It's A Jungle Out There

Recently, a house-hunting acquaintance asked for some advice. I did my best, but afterwards found myself thinking that flat-hunting should be simple and mundane, like popping out for a pint of milk and a paper. Instead, it’s a daunting task, one requiring tireless bravery, ingenuity and dogged persistence.

When preparing for such an expedition, I’d recommend the following equipment: dry rations, water, satnav, mace-spray (or as we call it here, Lynx for Men) bullet-proof vests, rounders bats (for rounders, and/or clubbing assailants) night-vision goggles and flares (emergency beacons, not trousers.)

Then you’ll need a mule-train to carry lawyers, guarantors, referees, previous landlords, counsellors, UN negotiators, body-guards, and an accredited local guide/fixer.

Apart from that, here are some tips.

1 Avoid letting agents. Seriously, as far as possible, stay away. They charge random and bizarre fees. My favourite is a Finance Fee – basically, a fee to collect and charge fees. Brilliant! These financial machinations are so complex that even famous professors of quantum physics weep for their own stupidity (convincing evidence suggests that certain particles appear randomly from nowhere; how is that also true of agency fees?)

2 Try post-offices, local papers and supermarket notice-boards, friends, and workplace intranet message boards, or online (NB see previous post.) Anything but letting-agents!

3 Landlords ask much of tenants in terms of information. Don’t be afraid to ask back. You need to know whether they have a commercial, buy-to-let mortgage, because so-called ‘forced’ landlords are by nature temporary, intending to sell up the moment they perceive the teensiest green shoots in the property market. Where mortgage are personal, and should the property be repossessed, the first you’ll know is when the bailiffs come hammering. Having tenants under a personal mortgage can invalidate landlord’s insurance. So, ask away. Then, if they ask for two years worth of bank statements (the latest wheeze) casually, request a blood sample ‘…for your private collection.’ That’ll freak them out.

4 Landlords are obliged to possess various documents - HMO licences, and energy efficiency certificates being the most prominent. Cynics insist these papers are worthless, but compliance indicates a landlord who is mindful of regulations and doing things properly. Maybe.

5 Don’t sign the S.21 Notice. Don’t do it. Don’t! Agents (if you are found in their dreadful embrace) and landlords will try and convince you that it’s nothing - just a silly piece of paper, which doesn’t allow them to evict tenants on a whim. If it’s unimportant, why are they so keen for you to sign?

6 Ensure deposits are immediately registered with the Deposit Protection Scheme. Carefully point out that if they don’t, courts can oblige owners to cough up three times the deposit. Tell them this.

7 Give the place a forensic once over. Take photos, and send a ‘snag’ list, documenting any problems, marks and flaws. Don’t wait a few weeks, as they’ll argue that previous damage is your fault.

8 In apartment blocks, check flats aren’t listed on Apartment Hotel websites, avoiding regular disruptive stag-parties (in short read up on Dovecot Towers.)

9 Get everything in writing, always, no matter how decent landlords seem.

I hope this is helpful. Now, go get ‘em.

There's Something About Gumtree

Sensible landlords and tenants are wriggling free of letting agents (aka conniving, monetary-succubae with horns, tentacles and ancient property databases.) Consequently, when renting or letting, we stumble into a world of strangeness, the far side, where the weird people are: a mysterious land called Gumtree.

Take this ad, for example. It was headed: Room In House £2 Per Week.
“Well I'm trying to be a writer. English is not my first language but unfortunately the 2 next books are both going to be in English (for reasons too long to explain here).”
Like, we’re in England?

Still, so far so, bohemian. She continued:
“They are both going to be very big fascinating projects. One is a novel, a journey through past lives, the other is another "feminine" version of the tale of Camelot ("The mists of Avalon" will pale in comparison).”
Self-belief is an admirable quality. Anyway…

“I need someone mad and creative to assist me, chapter after chapter, proposing new ideas, helping in editing etc, and possibly help me type when I feel too sick to.”
Oh, you mean, write it for you?

It gets better:
“I cannot pay upfront but I will pay a percentage of my royalties, which will increase if you will also want to function as my Agent. (don't need to be qualified, just a lot of enthusiasm). If royalties are not of interest I can offer a free room in my house until September. The most important thing is that you have enthusiasm, dreams, are good at writing, and possibly have a sparkle of genius and madness.”
Also: gullibility?

She also mentioned that her home was close to a 24-hour garden centre; so handy for those late night water-feature cravings. I wonder if anyone accepted? And will they share the inevitable Booker prize?

Other ads make the previous example seem postively fusty. A friend placed a flat-wanted notice, mentioning that she was a single parent, and in reply received a lengthy, lyrical plea to care for her, promising she’d want for nothing. Daily emails followed, offering unlimited kindness, culminating with the phrase: “Incidentally, I enjoy light, consensual anal intercourse.”

