldn’t pre-judge people.’ Says S softly, as the argument continues across the office. My money is on B, if the two feisty bitches start to fight. I reckon I can take the pig-nosed bloke if it kicks off, he’s wearing enough ironmongery for me to get painful purchase.

‘We try not to.’ I reply in a conciliatory fashion. And I don’t; I’ve sold enough homes to scruffy-looking individuals who turned out to be loaded, just with poor fashion sense, to know that. But the endless stream of deadbeats, who seem to know more about their rights than contraception, are starting to test, even my loosely liberal, ideals.

‘They just need somewhere to live.’ Continues S. ‘It’s not their fault housing costs in this country are a joke.’ I nod in agreement. She is right, and successive UK Housing ministers who last about as longs as an epileptic virgin on his wedding night, haven’t helped the problem. But this angry couple must have spent six month’s worth of rent on their absurd inkings, they don’t come cheap. And the over-sized baby in the pricey pushchair has managed designer boots and pierced ears, before she has jettisoned the dummy and been potty-trained.

‘I tell you what, I’ll swing for some of these people one day.’ Growls B, after the punchy pair have left, and the office door still rattles in its frame

‘Couldn’t you have found them somewhere?’ Asks S.

‘Would you want scum like that in your flat?’ Snaps back B.

‘I haven’t got one.’ Says S, haughtily.

‘Hypothetically.’ 

Probably not.

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