Battered By Butterflies

There’s a proverb suggesting that apparently insignificant actions can have disproportionately large consequences: a butterfly flutters its wings and on the other side of the world, a million people die.

Throughout my time in Dovecot Towers letters were stolen from the communal post-room. My landlord seemed extremely sympathetic, but to be honest, I was never sure if he took the problem seriously.

Earlier this year, I tried to withdraw cash but my card was declined. I had no phone credit, no food and no fare to reach my friends and ask for help. It was a nightmare. I couldn’t pay my rent. I emailed my landlord explaining: my post-box robbed, my cheque book stolen, my bank account emptied, then a debit-card was taken despite banning my bank, or anyone from sending post to my home.

This might still look bad on my part, but remember that William’s side of the ‘pay rent – maintain property’ bargain is habitually broken. Previously, he admitted that he wouldn’t want me to leave, acknowledging that I’m a good tenant. Even so, he didn’t bother to get his arse into gear and organise repairs. However much he needed my money, I think he was overwhelmed by the demands and responsibility of managing property.

As forcefully as I could within the boundaries of carefully assertive tact, I said that if he didn’t make a fuss, if he didn’t really cause a commotion and press the management company, nothing will change. The management noted, but ignored his requests. He claimed to know them, but I don’t think they were his friends; for once in his life, I think he felt important. Emphasising that I couldn’t sort this problem out myself, I added that the situation won’t vanish of its own accord and reminded him that even if I do reach the end of my tether and leave, subsequent tenants will be equally irate and then move as well. He agreed, and offered to fit a letterbox on my front door. Remaining sceptical, I thanked him.

Meanwhile on Wall Street, vultures, not butterflies were flapping their wings. Soon, William’s many mortgages were in arrears. Interest rates had risen dramatically and he was clinging to financial life by his over extended fingertips. Along with a vacant flat elsewhere, my missing a payment had pushed him over the edge. The bank has delayed replacing my money since (I suspect) they think I am somehow complicit. Those repairs are not his fault, but most definitely his responsibility.

When William and I met up, he asked what it would take to make me stay. I think he intended to muddle through the recession, but now he knows that Dovecot Towers is thoroughly unsafe, and that I couldn’t stay even if I wanted to. William should have sorted out the post-box situation, the unlikely tipping point which nudged him towards financial catastrophe.

And so, a butterfly fluttered by. A door was broken, another remained unlocked. A post-box was crow-barred open. Life became difficult for me, while an admittedly ineffectual, but otherwise decent man was devastated. Nothing is ever simple.

(NB: This morning, there was a sign, marked urgent, on the post-room door, from our new caretaker: ‘Persons have gained access and levered open the post-boxes, stealing the mail. I have informed the police.’ Then someone delicately explained that it’s been like that for over a year. Bless him for caring, though.)

Sympathy For The Devil

I am surrounded by boxes. My belongings are all packed up and ready to go but I’m wondering about my landlord. ‘William’ is a decent man: jovial, down-to-earth, compassionate and reasonable. Admittedly, he never got round to sorting out those blinds (by the time I had completely lost patience he was obviously going bankrupt) and I always organised repairs, which, while not ideal, hardly adds up to a Rachmanite reign of terror.

William is in trouble. He isn’t stupid, but then neither does he possess a rapier-like business mind; he’s no ruthless, highly driven tycoon. He simply followed accepted wisdom: invest in property. Many others did the same, a decision which has condemned them forever, as serial investors like William are burdened with around £750,000 of debt, if not more. He’ll never repay his creditors. I understand that even when you’re discharged from bankruptcy, they never let you go.

Nor was William unhinged by greed. Like many people he realised that we are all living longer, while the state pension, upon which we reasonably intended to rely, is shrinking by the day. Sensibly (it seemed) he accumulated flats to safeguard his future. Swiftly and easily he expanded his newbuild portfolio until he owned twelve buy-to-let properties. Who financed all those mortgages? The now infamous Northern Rock, that’s who, currently the official Emperors of Repossession, despite having been nationalised.