I like the word ‘light.’ Would the dark version involve being rogered up the rear by Darth Vadar? I also spotted an ad where a landlord didn’t want a tenant, but a leather-clad gimp to serve him (“…light duties only – obedience essential.”) Remember, this is all in the property section.

Before I knew better, I placed an ad requesting a one-bed flat, specifying a city, but potential landlords plagued me with offers of three-room wicker maisonettes in Truro, caves in Wigan, or a lean-to in Aberdeen (available eventually!) anything but what I wanted.

I waited in despair, until a man offered a ‘hardly used, mostly empty’ flat (both caveats were unsettling). He was evasive about rent (‘We can work something out,’) and even if he owned the place. I held back with answers. Then he said, tentatively: ‘…In your ad, you describe yourself as a professional female. That’s an interesting phrase…’
Just the standard wording, I said.
‘It makes you sound like a working girl. Would you be interested in male company?’
Only a festering, man-size wart would interpret ‘Flat Wanted’ as ‘Hey ugly guy! Me love you long-time for garret in hovel.’

So beware. I found Nice Heights on Gumtree, but others might end up with more than a des-res.

Bit Of A Domestic

Modern flats have something missing. In apartments across the land, from luxury to Dovecot, there’s nowhere to dry washing. Some very strange assumptions were made when designing and managing buy-to-let newbuilds. Many prohibit drying laundry on the tiny balcony. Tenants are different; they never sweat – but fragrantly, they glow.

It’s worse in developments completed more than five years ago, way before the energy price hike made everyone so keen to economise (oh and also save the environment.) It’s still assumed that we are cash-rich and time-poor, so desiccate our clothes in money-guzzling washer-driers, when actually we roast our socks over the heater, which is dangerous. Rooms are small, with airers crammed between the sofas; bad enough for solo renters - a nightmare where two or more people share.

When I worked in welfare rights, it was widely, and rightly accepted that drying laundry in the living area causes respiratory problems. In poorer rented homes, central-heating is often either absent or unaffordable. I’ve been offered badly insulated flats with just a temperamental Calor gas heater in every city I’ve visited. It’s a fire hazard, and leads to soggy clothes mouldering when the meter runs out.

In olden days, houses were sensibly fitted with drying-racks suspended from the ceiling. Nowadays, I am rendered senseless with nostalgia as I recall ‘gardens’ complete with what were known as ‘clothes-lines.’ In shared housing, laundry left to rot in the washer is a flashpoint for many a senseless killing spree.

Forward then to the recent past, when planners understood the basic human need for clean underwear. In social housing, communal drying areas were placed at the top of tower blocks, for maximum exposure to the elements, which sounds like a good idea.

But there was a major and appalling problem, worse than the obvious snag of having your lingerie snaffled and suspecting the neighbours. It was this: significant numbers of people jumped to their deaths, so the drying rooms were closed.

In case you think Nice Heights (should I call it Naice Heights?) was made in paradise by nymphs, there is one snag, which I only noticed after moving in. We have loads of cupboard space for gadgets, crockery and food, but unbelievably there is no draining board. Perhaps this is evidence of what I hoped was an urban legend. Those blokeish architects assumed that we hip urbanites wouldn’t do anything as basic as cook and eat at home, so there’d be no disgusting dirty crockery (in fact I’m amazed they supplied us with toilets, since we are too marvellous and grand for that sort of thing.) It takes days for one person to fill the dishwasher until it’s economical to use.

In upmarket flats, tenants perch on their Eames recliners counting their Alessi, and (having returned from some chi-chi new restaurant) they gaze around with satisfaction, appreciating all they have amassed. Then, as they negotiate their way delicately around the washing, which is drying, slowly and precariously, on an array of rickety clothes-horses, a thought occurs: those Mr Men knickers are starting to look a bit shabby.

A Mole For Newbuild Holes

I had a depressing conversation with a builder recently. He was funding his post-grad by working on one of the many developments currently on a bizarre game of build-as-slow-as-you-can. I mentioned that I had more than a passing interest in newbuilds; sort of a hobby, you might say. I wondered what he thought of my suspicions that they are built to a very poor standard (see; I can be tactful when need dictates.)

He offered his technical appraisal of urban newbuild flats, which I’ll try and convey. I’m not an expert, and he was using jargon and complex terminology. He described them as being (what was it now?) ah, that’s it: “crap.” Or did he say “shite?” Oh dear, I could kick myself. You must think me so unprofessional.

