Rental Opportunity of the Week: An Attic With an Ominous Hole For a Grand

What is it? Hi yeah how you doing yeah how you doing yeah? Come far? Come far yeah? Yeah, get in, come in — let’s get you in from the cold shall we?

Where is it? Yeah, Green Lanes yeah it’s alright round here actually, isn’t it? Used to have quite a lot of trouble shifting flats around here — killings, yeah — but past few years a lot of like, not your types but your types have moved around here and it’s sort of bought the place up a bit—

Your types? No, not like your types but uh. But you know like… uh. You know the blokes always wear them little rolled down hats and a utility vest and the girl ones always have a cherry emoji in their Twitter display name and own one of them vases that’s got tits?

Yeah. And the initial email said you were thinking of adopting a dog?

… yeah. Yeah, so yeah. Yeah. A lot of that going on, around here

What is there to do locally? I wouldn’t know my darling so what I’ll just do here I’ll just explain: so I’m an estate agent, yeah? And what that means is this is the first time I’ve ever seen this flat in my life and now when you two go to the pub around the corner and frantically talk yourself into whether you want it or not and eventually decide that you do (because I have got it into your head that I’ve got five or six other viewings today and we are expecting it to go by end of play, and also though you don’t even really like it you’ll just take that sense of urgency and convince yourself that you do like it because it’s in your price range and what else will you ever find in your price range?).

Then what’ll happen is one of you will call me — it’ll probably be you, won’t it love, because he’s ‘bad on the phone’ — right one of you will call me and offer what it’s being advertised for and I’ll suck my teeth and go ‘ooh, I’ll see what he says, I see what the landlord says,’ then I’ll leave you in suspense for 20 minutes then call back and say he’s had another offer, he’s had another offer, but I like you two, I do, I can tell you’ll be good tenants because you’ll be too afraid to ever email me about leaks, so because I like you so much, I’ll do you a deal, and if you can wire the deposit over today I can do it for you for £100 a month over asking, but only if you do it today.

Right. So you see what that means is I haven’t got a fucking clue what there is to do around here because it’s not remotely in my job description to know because all I really do is lie on phones and have a big keyring.

Right. So I’ll just give you a generic estate agent answer: there’s a nice pub around the corner, yeah? His face just lit up, look. And there’s a… you know what I’ll check. But I think there’s a cinema or something.

Alright, how much are they asking? Grand a month but that is if you sign now as in before I’ve even shown you it, it goes up by a pound a month every minute you spend in here asking questions about the fridge.

Right so here’s the entrance bit — yeah it’s nice isn’t it? Yeah — so what you’ll notice here is: the roof is a bit steep, yeah. And that’s because: I think it was an attic, once? Think it was just someone’s attic. But what the landlord’s done is quite clever actually what they’ve done is they turned this attic into a sort of a room? And yeah so that’s why the roof’s quite slanted and low. Big lad, big lad: how tall are you? How tall are you? Six-three, six-four? Six-four, yeah. Yeah, mm. You’re gonna have to be quite careful standing up, then. You are really going to want to stick mostly to the very centre of the room.

So that’s the kitchen, yeah. Got all the sort of appliances you need: hob. What’s that? Fridge? Fridge, fridge, fridge. Let me just open these cupboards up — no fridge, no. Would you be wanting a fridge? What sort of little… little box for butter and cheese and that? I can ask, yeah, if you really want a fridge. Can ask about a fridge. Yeah no it’s funny a lot of people do ask for fridges, yeah. No, no oven. They don’t really want ovens these days, is the thing. You could get one of those air fryers? Something to think about maybe. I’m just going to tap my hand twice very loudly on this work surface so we can move on a bit— 

So moving on, over to, the bedroom. Yeah so: double bed, yep. Couple of spotlights but to turn those off and on you do need to get up out of bed and cross over to the other side of the room and play with the light switch. Kitchen bin is right next to the bed, yeah. Just directly next to the bed. I know what side he’s going to be sleeping on, don’t I! Yeah but no that will stink, that will absolutely reek. You will have to keep that quite clean and quite empty. Otherwise that will… that will really fucking stink. Bedside table? Erm: no I don’t think there’s really space for a simple bedside table on it with a lamp, no. So probably… not. I could ask, I could ask—

And moving over to— ah, fridge! Let me… just… cross that off… my list. So yeah there’s your fridge. So you’ve got all your stuff here, you’ve got… desk. What’s he do? What do you do, mate? Writer? No I mean for a job. Writer? Oh. Have you got bank statements to— yeah because the rent on this place is. It would be five hundred a month each, yeah. Is she–? And you. OK, OK. Just writing, nothing else? Right. There’s always a KFC down the way you could pick up some shifts in yeah.

Alright, well so yeah so anyway here’s a desk where you could do your writing and here’s a sort of– dunno what you’d call that, sort of… drawers? Just drawers. And you’ve got a shelving unit that seems to have been scrapped from an office, yeah — all of this mismatching! None of this matches! Each piece of furniture very spiritually different from the last! — and then yeah over here you’ve got a wardrobe. So yeah what the landlord’s done here, and it’s quite clever: he’s just put all the random pieces of furniture you might vaguely need in this sort of grey dreadful space, yeah. Sort of utility area thing, exactly, exactly! Ha — you should be the writer, not him! Ha!