I may have inadvertently given readers the impression that William was based abroad: he’s not. He lives in a different town, far enough away to explain why he misunderstood the dodgy nature of this particular neighbourhood. When he bought my flat in Dovecot Towers the market was booming. His perhaps cannier friend was purchasing the flat next door, but quietly backed out.

William visited just the once, and gazed approvingly at a then modest building-site opposite, before announcing his ambition to invest there as well. He appreciated that the surrounding area was ear-marked for development, but was never told exactly how many better quality blocks were planned. Obviously, the widespread and ill-timed completion of nicer ‘apartments’ has devalued his stock.

We met recently on neutral ground. He wanted me to stay. I begged him to seek legal advice and stressed the dire nature of Dovecot Towers, emphasising the troubles I’ve detailed here. He was devastated, and actually started to sweat as the magnitude of his predicament hit home. Afterwards, I sent him a formal document detailing the many problems in this building which have decreased its value, intended to support any claim against the idle and ignorant management company if it allowed him to claw something back from this catastrophe.

My compassion is currently under strain, however. William has vanished without providing the promised reference. I know there’s a lot on his mind, but it’s impossible to find a flat without such assurances, and I don’t even know how long I can stay here. The bailiffs could arrive within the next month. I was living in the devil’s own piggy-bank, and somebody has smashed it.

Lying Letting Agents and the Lies these Liars Tell

Letting agents wouldn’t know Truth if it punched them in the face shouting: “I am the truth!” wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the word “Truth” in sequins, whilst holding an official truth certificate, written in blood. That much at least is true.

Shameless mendacity informs their new hobby: ramping up prices. The market is so febrile and confused that bizarrely, for any given flat, there are three possible rents and guess what: agents reach for the stars.

First is the sky-high, crazy-mad, stupid and deluded oh-be-serious rent, the amount that avaricious, neophyte, naïve buy-to-let speculators were promised on those now discredited ‘How to Be a Millionaire Property Magnate’ courses. For a standard one bed flat, this is up to £100-£150pcm above the norm, and matches luxury privately rented flats, which are larger, and properly fitted out. I retain a small amount of sympathy for floundering landlords which evaporates whenever I discover that yet again, they or their representatives are still trying to exploit and over-charge tenants, even in this desperately saturated market.

Next up is the middle amount, requested by landlords who bought at the height of the ‘boom’ to cover their escalating mortgage which (including the agents cut) is still a silly £75-£50pcm over acceptable levels.

There is a fair and realistic price. It’s used by owners who bought at auction, or those who understand that they can either endure bankruptcy, or stump up their own cash to subsidise the mortgage when interest rates rise.

Astonishingly, if you check online, you can find all three prices applying to the very same flat. I’ve seen similar prices asked for: one beds, two beds, penthouses, houses, upmarket, downmarket, inner city and suburbs. It’s madness and demonstrates that the rental market has entered the realm of fantasy. Allow duplicitous, cynical letting-agents free-rein in this disastrous downturn, and the results are confusing if not actually strange.

Online prices are usually more grounded, but sometimes vanish once inside the office/lair. Having ascertained that I’m not a student, they assume I can afford the higher prices. At one letting agent I walked by and laughed. They’ve advertised the same exorbitantly priced ‘apartment’ for months now, causing a gaping void in income for the owner. You might imagine they’d attract passing custom by displaying the cheaper prices, when instead they keep the dearest flats posted up brazenly outside: a last gasp attempt, perhaps, at quelling the impetus to drop prices and reduce their own percentage.

