Property Inspection!
Oct. 7th, 2010 02:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wigglewhizSo! I got a letter yesterday from my landlord/Letting Agent people, telling me that they were going to come by at some point between 1pm and 5pm (don't you just HATE that?! Can't ANYONE make a goddamned appointment anymore, rather than leaving these MASSIVE windows where someone "might" come by, so if you don't mind putting yourself ON HOLD for all of an afternoon, that would be great, kthnx! Arses.) to do a Property Inspection.
Hm.
Now, I should say that this is only the third property I've ever rented in my life. The first was rented from the Local Authority back home in good old Blighty, who frankly really didn't give a shit what you did in their houses (short of being all ASBO and whatnot). You could paint and decorate, all the furniture was your own, all the council really wanted was for you to hand it back empty. And, preferrably, clean. Which I absolutely 100% did when I left it - although how they would have tracked me down to penalise me if I'd left it in a shocking state like you see in those awful Environmental Health Squad type programmes, I have no idea.
Anyway, I rented that place for 11 years. I accumulated a lot of stuff. I painted and decorated MANY times. I even tiled. (Like, MYSELF. TWICE. Without the help of a tradesman. I will never tile again if I have the money to pay someone else to do it. Urgh.). I was kind of sad to see it go, what with the length of time it'd been "mine" (I even though briefly of buying it. [side note: totally going for a parentheses record here. Lookit, parentheses INSIDE parentheses! Meta!]). But it was also just one of those occasions where it was "time", I'd been there long enough, I was absolutely ready to move on. So, no biggie. The "letting it go" part consisted of popping down the council office and giving notice that I was terminating my lease, signing to that effect on my old lease documentation from 11 years before (hello, young me! Look at your shitty handwriting and all the YOUTHFUL HOPE leeching out of it! SUCKER!), and then when I'd moved all my stuff out, popping down to the office with the keys. Nobody inspected anything or got JUDGY. There were no bad consequences of your lazy housekeeping or your terrible choice of paint schemes.
So myself and Himself then rented a little unit in Christchurch for 18 months. It was the first house we saw, and we snapped it up. And no, not because it was a dream home or anything. In fact, think a very small, very dated little apartment that your gran would have. Complete with old lady knick-knacks (nick-nacks?) and colour schemes and the type of sofas old people seem to like - the kind with strange wing things at the sides and with little doilies on the armrests so they stay good. It was sufficient for us, though - it was furnished and in our price range and available right away, when we were just newly arrived from the UK and had no fucking idea where anything was or what we were going to be doing with ourselves.
We rented direct from the owner, not through any letting agency nonsense. The landlady owned several of the surrounding units, and seemed really nice. In the eighteen months we lived there, we had... ooh... one problem, I think - the hot water heater packed in. We contacted our landlady and she sent a plumber and electrician right round and it was fixed next day. She was awesome. And when we left, she popped round to once-over the place, but really gave it the most sparing of glances and wished us well in our next leg of the adventure. (Incidentally, we nearly KILLED OURSELVES in the fortnight before leaving, washing curtains and bleaching things and trying to get mold off of surfaces [more on that later] and using caustic oven cleaners that BLISTERED MY SKIN and shit knows what else. We really needn't have bothered).
This place that we're currently renting in Invercargill is WAY more swish than the place in Christchurch. It's bigger, has more furniture of a much higher spec, and has more complicated (thought probably not really larger) gardens. Which WE need to take care of, which is kind of a pain in the arse given that the grounds maintenance in the last place was taken care of by the landlady. And gardening sucks. Anyway.
So! The Letting Agent is coming to inspect in two weeks. Which has me bizarrely nervous and just about jumping out of my skin. Because I'm LIVING here. And I'll BE here while they're looking around, which totally makes me feel like I'm going to be being JUDGED and there'll be notes taken about my housekeeping or something. We've been going nuts in the garden chopping back some of the overgrowth, and it looks a bit... well, brutal. Which I'm wondering if they'll JUDGE and be all arsey about it... or maybe even want to claim money from our deposit or something. At which point I will absolutely Lose. My. Fucking. SHIT, because we FOUND A GATE to the garden behind all that mahoosive bush (heh), AND reclaimed 5 FUCKING FEET of lawn space which we are going to re-seed ourselves, so GET FUCKED, JUDGEY McSNEER!