I suggested, and he confirmed, that many flats are constructed under the laws of Blue Peter craft-sheets and the wonderful game of Jenga, using balsa-wood, paper-clips and cling-film, and that developers meet planners and building inspectors with fingers crossed behind their backs while kissing a crucifix (inverted of course.) When applications are successful, shame-faced architects slope off to wail, while developers sacrifice a goat (letting-agents drink the blood.)

Bob The Builder (not his real name…) used insider knowledge when he noticed a widening crack in the walls in his former rented home. He assembled housemates in the filigree lounge/kitchen/study/laundry-room/diner to reason with them, in a calm and understated manner: “Run away!!!” he said, adding: “Save yourselves!!!”

I thought it might be plaster shrinkage. He said: don’t be silly. When I told him about Dovecot Towers, he was blank, until he realised that I was expecting him to be shocked.

Whenever I mention the appalling state of modern domestic architecture, its inherent design inadequacies and common structural defects, people think I am making it up, or joking. I’m not. But if anyone reading this is working, or has worked on a building site, could you just confirm that I’m telling the truth. It’s like being the little boy in The Emperor’s New Clothes: I can see the Emperor’s hairy arse, and newbuild flats are terrible.

What’s needed is a friendly, informed mole to help us out of this hole. We need a public-spirited builder who has worked on these monstrosities to become a whistle-blower, and reveal the regime of institutionalised cost-cutting and standard skimming that is the true monstrous carbuncle defacing contemporary architecture, and blighting daily life for tenants.

Incidentally, when I heard that one of the worst culprits for building these miserable hutches is in financial trouble, I laughed so hard that tea came out of my nose (apparently, a similar trick is performed in Bangkok.)

If justice is to be served, that particular firm will go bankrupt, its directors forced to rent a flat where the washing-machine is effectively next to the sofa, where you can hear neighbours whisper and piss, where you worry about falling through ceilings if you tread too hard, and where your post is stolen. Nice Heights (my final decision on the official nickname btw) is proof that great buildings are possible, so let it be done more often.

Talking To Strangers

Knowing your neighbours is a really lovely idea. In streets with proper houses, you can see people come and go, even speak first without them looking at you funny and backing away slowly.

You rarely see other people in my new block (nickname urgently needed now, btw.) It’s not like Dovecot Towers, where alienation was born of fear. In my new block, things are different. The inhabitants cross a broad spectrum of society: young, old, owners, and some, but not too many tenants. There are students, a few creatives working from home, teachers and business people. And unlike Dovecot Towers, where people ignored each other or stepped back inside when they hear footsteps on the corridor, we rarely see each other.

Whenever I write about modern urban social dislocation, some wiseacre usually comments, well, do something. I don’t want to be mates, but I would like to know who they are. I do talk to people when I see them, but it’s hard to do without sounding needy and a bit creepy.

Neighbourly interaction can be kick-started by random events. In one former flat I was having a clear out, and packed a box of unwanted, but readable paperbacks, too heavy to take to the second hand book or charity shop, so I left them in the corridor by the stairs, where everyone passed, with a sign saying ‘Help Yourself.’ Not only did people take them, but they donated books of their own. Still nobody spoke. We didn’t even see each other, but for a while, there was an informal book swap network running. People even borrowed the books temporarily, and then replaced them.

Back home, I have seen some of my neighbours, from the balcony on a sunny day, so I know they exist. One man was sunbathing, eating tomato soup for breakfast (each to his own.) I have joked with the caretaker about the man living below me. I’ve never seen him, and the effective sound proofing means I never him, either. I asked the concierge, who hasn’t seen him for a while. He joked that if smell anything strange to let him know, which made me think of Dovecot Towers.

There is a tenants association here, but here’s the funny thing: it rarely meets. Since the building is well managed, and complaints are rare, there’s no need to convene a gathering. The worst building I lived in, we only ever met at furious tenants association meetings, where we would be thinking: “…so you’re the bastard shouting in the foyer at 4am.”

At the moment, I can’t alter my hot water timer, and it’s costing me a fortune; I’d like to ask my neighbour how to reset it. In my heart, I suppose I’m worried about the things our elders warned us about: don’t speak to strangers, and the memory of Dovecot Towers, where every front door hid a problem. So, when you’d like some help, how do you summon the courage to knock on a the door?

Flatmate (un)Wanted Ads

Over the years, my experience of flat-share ads has shown them to need extensive interpretation. Either deliberately deceptive, or in code, they disguise the neurotic, slap-inducing tendencies of your prospective co-tenants, so pay attention.