Wise landlords who gained a foothold before property prices got totally stupid (five years ago?) have stayed on planet earth, and make money by accruing equity, and not by inflating rents. Unfortunately, urban newbuild values are widely predicted to fall by fifty per cent. One year ago, sale prices in Dovecot Towers had already dropped by a third, and are even lower now (I’ve checked.) Sensible owners avoid rip-off rents by topping up the shortfall thereby escaping insolvency, and letting agents should advise them to do so. Even the moustache-twirlingly ruthless agency responsible for letting most of Dovecot Towers accepted this some time ago.

If you think I’m unfairly maligning those kindly, righteous and angelic, agents, then here’s my worst encounter so far. I answered an ad for a privately rented flat, and was told that others were viewing.

Reader, I fell for it. I hurried over to the address in a taxi (and I’m broke). To my disgust and amazement, the address supplied wasn’t a flat, but an agency office (they “…thought it would be good to meet me.”) The agent was what we poets call “a right wanker,” having lied about the flat’s location, and its price. Elsewhere, agents lie about everything from A to Z reaching all possibilities in between, and I really wish they’d stop.

(NB: One online ad appeared to tick all my boxes, so I phoned the landlord for more information (you’re way ahead of me aren’t you?) The flat was in Dovecot Towers.)

How The Other Half Live

My house-hunt is urgent and I’ve seen my dream home. It’s perfect, but even with falling prices is frustratingly just out my league (I think the owners/developers have yet to accept the changing property market.)

Slighter more upmarket flats are bigger: not monumental caverns, but a judicious extra ten feet here or there makes all the difference. I’d like enough room for a coffee table in between two sofas in the lounge, nightstands next to the bed, a dining table and chairs (all in the same room, without falling over). Dovecot Towers was obviously planned by misers, as most ‘extras’ don’t cost that much to build. It says everything that a properly locking door and safe entrance hall is a luxury, and not for oiks like me.

While viewing my ideal flat, I opened a door. To my delight, it was a cupboard. Not just any old cupboard, but a utility cupboard with room for a washer, mops, brooms, and even a bin. Heaven lives in that cupboard, and all the other cupboards are outposts of paradise. There is an inbuilt wardrobe, another random cupboard (joy!) and even an enormous mirrored bathroom cabinet, which covered the wall. It was love. I must have sounded like a hick: ‘Yeeh-haw Ma-am! Those high-fallutin’ cupboards y’all have sure are fancy!”

The main appeal though is the balcony. You can stand on it. In Dovecot Towers, visitors must duck the door which swings across the outdoor space. My dream home has sliding doors, so the terrace can be used as another room. And the door tilts (yes, tilts!) so you can open it like a window.

The post room was disappointing, however. It locks (I know!) with a glass door (all good to see) but crucially, even here you can easily dip your hand in the post boxes. The sales-woman (let’s call her Zelda) made it plain that my suspicions and questions were a fatuous affront to the sheer unbridled fantabulousness of the building she was peddling. I explained that even neighbours nick your post: she humoured me, explaining that parcels are accepted by the twenty-four hour concierge.

A concierge? Now I have a new fetish alongside cupboards, utility rooms, space and proper balconies: concierges. I can’t stop saying concierge. Please, sir, may I have a concierge?

But here’s the terrible irony defeating my quest: I wish to avoid developments dominated by tenants with few resident owners, despite being a tenant myself. I quizzed the odious Zelda, who persistently insisted that most residents were owner-occupiers.

Was she absolutely sure?
(“Yes!” she swore, as her wooden nose grew.)
No really: can you assure me that this development is not specifically marketed at the buy to let market?
(“It’s not!” she promised faithfully as fire-fighters doused her pants, which were on fire.)

She chucked me a brochure and when I got home, out fell the ‘Ideal For Buy-to-let’ blurb, along with a flyer advertising a company furnishing flats for landlords. She also claimed that all the flats are sold. Zelda will be a wooden puppet forever more.

