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Friday 7 August 2009

Mock shock

I had a phone call from the estate agents (the ones letting our current house) on Tuesday morning, while I was at work.

"Hello, this is So&So from the estate agents, how are you?" a bright a sunny young lady beamed down the phone at me.

"Er, fine thanks" I said (What now?!)

"I was just wondering if we could should someone round your property this morning. Would that be ok?"

"Er, aren't you supposed to give us a bit more notice than that?" I said (no you bloody can NOT).

"Oh yes, well someone just popped into the shop on the off chance and we just wondered if it would be ok, but if it's not convenient then we'll get them to make an appointment for another time".

"Yes, please do that, it's too short notice". Ha!

While I had this bright sunny young thing on the phone, I explained that the reason I was insisting on the required 24 hours notice was because someone from their office had decided to just let themselves into the house on Saturday. Cue comedy gasp from girl-on-phone. "Oh my gawd!" she said "I'll try and find out who that was, that's not right is it?"

No it bloody is not. At least they have someone working for them who appears to have more than one brain cell. Just.

Conversely, I had another phone call yesterday from the estate agents who are letting the flat we're moving into, past their closing hours, might I add, "just to let you know that our website is down at the moment so you won't be able to access any of your reference application details, but we're working on it now and we'll let you know when it's back up and running". So polite and helpful - as far as estate agents go, I love Location Location!

Saturday 1 August 2009

More estate agent drama

Second blog post of the day...but I'm so angry I just have to share this!

I was slobbing around in my comfy clothes (you know, the tracksuit bottoms and grubby old t-shirt that you wouldn't ever dream of going out in) and had settled down at my desk to do some work (I'm doing a spot of freelance writing at the moment). B and H left at 4am this morning to go on holiday to Sweden and K is rarely in these days as she's been staying with her boyfriend, so I had the whole house to myself to enjoy the peace and get on with my articles. At about 3pm, I was disturbed by the sound of the front door opening and closing. Strange...

I went out on to the landing to see two women standing in my hallway! "Er, who are you?!" I asked! One of the women looked shocked and embarrassed to see me there and explained that she was from the estate agents and was just showing someone around the house. I had my angry face on (made even more terrifying by the lack of makeup and unbrushed hair) so she hastily added that she'd tried to call all 4 tenants and had got no reply, so she'd got the keys from Mr. N's parents next door and let herself in.

Now there is more than one thing wrong here. Firstly, I had not received any missed calls from anyone, so she clearly had not tried all 4 tenants. Secondly, even if she had called all 4 of us, she clearly hadn't spoken to any of us, so how does this make it ok to get the keys from next door and let herself in anyway?! SO angry! Although this may only be our house for another two weeks, it's still our house, and we should be the ones who decide who comes in. It creeps me out to think that this may not have been the first time people have been looking at the house without us knowing, too! This is just the first time they've been caught.

I gave the agent my number and she called me when she got back to the office. She checked her records and the people she'd been trying to get hold of to get permission for the viewing were Lucy, Caroline and Wendy, whoever the hell they are! She asked if she could show someone else round later and I agreed as although I shouldn't, I did feel a bit sorry for her - she must be new as I've never seen her before. However, I'm regretting ever feeling the tiniest bit sorry for her now as she didn't show up for this second viewing! How can people be so rude!?

Popularity stakes

Three reasons to celebrate!

1) Landlordshelluk has over 100 followers on Twitter! Only a *few* of these are spammers - most of them are people in property, student organisations and people with landlords from hell! :)

2) Google Analytics tells me that we have had 74 unique visitors to the site since we started less than a month ago! It's a small number when you consider the millins of people on the internet, but I'm pretty pleased nonetheless! 74 people have looked at my little site! I *know* the site isn't very good yet, (suggestions please!) and one day I'll find a great blog template to jazz it up a bit, but we'll get there!

3) My landlord has finally given a reference to our new estate agent so we're all go to move in on 15th August! Whoopeeeee!!! :D