FLATHELL
12:30
I arrive at Oval tube promptly, an hour too promptly it seems and make my way to the designated meeting point for the owner of flat number one at one pm. He texts me twenty minutes before we are due to meet to apologise and ask that we instead meet at 6.15. Begrudgingly, I agree.
6:15. Flat number one.
I arrive and find a stocky man who would not look entirely out of place in an identity parade of sex offenders. He ushers me up to a dark and squalid looking flat with a female housemate staring, open jawed at a television set. He stops me in the bedroom and asks how much the flat is. I fumble unsuccessfully with my phone in an attempt to find out before informing him that I, as a potential tenant, do not have this information. He replies "oh ok, let's say £600". I wince visibly but agree to the sum straight away. He may well react badly to my rejection, lock the bedroom door and keep me there forever, with me whittling away the next two month staring at the cigarette stained wood-chip wallpaper. Surely I am worth more to him alive. I make my way down the stairs and on the landing he proposes a transaction, before the formal due diligence that precedes what he assures me will be our mutual agreement to an unwritten contact. He asks me if I will take the flat, I demurely attempt to tango my way around the topic but agree that I will most certainly take the appartment. The same appartment that would not look out of place on the set of a television documentary entitled "Poorly Designed Crack Houses". Having agreed to pay £600 a month, and of course a discretionary deposit of unspecified size he then asks me for £50 as "an initial deposit". Having parted with this money I will then receive, he informs me, the keys. I tell Oval's resident sex-pest that I am not paid until tomorrow, but will gladly meet him in a public place with lots of witnesses to finish our "verbal agreement". He seems pleased with this compromise and shakes my hand before I peg it to the tube station.
7.00 Flat Number Two.
I arrive at a flat situated near Vauxhall. Three turns left, four turns right, and another three left and I find myself on an council estate. A quick withering glance around me suggests the area has yet to receive its weekly air-dropped care package. I take a deep breath and make my way inside the flat. I am greeted by six tenants, five of them polish while the sixth (whose room I am seeing) is a Japanese male. He goes through the formalities of showing me the kitchen before taking me to his bedroom. Bedroom is perhaps apt given that the only thing in the airing-cupboard sized room was his bed. I am not exaggerating when I suggest that his room would have been looked on unenviably (in terms both of size and facilities) by those current residing at Her Majesty's Pleasure. I toy with the idea of suggesting he mug an old lady if he ever wants an upgrade, but decide instead to just thank him for his time.
I arrive at Oval tube promptly, an hour too promptly it seems and make my way to the designated meeting point for the owner of flat number one at one pm. He texts me twenty minutes before we are due to meet to apologise and ask that we instead meet at 6.15. Begrudgingly, I agree.
6:15. Flat number one.
I arrive and find a stocky man who would not look entirely out of place in an identity parade of sex offenders. He ushers me up to a dark and squalid looking flat with a female housemate staring, open jawed at a television set. He stops me in the bedroom and asks how much the flat is. I fumble unsuccessfully with my phone in an attempt to find out before informing him that I, as a potential tenant, do not have this information. He replies "oh ok, let's say £600". I wince visibly but agree to the sum straight away. He may well react badly to my rejection, lock the bedroom door and keep me there forever, with me whittling away the next two month staring at the cigarette stained wood-chip wallpaper. Surely I am worth more to him alive. I make my way down the stairs and on the landing he proposes a transaction, before the formal due diligence that precedes what he assures me will be our mutual agreement to an unwritten contact. He asks me if I will take the flat, I demurely attempt to tango my way around the topic but agree that I will most certainly take the appartment. The same appartment that would not look out of place on the set of a television documentary entitled "Poorly Designed Crack Houses". Having agreed to pay £600 a month, and of course a discretionary deposit of unspecified size he then asks me for £50 as "an initial deposit". Having parted with this money I will then receive, he informs me, the keys. I tell Oval's resident sex-pest that I am not paid until tomorrow, but will gladly meet him in a public place with lots of witnesses to finish our "verbal agreement". He seems pleased with this compromise and shakes my hand before I peg it to the tube station.
7.00 Flat Number Two.
I arrive at a flat situated near Vauxhall. Three turns left, four turns right, and another three left and I find myself on an council estate. A quick withering glance around me suggests the area has yet to receive its weekly air-dropped care package. I take a deep breath and make my way inside the flat. I am greeted by six tenants, five of them polish while the sixth (whose room I am seeing) is a Japanese male. He goes through the formalities of showing me the kitchen before taking me to his bedroom. Bedroom is perhaps apt given that the only thing in the airing-cupboard sized room was his bed. I am not exaggerating when I suggest that his room would have been looked on unenviably (in terms both of size and facilities) by those current residing at Her Majesty's Pleasure. I toy with the idea of suggesting he mug an old lady if he ever wants an upgrade, but decide instead to just thank him for his time.