I've been thinking about repainting the "feature" wall in one of the spare bedrooms (the one that we've decided will be the official Fancy Guest Bedroom), because I fucking HATE the too-dark blue colour that's in there and because the wall is damaged and that kind of thing really BUGS ME. Do I have to ask permission to paint a fucking wall? Will they totally know I was thinking about just painting it anyway without asking and be all "We're ONTO YOU, you wreckless painting type. We heard about your lime green/cobalt blue/silver STAMPING paint job in your kitchen 9 years ago and we're fucking watching you.", and I'll be all "OMG, I was YOUNG! I was a STUDENT! I was too poor for real tiles and I honestly thought those colours would go together and that was 9 YEARS AGO, man! I've got the shitty colour schemes out of my system and all I wanted was a plain, soothing soft green, I swear!" But they'll put me on some kind of BANNED list at Mitre 10 (like B&Q, you UK people) anyway and I won't even be allowed to buy a paintbrush as if I'm some kind of fucking Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen decorating terrorist?!
I am NOT over-reacting. EVERYONE ALWAYS SAYS THAT, IT'S A CONSPIRACEEEEEEEEEE!
The thing that annoys me the absolute most about it? Mold. On the letter it said they're particularly going to be paying attention to "evidence of mold and dirt on windows and ceilings". Now, for you people who have no experience of New Zealand housing, allow me to introduce you to the most disappointing thing about it. MOLD. The houses are pretty. They're all different from each other. They have character. But FUCK, you'd think these people had never heard of insulation. Or double glazing. Because the houses are cold. And DAMP.
It's a huge problem and one that the government is trying to tackle with legislation and insulation grants and fuck knows what else. Which is absolutely fuck all use, of course, if you're a renter rather than an owner. The mold in the place in Christchurch DISGUSTED me, and I got fed up trying to fight it with bleach sprays and dehumidifiers and gawd knows what else. I thought when we came here, to a bigger place with more natural air movement (where I got that idea, I really don't know), it would be mold-free. It LOOKED mold-free when we inspected the place. As soon as we moved in and looked closer? FUCKING MOLD. We keep the windows cracked just open most of the time, and open open during the day to get fresh air and remove condensation. THERE IS STILL MOLD. And these people are going to come round and get all judgy about whether there's mold on the ceilings and windowsill like it's my fucking FAULT?! How about the money I'm paying you to rent a fucking moldy house, you bastards?! And the fact that I have bloody asthma and this is messing with my health?! DAMMIT!
So now, for some reason, I am armed with the bleach spray and am going to try to tackle as mch of the mold as possible so that I don't get JUDGED. Even though I should totally be judging THEM and demanding that they do something about the unhealthy conditions. Fuck, I am such a pushover.
Hm.
Now, I should say that this is only the third property I've ever rented in my life. The first was rented from the Local Authority back home in good old Blighty, who frankly really didn't give a shit what you did in their houses (short of being all ASBO and whatnot). You could paint and decorate, all the furniture was your own, all the council really wanted was for you to hand it back empty. And, preferrably, clean. Which I absolutely 100% did when I left it - although how they would have tracked me down to penalise me if I'd left it in a shocking state like you see in those awful Environmental Health Squad type programmes, I have no idea.
Anyway, I rented that place for 11 years. I accumulated a lot of stuff. I painted and decorated MANY times. I even tiled. (Like, MYSELF. TWICE. Without the help of a tradesman. I will never tile again if I have the money to pay someone else to do it. Urgh.). I was kind of sad to see it go, what with the length of time it'd been "mine" (I even though briefly of buying it. [side note: totally going for a parentheses record here. Lookit, parentheses INSIDE parentheses! Meta!]). But it was also just one of those occasions where it was "time", I'd been there long enough, I was absolutely ready to move on. So, no biggie. The "letting it go" part consisted of popping down the council office and giving notice that I was terminating my lease, signing to that effect on my old lease documentation from 11 years before (hello, young me! Look at your shitty handwriting and all the YOUTHFUL HOPE leeching out of it! SUCKER!), and then when I'd moved all my stuff out, popping down to the office with the keys. Nobody inspected anything or got JUDGY. There were no bad consequences of your lazy housekeeping or your terrible choice of paint schemes.
So myself and Himself then rented a little unit in Christchurch for 18 months. It was the first house we saw, and we snapped it up. And no, not because it was a dream home or anything. In fact, think a very small, very dated little apartment that your gran would have. Complete with old lady knick-knacks (nick-nacks?) and colour schemes and the type of sofas old people seem to like - the kind with strange wing things at the sides and with little doilies on the armrests so they stay good. It was sufficient for us, though - it was furnished and in our price range and available right away, when we were just newly arrived from the UK and had no fucking idea where anything was or what we were going to be doing with ourselves.
