We knew Gerald was likely do a runner sooner or later and that once more we would be hundreds or thousands out of pocket. We were wracking our brains for ideas on how we could somehow get him to pay; for example, we looked into getting a charge on the house he reckoned he still owned with his ex. Adrian paid £4 for an on-line search at the Land Registry to check who owned this property and found it had belonged to two men for the last nine years, without even Gerald's ex-wife’s name being on it, never mind his. That meant we wouldn’t be able to put a charge on his property, because he didn’t own one. We also wouldn’t be able to get an attachment of earnings because he didn’t have an employer.
I found the psychology of people's rationalisations when they were in the wrong intriguing; they would flip the blame onto others or try to set a different agenda. For example, one day, Gerald said to Adrian, ‘You don’t care’. Well, why would we have cared about him? He didn’t care about us either.
He was also forever trying to dream up arguments he could use against us. Because we’d done everything right, though, including Adrian going up regularly to clean up after the lot of them, he couldn’t come up with much. What was clear was that the man really hated us, although we’d always been decent towards him.
‘I’ve got a mind to put in a counter claim,’ he said to Adrian on the ‘phone one day. 'Your house is damp and it’s not fit for children. I’m in the process of looking for somewhere else to live.’
Adrian immediately replied: ‘I’ll take that as you giving your notice. Let’s see, it’s the 20th today, so you will be out by the 20th of next month. Is that right?’
‘Yes, it is,’ Gerald mumbled. He had only said to Adrian that he was thinking of looking for somewhere else, but Adrian seized the chance to turn this into a notice. He then refused to say in what ways the house was unsafe for children; his imagination didn’t furnish with him any usable examples. In any case, we rented him a double room for single occupancy, sharing with three other adults. It wasn't a family home, although he had the habit of leaving his daughter’s things all over the house, in the lounge and in the spare room, including a bike, skates and a stack of toys. On his tenancy agreement was written his name, not his family’s. It was the usual attempt to slander the house in an attempt to get out of paying rent.
‘If it isn’t good enough,’ I thought, 'GET OUT! And we’ll get in someone who pays the rent.’
He was now, allegedly, moving somewhere with space for his daughter. That was going to cost more than he was (or wasn’t) paying us. It was the same pattern we’d seen with another ex-tenant; he hadn't paid us the £220 per month rent but moved somewhere where he was supposed to pay £400. I pitied that landlord. Of course we weren’t given as referees. The tenant’s trick when they end a tenancy on a bad note is to say they're living with family and can’t therefore give a reference or maybe that they’ve sold their home and have never rented before. They then hope you don't check up on what they've said.
And the house was not damp (we were spending a fortune heating it 24 hours a day) and it was inspected all the time by the various departments of the council as they were determined to monitor landlords’ every move, regularly writing us threatening letters saying they were going to take legal action if they didn’t immediately see the latest gas safety certificate, even before the annual renewal date. We would get visits by Environmental Services, Trading Standards, House of Multiple Occupation officers and so on, who demanded us to do all manner of expensive ‘improvements.’ One of them once asked us to fix a neighbour’s guttering, because the water was dripping onto our wall (the neighbour had refused to do anything about it) and the officer then suggested we re-render the entire back wall.
‘Have you any idea what that would cost?’ I countered, as I stood with him in the back garden; of course, he didn’t have a clue or care. I went on:
'The thing is, the monthly mortgage payment at the moment is over £600, and we get an income of less than half that every month.'
This was the same officer who wanted us to paint the small garden gate as it would ‘create a good impression.’
I had a moan with Adrian later on.
'What about the non-paying tenant pissing in a pot because he can’t be bothered to use one of the two toilets? Are we creating the good impression for him?'
So, back to Gerald and attack was the best form of defence, and quite common amongst our tenants. Of course judges were often happy to indulge them, so we couldn't just shrug off the threats. We’d had judgements against us for completely uncorroborated claims, like one tenant's suggestion that we were harassing her by hanging around the house in our ‘van’, when we hadn’t gone near the house in months for fear that she would try and pull a stunt like that and didn't own a van. The judge had taken the woman's word for it and withheld her forwarding address, which meant we had no chance of enforcing the judgement against her. So we couldn’t just dismiss malicious counter-claims, knowing they could be taken seriously. Weeks were now passing, however and Gerald showed no sign of getting out.