Beware the word ‘executive’ in all its guises. Only a complete arse would describe their home (or themselves) this way, and consider it a positive. ‘Executive’ means they have done the Alpha course, and will try and winch you in. They own the flat, and regard you, their lowly sub-tenant, as a loser for not racing up the property ladder from the age of fifteen. While their room is ensuite, they will continue to vindictively use your bathroom. They return home late, bitter, tense, coke- up and spiteful. They will go home to Wigan for long breaks, claiming to have been in Chicago. On ‘executive’ business.

‘Gay friendly’ can be a minefield. It might simply mean that gay people live there, and are preferred. A frightening alternative is that residents will assume the same frantic, and altogether terrifying mental state of the characters in ‘Gimme Gimme Gimme,’ compulsively re-enacting key scenes, screeching with mirth. For a friend of mine, it meant a lovelorn lesbian housemate who looked like Wee Jimmie Krankie.

‘Friendly, lively house’? The devil in disguise; it’s all back to mine, gone mad: baked beans everywhere, lager cans in the sink, no cleaning at all, ever, and friends on the sofa, in the hall, and in your bed if you get home a minute after midnight. After weeks spent ankle deep in take away cartons, and the same track will boom and thump courtesy of the bedroom DJ in the next room, until your eyes swivel in time to the music, and the pores on your forearms bleed spontaneously.

‘Communal House’ Hmm… with the rest of house populated by skunk loving anarcho vegan hippy eco warriors who don’t believe in mousetraps, and threaten regular weekly and accusatory house meetings/denunciation sessions, you will emit a whining sound. Then you’ll go mad, but find redemptive sanctuary in a pond.

‘Creative’. That means cacophonous, gurning, experimental musicians rehearsing in your kitchen. Arty types, such as fashion students will cast a critical eye over the design values of your knickers on the line, and decode the aesthetics of your shoes. In a flashback from my student days, I still view sculptors as violent thugs, because they were, leaving a trail of giblets, blood, ears etc after nutting and gouging each other on the dance floor. I don’t know why; they just did.

‘Quiet.’ Another loaded phrase. ‘Quiet’ means a passive-aggressive, forlorn shadow who will hiss “shush!!!” you if you watch anything other than the Antique’s Roadshow, and judge you as a harlot for having overnight guests. You will live your life under a solemn ticking clock (a prize possession) every beat of which marks the passing seconds of your life.
Until you run screaming from the house.
And the whole, hideous cycle starts again.

Talk To Us

All across the land, those ubiquitous cranes, which once bestrode the cityscape like robotic daddy-long-legs, have vanished. Weak building firms are insolvent or merging with rivals. Construction has all but stopped, but with developers currently so quiet, I’m wondering what they’re up to. What are they plotting? What evil plans are they dreaming up?

Property development is in a holding pattern, but investors still own land, ear-marked for future use. These brown-field land-banks remain in stasis, often covered in advertising hoardings. Eventually, property developers will wake up their dormant assets, and building will begin again. But what will they build? More of the same? We can’t let that happen. We have an opportunity here. We must stop them while we can.

Here’s a crazy idea. Why not ask tenants how they want to live? Many buy-to-let investors never see the finished product, although I hope that by now, landlords have grasped the stupidity of buying off-plan and then wondering why the end result is a hovel. Then again, if common sense ruled the world, we wouldn’t be where we are now.

Buildings must not be constructed solely for the ease and profit of developers, allowing them to wriggle their slimy way out planning regs and common decency. Landlords should only invest in property they could imagine living in themselves. The flat I live in now has, fortunately for me at least, managed to make humane, civilised use of the allocated space and materials. It can be done, and doesn’t cost so much that managing accountants will splutter and die. So once again, why not ask the tenants how we want to live?

Just gather round those who do, have or in certain cases are destined to live in newbuild flats aimed at buy-to-let, and buy some wine and nibbles. Focus groups can easily distort questions, so none of this ‘…how much do you love your flat,’ and then reporting how these ‘dwellings are adored by all’ business; we’re on to you. And yes, I’ve heard the joke about a giraffe being a horse deigned by a committee, but this is different. We pay for these buildings, and as for the worst examples, well, we’re united in one thing: need better build quality.

Architects, builders, councils, planners, mortgage providers and investors would benefit from accurate research on attitudes to quality, layout, size, numbers of (separate!) rooms and storage. You could be forgiven for thinking that at similar meetings in the past it was decided that tenants actually want to pay extortionate rents for (ooh, yes please!) tiny Spartan matchboxes.

Oh, and soundproofing. In my new home, we can play music at a fair level without noise seeping through. I can’t hear my neighbours cough, or fart (worryingly I could in Dovecot Towers.) If anyone bothered ask us, we’d have told you how important that is. Tenants deserve some consideration, choice, and control over how they live, without orthodoxies like open-plan living being foisted upon them. Developers, builders and architects: are you paying attention?