We rented direct from the owner, not through any letting agency nonsense. The landlady owned several of the surrounding units, and seemed really nice. In the eighteen months we lived there, we had... ooh... one problem, I think - the hot water heater packed in. We contacted our landlady and she sent a plumber and electrician right round and it was fixed next day. She was awesome. And when we left, she popped round to once-over the place, but really gave it the most sparing of glances and wished us well in our next leg of the adventure. (Incidentally, we nearly KILLED OURSELVES in the fortnight before leaving, washing curtains and bleaching things and trying to get mold off of surfaces [more on that later] and using caustic oven cleaners that BLISTERED MY SKIN and shit knows what else. We really needn't have bothered).
This place that we're currently renting in Invercargill is WAY more swish than the place in Christchurch. It's bigger, has more furniture of a much higher spec, and has more complicated (thought probably not really larger) gardens. Which WE need to take care of, which is kind of a pain in the arse given that the grounds maintenance in the last place was taken care of by the landlady. And gardening sucks. Anyway.
So! The Letting Agent is coming to inspect in two weeks. Which has me bizarrely nervous and just about jumping out of my skin. Because I'm LIVING here. And I'll BE here while they're looking around, which totally makes me feel like I'm going to be being JUDGED and there'll be notes taken about my housekeeping or something. We've been going nuts in the garden chopping back some of the overgrowth, and it looks a bit... well, brutal. Which I'm wondering if they'll JUDGE and be all arsey about it... or maybe even want to claim money from our deposit or something. At which point I will absolutely Lose. My. Fucking. SHIT, because we FOUND A GATE to the garden behind all that mahoosive bush (heh), AND reclaimed 5 FUCKING FEET of lawn space which we are going to re-seed ourselves, so GET FUCKED, JUDGEY McSNEER!
I've been thinking about repainting the "feature" wall in one of the spare bedrooms (the one that we've decided will be the official Fancy Guest Bedroom), because I fucking HATE the too-dark blue colour that's in there and because the wall is damaged and that kind of thing really BUGS ME. Do I have to ask permission to paint a fucking wall? Will they totally know I was thinking about just painting it anyway without asking and be all "We're ONTO YOU, you wreckless painting type. We heard about your lime green/cobalt blue/silver STAMPING paint job in your kitchen 9 years ago and we're fucking watching you.", and I'll be all "OMG, I was YOUNG! I was a STUDENT! I was too poor for real tiles and I honestly thought those colours would go together and that was 9 YEARS AGO, man! I've got the shitty colour schemes out of my system and all I wanted was a plain, soothing soft green, I swear!" But they'll put me on some kind of BANNED list at Mitre 10 (like B&Q, you UK people) anyway and I won't even be allowed to buy a paintbrush as if I'm some kind of fucking Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen decorating terrorist?!
I am NOT over-reacting. EVERYONE ALWAYS SAYS THAT, IT'S A CONSPIRACEEEEEEEEEE!
The thing that annoys me the absolute most about it? Mold. On the letter it said they're particularly going to be paying attention to "evidence of mold and dirt on windows and ceilings". Now, for you people who have no experience of New Zealand housing, allow me to introduce you to the most disappointing thing about it. MOLD. The houses are pretty. They're all different from each other. They have character. But FUCK, you'd think these people had never heard of insulation. Or double glazing. Because the houses are cold. And DAMP.
It's a huge problem and one that the government is trying to tackle with legislation and insulation grants and fuck knows what else. Which is absolutely fuck all use, of course, if you're a renter rather than an owner. The mold in the place in Christchurch DISGUSTED me, and I got fed up trying to fight it with bleach sprays and dehumidifiers and gawd knows what else. I thought when we came here, to a bigger place with more natural air movement (where I got that idea, I really don't know), it would be mold-free. It LOOKED mold-free when we inspected the place. As soon as we moved in and looked closer? FUCKING MOLD. We keep the windows cracked just open most of the time, and open open during the day to get fresh air and remove condensation. THERE IS STILL MOLD. And these people are going to come round and get all judgy about whether there's mold on the ceilings and windowsill like it's my fucking FAULT?! How about the money I'm paying you to rent a fucking moldy house, you bastards?! And the fact that I have bloody asthma and this is messing with my health?! DAMMIT!
So now, for some reason, I am armed with the bleach spray and am going to try to tackle as mch of the mold as possible so that I don't get JUDGED. Even though I should totally be judging THEM and demanding that they do something about the unhealthy conditions. Fuck, I am such a pushover.
