Accommodation drama

While I was looking for accommodation, almost every site warned me about private accommodation and the drama it may present, saying it puts you at the mercy of the landlord. With this in mind, I looked at university accommodation. However, after doing the maths, and an opportunity to live with my sisters, private accommodation looked like the best option.

Before we travelled, we had called the landlord, let’s call him James, and told him we would be in the area by Sunday. He told us that the house my sisters had looked at and therefore made a deposit on was not available and that he had therefore moved us to another house. When we expressed our discomfort with that arrangement, James assured us that the new house was the same as the old one. That the rooms were just as big, and that the house will be clean and ready when we arrived. Our worries were not allayed.

First, our landlord is from a country whose nationals have been stereotyped as fraudsters. But because my sisters and I hate stereotypes, we had taken him at his word by making all the necessary payments on time. Second, his previous tenants had warned us to treat him with a firm hand otherwise he would take advantage of us.

On getting to the UK, we were blessed to have family here. They gave us a place to rest, freshen up and drove us to the house. I say blessed because I cannot imagine what would have happened to us if we had had to move into the house straight from the airport on our own.

Before setting off to the house, we had called James  hours earlier to inform him. And again, he assured us that the house was ready.

The house, nay the horror!

We got to the house only to find a scene from the before portion of a home makeover show. The pataches of green in front of the house were littered with broken glass, an assortment of snack packaging and other things I couldn’t identify. The doorway had old mail on the floor, and suitcases. The kitchen, oh the kitchen! The word filthy was coined for it. The countertops were filled with dirty dishes, the floor coated with rubbish at different stages of rotting. As for the backyard, it looked like a scorned woman had thrown her lover’s property from out the window, clothes, bed (there was a broken one) and all. The grass on which these things were carelessly strewn was so unkempt that it must be a habitat for a yet to be discovered species. And that was before we even went upstairs to the rooms.

The first room we went to was what my sisters’. First, the size was smaller than it was in the previous house then the bathroom had so much mold, my sinuses tried to come out. The bed was broken in some places, the lock on the window was loose, and the previous occupant’s property was still in some places. My room was also smaller, had a broken wardrobe and was just plain dirty.

When we called James, he was kind enough to let us know that he was out far from the property but that he would be with us in two and a half hours. Meanwhile, he said, we can move our luggage into the house. And proceeded to hang up on us. The guts on this man were just too astounding!

There was no way we were moving into such a horror so we hang around. Soon, he wasn’t picking our calls so we went to his agency offices only to get there to find out that his offices had moved a few weeks ago and that they had not left a new address. I couldn’t believe that this was starting to look like a scam… on my second day in the country! We laughed so hard about it because the alternative was too frustrating to think about. We called him again and thankfully he picked the call and told us to meet him at the property.

He had his children with him. I don’t know if bringing them along was a ploy to endear himself to us but these four ladies (we were with our aunt whose tolerance for nonsense is non-existent) were as we like at say at home, bakowu-too tired to put up with anything. The whole time he was talking to us on the phone, James must have imagined that we were a trio of helpless international students on their own with no other option of accommodation but the horror he had to offer us. I say this because of the surprise on his face when our aunt introduced herself and said she was a resident.

When we expressed our disappointment in the house, how he works, and the fact that we wanted to stick to our original house, he went on the defensive, saying money was no problem to him. But we were not having any of it. We made it clear that we were not interested in his credibility at that point but in him getting us the accommodation we had booked.

With that out of the way, we were able to get a better explanation for why he had moved us without giving us prior warning. It has something to do with new housing council rules that require for him to put specific amenities into the house. That part is understandable. What isn’t is the fact that he took it for granted that we would be happy to move houses without notice, and that he didn’t even have the courtesy to inspect the house before asking us to move in.

After assuring us that we would move into the first house when the required amenities are in place (in less than a month), he called his cleaning guys to do their work, asking us to wait a little more. And that is how we lost an entire day. In the meantime, we did shopping for the house, and grabbed a meal. However, when we got back to the house a few hours later, only the kitchen had been tidied. There was a man in the bathroom who sprayed mold remover and asked us, in a heavy Russian accent, not to use the bathroom till the next day. The house has another bathroom next upstairs so while it was an inconvenience, at least we had a place to bathe. However, when we got upstairs to what was supposed to be my room, we found another man inspecting the carpeting. He informed us that it was wet in some places and that the water was coming from the bathtub next door. He asked us not to use the bathroom that night. James was nowhere to be seen. And by that time, our aunt had left.

Here we were with nowhere to freshen up. The other housemates were in the rooms and seemed to be fine. In fact one had earlier told us that she is used to “these landlords and how they work”. When James’ assistant came to give us our keys, we told him our dilemma and he told us the damage had already been done, and therefore we shouldn’t be inconvenienced. Not what we wanted to hear but at least we could freshen up.

Having agreed that the situation was beyond us, we asked God to give us perseverance and He must have answered our prayers. I believe so because we were able to unpack what we needed and make ourselves as comfortable as possible.

It’s not smooth sailing yet as James continue to frustrate us by having the bathrooms fixed at a snail’s pace, the washing machine has mold, there is no space in the kitchen for our groceries so we have to keep carrying what we need downstairs to the kitchen. But at least we were not victims of a housing scam, we have a roof over our shoulders, and one of our rooms has a refrigerator for our perishables.

Also, what is an adventure without a little drama… still enjoying my Chevening journey. See I even have problems like mold in the washing machine hehe…

Ps

The views I express every time I write about #MyCheveningJourney are my own and in no way represent those of the Chevening Secretariat.