(NB: Yesterday, there was a strong smell of burning in my corridor. Someone had set fire to some newspapers, and the charred traces were left outside of a few front doors (thankfully not mine) as if they’d been trying to set the doors on fire. No smoke alarms went off. Unusually, the main door has being locked for days, which that means the putative pyromaniac probably lives here. Seriously: what is it with this place?)

Flowers In A Dovecot

Perhaps I’m a little slow on the uptake, but the other day after yet another raucous party, I finally realised that yes, the flat below me is let out as a ‘hotel apartment.’ I checked online. Honestly, judging by the ad you’d think Dovecot Towers was a 5 star beach resort.

With no one taking responsibility for the ‘guest’s’ behaviour (most notably, the noise) I called the management company and explained my plight. Astonishingly, they sorted it out. The flat was still recorded as being owner-occupied and our management was mendaciously informed by the sneaky but stupid owner that his rowdy mates had caused the furore (what: different mates? Every weekend?) He was threatened with eviction, since hotel-letting contravenes the lease. I subsequently discovered that two other flats on my corridor are let this way, which means that, by my reckoning, around twenty out of one-hundred and forty flats are rented by the day, and at some profit.

Why does this matter, you ask, since I’m moving out?

Because I was organising a collection to send flowers to the service of the man who died recently. What a completely pointless and dispiriting exercise that was, as nobody answered the door, even if they actually live here.

‘Sarah’ texted to say that a flower laying ceremony was planned on the street where her boyfriend had died, if she could face going back. I wanted to contribute something. I didn’t know them, but have been incredibly moved by their tragedy (I won’t say upset, since that would imply that my feelings belong on the same page as hers.) The friends who had been with her, trying to resuscitate him had already left flowers which were stolen shortly afterwards.

I spoke with my neighbour who had heard him scream as he fell (mercifully, I didn’t.) Like all of us she had dialled 999, but perhaps wisely and unlike myself had shut the doors so as not to hear those terrible events. I told my neighbour about the flower laying. She didn’t turn up or leave anything, and she’s the nicest person I’ve met in here. I already knew that there is absolutely no sense of community in Dovecot Towers, but the cold hard reality hit home when I realised that nobody else had left a card, even if they seemed to be concerned.

I hate those shrines that appear when there’s been an accident and people who never even knew the victim leave maudlin notes, cuddly toys and garage flowers, appropriating random tragedy, wearing other people’s darkness like a badge, but this was entirely different. Despite only meeting ‘Davey’ once, I wanted to show ‘Sarah’ that somebody here cares.

I waited on the street. First to arrive were their former house-mates, one of whom had tried to give him the kiss of life that awful night, and who was clearly traumatised by the horror and devastated by grief. They love ‘Davey’ and they miss him; this will always cast a long shadow on their lives. I think they were wearing the formal black clothes bought for graduation day just a few months ago. One of ‘Davey’s’ friends left a mango (he loved mangoes.)

‘Sarah’ arrived. I asked permission to leave my flowers and generously, she consented. ‘Sarah’ was fragile, weak and exhausted from weeping. She wobbled like a faun, and needed constant support; it was terrible to be back on that street again. Her expression haunts me: gather all the sadness in the world, mix in confusion, shock and overwhelming fear, and you’re only half-way there. She saw things that night nobody should ever have to see.

Obviously, ‘Sarah’ was not keen to linger. When I hugged her, she was thin; she can’t bring herself to eat. She’s blaming herself. She believes (wrongly I know) that she could have stopped him and I am so worried for her. I reminded her how strong she’d been, how hard she’d fought to save him, and that she had told ‘Davey’ many times how much she loved him that night (I understand that hearing is the final sense to fade.) As she left that awful street forever, she whispered, desperately: ‘…it was horrible.’

I couldn’t sleep that night. Every sound convinced me that someone was stealing the flowers, but in the morning, they were all there, along with the mango. They’re still there even now.

