If one more smug homeowner says to me in a patronising voice that it is perfectly acceptable to rent because everyone does it abroad then I will probably slap them.  No offence to homeowners – I want to be one and not all people who own their own home do this, but we have received a lot of derogatory comments of this nature, usually from very well off people who don’t have a clue.  Here is an account of the last two days:

We moved into our new house at Christmas to find that the cooker ignition didn’t work.  Two engineers later, it was confirmed that a new cooker would be a good idea, because the one in place was so rubbish that a replacement part would be more hassle than it was worth.  

So yesterday the landlady came round with Mr cooker engineer Corgi registered la la la and fits the new cooker.  It turns out she is an old battleaxe in her 70s.  Until yesterday I was really proud of what we had managed to do with the dining room (considering the AWFUL décor).  She looked round it disdainfully and said “golly, you’ve been here for a week, you’d think you’d have it straight by now, but obviously not.”  She then looked at our big mirror and said “and where on earth are you thinking of putting that??”  ”On the wall…” I said, perhaps not too helpfully.  She started to get her granny pants in a twist about holes in the wall, the state of the plaster, could we not lean it on the sideboard (the mirror is huge and would fall down and knock someone out if we did this so no….) etc.

Then she walked into the kitchen and noticed that we had hung a hook for the oven glove.  More complaints about holes in the wall, fire hazards, etc etc.  I nearly exploded.  I might look like a young thicko blonde idiot, but I would have thought she might assume that JT is no longer a child.  

The drain had a gargantuan blockage problem, which she could not accept was not our fault and not just a frozen pipe, until the ‘engineers’ turned up and confirmed that yes we were telling the truth.  Anyway, all this kind of stuff went on for an hour and a half – I went upstairs as was having a big attack of stress which brings on IBS and everything else.

This morning we got a letter from Alex Shark (NEVER rent with them).  It said that they had carried out the inspection on our old property and unfortunately it was not up to scratch for the following reasons:

*  The skirting boards were not cleaned

*  The kitchen cupboards and sides were not clean and dirt could be removed with a wet tissue

*  The window sills were not clean and had mould on

My version of events:

*  My friend and I spent two hours cleaning the kitchen, which ended up cleaner than it had ever been, so that comment is just a downright lie.

*  We hoovered the skirting boards, what more can you do?

*  I tried to clean the crap wooden window frames but the mould was so deep that it was taking the wood away, so I didnt risk cleaning any more.  Obviously they were like that when we moved in, if I hadn’t lost my disk data I would have photos to prove it.

*  The house was in a much much worse state when we moved in

* We spent £130 cleaning carpets and curtains which were not done when we moved in

*  We were in that house cleaning for three nights until 11pm

 Now we have an admin fee of £45 (for what?!  A letter and a phonecall) and are awaiting an invoice for the cleaning work.  ARGGHHHHHH!!!!