It has been five months to the day since we got the keys to the new house. 

And about three weeks ago, we unpacked the final remaining box. 

It has continued to be an interesting experience. Since we moved in:

1. We have had to give the house a deep clean as it was clear that the carpets was covered in dog hair and smelled of dog urine from the previous tenants pet.
2. The fence fell down at the back of the house during a storm. 
3. The paint above the shower that had already started peeling got much worse, and began hanging off in a large chunk exposing bare plaster.
4. The toilet broke.
5. The boiler broke.

We moved out of the previous property because we wanted to avoid dealing with builders and decorators as the landlord had clearly started making plans to do up the house so he could charge much more rent or sell it entirely, and I have been extremely cross that we are now paying almost double the rent in our new property to essentially go through the same thing. 

So cross in fact, that my initial attempts to write this post turned into a very lengthy rant, which I have now shortened by about a third. 

In the previous property we only had to deal with the disinterested landlord, but it in this one, we have to deal with both a disinterested property management company, and a nice but fairly disinterested landlord. It has been an ongoing battle to get pretty much anything done.

The fence was fixed by my neighbours at the back of the property after several months. The toilet was given a temporary fix, but then it took TWO AND A HALF WEEKS for it to be fully fixed. After FOUR MONTHS of asking the paint in the bathroom to be redone, we ended up doing it ourselves (with the landlord supplying the paint) because we got so fed up of the back and forth between everyone and didn’t want it to get worse. Contractors have sometimes given very little notice, and have repeatedly said they will use the office keys to let themselves into the house if I’m not in, which I have had to tell them absolutely not. We were also told we were having an inspection after three months in an email, with ‘we can use our management set of keys to obtain access if you are not at home’ included. 

And all of this has been going on while I’m trying to work from home. 

Eventually, I lost my temper. After what has felt like months of screaming into the abyss, I rang the office and told them that under no circumstances would I ever allow anyone to let themselves into the property, and my experience of the company so far has been less than satisfactory. There was the usual mumbling that the landlord wasn’t able to be contacted which is why things have taken so long (something that he denied when I met him in person), that I have a right to suggest a more suitable date for an inspection blah blah, none of which is included in the email, that it is standard practise for contractors to let themselves in if we are not at home etc.

Can you imagine how organised and interested they would suddenly be with us if we were two and a half weeks late in paying rent?  

It’s so frustrating, because other than this I absolutely love the place. It is light and airy, the downstairs is open plan so we have a lovely living room area, our neighbours are nice enough and it is quiet and peaceful despite being just five roads away from our previous home. We don’t have anywhere near the amount of storage space that we had before so we have got rid of a ridiculous amount of stuff, which has been very freeing. It has been an ongoing process – we have bought bits and pieces of furniture as we have gone along, unpacked some boxes and methodically organised what we wanted to keep and taken trips to the tip or charity shops to get rid of the stuff we didn’t.

During the weeks where we have had glorious weather, I have opened the patio doors at the back and dried my washing outside in the garden. A few people have dropped by without notice recently, and because everything is much more minimal and tidied away and the decor is clean and neutral, I haven’t had to rush around or feel apologetic when inviting them in. 

What I think I really need now is a few months of uninterrupted routine. My working life is good, my social life is good and my family is about as calm as it’s ever going to be. Hopefully all of the major issues have been resolved and we can focus on simply enjoying living here without further incident, and continue to make plans for the future.