(NB: The letting-agents are refusing to be compassionate and won’t end the lease immediately or return ‘Sarah’s’ deposit until the flat is re-let, even though she only lived there a week, having paid a month upfront. They actually expected prospective tenants to view while ‘Sarah’ and ‘Davey’s’ possessions were still in the flat. Just when you think agents couldn’t be any more callous, they surpass themselves.)

Mad Max in Magnolia

Regular readers must think that Dovecot Towers looks like a scene from Mad Max, with smoking ruins dotted amongst the feint traces of some lost civilisation, all swarming with ragged feral children and their ragged feral parents. You’d be wrong. As long as you visit just after the cleaners have done their work, initially, it doesn’t seem too bad. Instead of ruins, visitors are greeted by a magnolia dystopia.

I have a theory which could explain the end result of this aesthetic desert. In central Manchester, there’s a road where drivers regularly turn left despite a ‘No Entry’ sign. Traffic management practice accepts that if people consistently repeat the same mistake, the problem lies not with the wrong-turner, but with the signals themselves. On some instinctive level the signs are confusing and lead road-users astray.

This hypothesis would explain many problems arising in the soulless urban developments covering the land. Cars roar as they jam the main road and any bare, half-arsed greenery is wilting. Once inside, there are no pictures, no colour, and nothing pleasant. The vast walls are chalky, with not so much as a solitary dribble of colour to alleviate the blankness. No bins either, since they are routinely stolen, but then residents feel entitled to help themselves, as they are relieved of service charges for very little service.

Once inside these flats, we are mostly forbidden from decorating the dispiriting white walls, or adding pleasing, homely touches to what is after all, our home. We can’t even hammer a nail in the wall to put up a picture, and - as I’ve written elsewhere - some landlords are known to inflict their own taste in art on their tenants. Rental agreements ban the fittings necessary for putting up welcoming, warming curtains (there are usually white vertical blinds, like a tax office.) We can’t add our own unique flourish. There’s no scope for individuality. We exist in an empty shell, a vacuum.

The positive effect of pleasant surroundings is well documented. Re-humanising the surroundings worked for the DWP, who stopped blocking off what are now ‘clients’ with screens, and added adornments like calming art, music, colour and plants. Attacks on staff decreased.

I appreciate that cost and safety are an issue, and don’t anticipate extravagant flourishes like tropical fish tanks, or cascading water-features alongside expensive sculptures. But is some colour on the walls other than sensory-deprivation-white too much to ask for? A few plants would be nice, even a mural. It seems so very bleak in here, and if you want to keep tenants happy and secure (so we will stay and pay your mortgage) then let us make the flat, and the building itself, feel like home.

Persistent desolation and an appalling lack of control over our environment sends a strong, if subliminal signal, just like those inadvertently misleading traffic signs. The message is clear: abandon hope all ye who enter Dovecot Towers. You are landless peasant scum. You count for nothing. This is not your home. You are vermin, infesting your landlord’s pension fund. When zoos are planned with more consideration than newbuilds, is it any wonder that tenants, so disrespected, are reluctant to stay?

(NB: The girl whose boyfriend died is absolutely devastated and utterly heart-broken, which goes without saying. I have heard from her, and she is determined to get past this appalling nightmare which - considering that her very world has come to a grinding halt - is both courageous and amazing. People stress that they were very much in love. He was twenty-three.)

Death In The Dovecot

In Dovecot Towers, you hear a lot from people you may never see. For example, someone a few doors down loved The Arctic Monkeys. They played it loud - not annoyingly so, but just enough that I noticed.

Last Sunday afternoon I met some new people in the lift, who got out at my floor. They were Australian, and had been buying household items, like a clothes line and a bin. I wondered if they’d just moved in. They’d been here one week: it was The Arctic Monkeys fan and his girlfriend. Carefully, I did my good citizen bit and explained that they needed to ask the landlord to fit a new lock. They didn’t even know who their landlord was, since they had used a letting agency. I gave them the caretaker’s number, and wished them all the best in their new home.