What’s that? The strange triangular hole that emits a dark and foreboding energy? I can ask. I can ask about that. I will ask. Would that be a— I don’t know if anyone else has access to that. I do not know whether a small yellowing man with grey teeth might scuttle through there and hiss at you at night. I would have to check.

And finally: the bathroom! Yeah so just— yeah mate just try not to bump your entire fucking body into that small set of shelves that block a third of the doorway in, if you can very much help it. So yeah bathroom: shower, toilet, notmuchspace, window. Do the shelves have to stay? Err: would you not want the—? Yeah they are a little bit in the way, I guess, yeah. But ahh: the landlord’s very particular about the furniture, so. Would you have your own set of fucking plastic shelves that fucking take up a third of the fucking doorway to the bathroom for no reason at all? Would that be something you’d be looking to bring? Yeah, hnngh. I could ask, I could ask, yeah. I will ask. But I wouldn’t… yeah. I will ask, I will ask. But don’t—

What’s that mate? Yeah no that’s it. That’s the whole property! Yeah what did you expect. What did he expect? No at your price range this is it, yeah. So should we talk—? You’d need to go and think about it. Right well I should warn you, yeah, we do have a lot of interest in this single fucking room above a fucking shop in fucking Green Lanes that costs a grand a month and has an ominous portal in it, yeah, so. Act fast if you do want it, my darling, OK, yeah? Because— yeah bell me, yeah do bell me, because this will go. This will fucking go. So yeah— yeah! Alright lovely speaking to you lovely meeting you mate — ooh no handshake, alright, not a handshaker — alright yeah and alright I’ll be hearing from you? Won’t I? Ah yeah I know I will. I know I will. Alright but yeah do: do think quite soon, do do that thinking quite quickly. Yeah. Alright then yeah. See ya! See ya! Bye!

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Yeah Mum? Yeah Mum, hiya. It’s me. Yeah how are you? How’s the pain? Yeah. Have you had Ibuprofen? Well you’ve got to have it with food. Yoghurt? You could keep some yoghurt down, maybe? Or some plain Cornflakes? I’ll bring Cornflakes back from work. I’ll bring some Cornflakes back from work. Yeah the flat? Yeah went well, went well. They’ll take it, they’ll probably take it, so. Ten per cent commissiono, yeah. Yeah— no— yeah. Well I thought you weren’t watching it because of Holly and Phil? Oh it’s a Dermot day, sorry, yeah. OK. Well I won’t—

Listen, Mum—

No listen, Mum, Mum—

No that’s Alison Hammond—

No Mum, Mum—

Listen.

Am I a good person? No. Yeah no I mean at the core of me. Inside my heart. Am I… good. In any way. Is my soul retrievable from hell. No I haven’t! No I swore I told you I’m not doing that anymore. No I haven’t spoken to him in months. No I mean I just. I was just thinking back to my childhood, and when I was a child. Yeah when Dad was around, yeah. Yeah he was a prick yeah. No I mean and like, ah— You know when the other kids, like, fell over? And other kids would help them, you know. Like one would get the nurse, you know. One would sort of soothe their back or try and make them laugh to stop crying. You know like the natural impulse baked in to human nature is to help people, you know? Yeah. And like I didn’t do that. I have no memory of ever doing that. I just watched them, legs limp on the floor, bleed.

And now I’m thinking about my whole entire life and how I’ve never run to help. How I’ve always been selfish, selfish, selfish. How I’ve never materially improved anyone else’s life at all, even moved one atom in the direction of the moral good. Yeah. Like unless it’s good for me it isn’t good for me, isn’t it? Yeah. How I’ve always been like that, and now I’m here. Yeah just wondering if you think that’s—? It’s fine. Right. Nah it’s probably nothing. No yeah. No yeah it’s probably. Yeah no it’s nothing. I won’t. Yep. Yep. Yeah. No I won’t— competition time, yeah. What’s the capital of Scotland—? Ah, don’t know. Yeah I’d have to ask. Yeah. No Google it. No Google it. With the iPad. Yep, well. I’ll leave you too it. OK bye yeah loveyou—

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Yeah hi is that—? Hiya. Yeah we’ve got interest, I’m afraid. Yeah a couple right after you too. Yeah they love it. They actually: he doesn’t have a sense of smell so he actually likes that the kitchen bin is right next to the bed. And yeah she’s got one leg much severely shorter than the other so she’s sort of at an angle herself, yeah. So yeah this place is perfect for them– you were thinking of making an offer? Errk. OK, right. Yeah. I’d have to ask, yeah. But it would– listen I will be straight with you. It would really help your cause if you could– offer over a little, yeah. It’s a very competitive market right now. It is yeah. A hundred a month over? Ynngh. Yeah I could– a hundred and fifty, yeah. I think that would secure it. I think that would secure it, yeah. Alright! Alright yeah I’ll check. Yeah I’ll check and get back to you, alright, alright, yeah. Yep. Yep. See ya. Yep. 

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@joelgolby