Really Something

The man from our real estate agent's wasn't half as surprised to see me as I was to see him. He stared through the security screen at my midday pyjamas and dressing gown, my hair flattened into a bed-ridden shark fin, my glasses askew. He was carrying a clipboard...and a camera.

"Can I help you?"

He stared past me into the living room as Ziggy, waking from his perch atop a dismantled clothes rack and sensing a media opportunity, stretched out his splinted leg and yowled pathetically in the special voice he reserves for eliciting pity from strangers. I shut the door behind me.

"I've come to do your inspection."

I have never been the tenant of a decent estate agent. Our current hosts address mail to us by combining my first and my flatmate's last names, forget to tell us when the person looking after us resigns, ask us for maintenance requests then get irritated when we chase them up and, after no visits for a year, have just scheduled inspections for three consecutive months. They stop just short of pretending not to speak English when we call them but it really wouldn't surprise me. Fortunately for the state of our laundry, which has been temporary hospital ward to the Desperate Housecat for the last three weeks, I managed to fend off the man with the camera by finding the latest piece of paper, which promises no more visits until June.

But it didn't end there. I think they've started training spies. I answered the door yesterday to receive a very nice electrician, just coming, he claimed "to check the safety switch was working" on behalf of the agent. These are the people who can't organise for our toilet to be fixed or for the drunken palm tree which threatens to flatten their investment to be removed. How the hell did they know we HAD a safety switch? THEN, later that afternoon, I took a call from the pest control people. They're paying for spraying next week. Hmm. I wonder if they're bringing a camera...