At 2am the following morning I was woken up by screaming and footsteps pounding frantically along the corridor (nothing unusual there). But then I heard a woman begging someone not to touch her, shouting “Keep away from me!”

Envisaging a street attack or a drunken domestic assault, I was racing for my phone when I heard a loud bump, then more screaming, then another ominous thud. On the street below, a woman was pleading frantically for help.

Her boyfriend had jumped from the balcony. It was my near neighbour, the male half of the couple I’d chatted to in the lift that afternoon. She was calling an ambulance, beseeching them to hurry, while begging her boyfriend not to die.

Repeatedly she cried inconsolably: “…this can’t be happening…this can’t be happening.”
She didn’t know what to do, and called the ambulance again, urging them to hurry. I screamed down at her from my balcony to keep him still; that moving him might cause even more harm, but the words: “…his brains are all over road…” made me realise that moving him would make no difference now. Concerned at having heard her earlier begging someone not to touch her, I called the police, who were already on their way.

The Dovecot Towers trademark ‘Heads-Over-The-Railings-Tenants-Ad-Hoc-Residents-Association’ appeared. There was nothing to be done. Judging by the way he was lying, he had died instantly. The young woman bolted a short distance down the street, and faced the wall, shouting: “This isn’t happening!” before turning around and realising that yes, it was really happening. She was remonstrating with her boyfriend: “Oh God, what have you done, don’t die, I love you, I love you. Please don’t leave me.

Then another man appeared, clearly in as bad a state as she was. She said: “Keep away from me, don’t touch me!” then: “It’s all my fault.”
The man said he felt responsible. No ambulance yet, so they called again. She noticed her boyfriend wasn’t breathing, and they attempted to resuscitate him, but to their horror, there was blood in his mouth. A window opened and a woman yelled at her to shut up but another resident, aware of the desperate scenario unfolding below, retaliated: “Shut the fuck up yourself you selfish bitch.”

The ambulance arrived. The paramedic took one look at the broken body lying prone and bleeding on the street and shook his head. He covered the dead man with a blanket. Her remaining hopes extinguished, she berated the paramedic: “You didn’t even try!”

The police came, taped off the scene, and shepherded the girl away from the lifeless man and into the ambulance, where her visceral howling punctured the night. Suddenly police spilled out of vans, unmarked cars arrived and men in suits surveyed the scene. I heard the police enter their flat, heard her crying, and watched them leave in clean clothes, carrying luggage. She was led towards a car. Just before she got in, she curled herself into a ball and rocked to and fro, as a policeman looked on helplessly. Even the police were distressed. I heard one officer say he’d seen dead bodies, but nothing like that before.

Suddenly it was all quiet, and the dead man, with one fractured, contorted leg poking out from underneath the blanket, was left alone in a cordoned off area on the street, watched over by a solitary police van. He looked so lonely. By seven am the corpse had been moved. It was raining. A pool of brain matter was left in a gutter, until the scene of crime cleaners washed it away.

I’ve no idea what happened in that flat; what made a young man jump to his death, and I don’t suppose I ever will. As I write this, someone is embarking on a twenty-four journey from Australia to collect their dead son: the son I spoke to briefly, but never knew.

Does this have anything to do with Dovecot Towers? Maybe; possibly – but then again, perhaps not. People move in and out with alarming frequency, flats are now rented by the month, week, or even by the day. Life is tenuous, alienating, prickly and dehumanised. We don’t know each other. Problems seem larger here, isolation is exacerbated and arguments are inescapable in a tiny one bed flat.

And what about the devastated young woman, who was asking the world, the pavement, God, the sky or anyone, for help? Tomorrow, she’ll wake up and face the future alone with a ruined life, returning home to the flat where her world ended, her soul forever scarred. I’ll never forget the couple I met in a lift, and the harrowing primal sound she made will stay with me forever.