We therefore had to do what we’d always dreaded and let out individual rooms on separate tenancies. We knew this would be a permanent change and we’d be in for a rough ride. The rooms were to be let furnished, but exclusive of bills and in this way, we gradually filled up the house again. Over the next few years, we dropped the rent for each room from £195, to £180, to £160. The area was going downhill fast and we had to take what we could get. As predicted, we experienced hassle from the beginning, with some tenants standing out as particular nightmares.
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Tenant: Individual room let to Tracey, a single, Ugandan, working woman.
Duration of tenancy: 4 months.
Monthly rent: £195.
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After Cho moved out, Tracey moved in. This was just a few days before we were due to go to France for a week, after a very busy summer sorting out the houses. Before letting the room to this woman Adrian had spent several thousand pounds re-decorating and re-carpeting the entire house, and putting a new bed, wardrobe, desk and chest of drawers in her room. We hated spending money on a house which, by now, might have been in negative equity (it had been valued at £115,000 at one point and we had increased the mortgage to £93,500 and it was now worth maybe £90,000), but it had to be continually worked on and maintained in order to attract tenants.
A couple of days after Tracey moved in, we were lazing on a pristine, sandy beach in Biarritz when the mobile rang. Adrian pulled a face, so I answered it. It was Tracey.
‘There are quite a few things I need you to do at the house,’ she started. ‘Firstly, I need you to paint the wall outside that faces the kitchen, as it looks really ugly when I’m washing up. Also I would like you to change the toilet seat in the bathroom. The one now is a really horrible colour. And I need a fridge in my room, so if you can get me one as soon as possible, that would be good.’
‘Actually we’ve just spend thousands on the house,’ I replied, ‘and we’ve got no intention of spending any more. We won’t be painting the wall, changing the toilet seat or giving you another fridge. We don’t supply fridges for bedrooms. I’ve never heard of such a thing.’
‘Well I don’t find that acceptable. I demand to see Adrian.’
‘We’re on holiday in France,’ I replied.
‘Adrian didn’t tell me he was going away!’ She was outraged.
‘He doesn’t have to tell you,’ I pointed out calmly. ‘He’s your landlord. Just as you don’t have to tell us if you’re going on holiday.’
‘Well, I really think it’s not asking much for Adrian to change a toilet seat and get me a fridge,’ she repeated.
‘Forget it,’ I said. ‘There’s no way we’re spending money on unnecessary works and there’s already a large fridge-freezer; we are not supplying individual fridges,’ and I ended the conversation.
Maybe it was a cultural thing with Africans, because when we let the room to a Nigerian man a few years later, he telephoned to ask for an iron. As often happens with these requests, he added that it would not cost a lot.
‘Well, if it doesn’t cost a lot, get one yourself,’ Adrian answered. ‘We’re not running a Travelodge. We provide you with a bed, bedroom furniture, living room furniture and kitchen equipment. The rest is up to you.’
Adrian was fuming when he told me about it.
‘If he wants hotel standards he can go and bloody stay in one for £30 a night.’ The man would not give up, though, repeating the same request over the next few days, texting and ‘phoning, giving his opinion that it was not much to ask for, until Adrian warned him:
‘Look. If you don’t stop calling, you’ll get your notice.’
Since he was paying a hundred pounds less than he’d been paying in the city, had friends in the area and the bills were included, he finally did shut up about the iron.
We later heard from the other tenants that he was in the habit of going into the kitchen each morning, switching on the electric oven, opening the door and leaving it on for hours as a form of heating. This was because the heating on the first and second floors was electric and we paid the bills, but it was gas central heating on the bottom floor and this was the only thing that the tenants would have to pay for themselves, by putting money in the gas meter which none of them ever did; they’d rather freeze to death or misuse the electric cooker. When we confronted him with this allegation he denied it.
Ugandan Tracey did a runner after only a few months, not paying the last month’s rent, saying we could use the deposit. She had ‘phoned to say she was leaving to go back to Uganda for good, because her mother was ill. A few months later we saw her at a local train station, so she was telling a porky. By then another gem, Simon, had moved in.