In April our next tenant moved in. He was a Nigerian man called Okie and was actually in employment, so things were looking up. He might raise the tone of the establishment. During his first week's tenancy, however, he was a bit of a nuisance. He seemed to have it in his head that we should provide him with an iron and ironing board, and Adrian had to repeat his 'It's not a Travelodge' mantra a few times. We charged a cheap rent, considering all the bills were included and he was paying £100 a month less than in his last place. But he was very persistent about the iron.
'It won't cost much,' he said.
'Well, if it won't cost much, why don't you buy it?'
'But I thought that you as the landlord should get it. It will be useful to everyone.'
In the end, Adrian lost his patience:
'Look. I've said no. Your keeping asking me won't change my mind. But it will get on my nerves. What I'd say is that if you don't like how we run things, you can leave. I won't hold you to your contract.'
'Oh no Adrian. I'm very happy here,' he said and that seemed to be the end of it. Then in May he started to text.
Okie:
Hi Adrian, hope your holiday went well. Just a few things I would need to inform you of – Can we please have lights back on in the kitchen and lounge? I would appreciate it if can once again tell the boys to smoke outside – I could be with you while you tell them because it’s getting quite serious. Peter is fond of leaving plates he uses unwashed and the toilet and kitchen dirty when ever he uses them. I’ll appreciate it you can speak to him about this, I have done so a few times but he’s not listening. I buy detergent and disinfectant for the kitchen use as well – it just needs to be used. Once again, thanks so much.
Adrian rang and had a word with Peter and Jason and they both agreed not to smoke in the house and to be tidier. He also instructed our handyman to go and fix the lights. It turned out that all that was needed were new light bulbs (again). Long-life bulbs are supposed to last ten years when used normally; in that house they lasted a tenth of that because they left them on all the time. So we had paid £40 for our handy man's time and diesel to go and change light bulbs.
Then, in June we received another text from Okie, saying that Peter and Jason were still smoking despite Okie having asthma and us having forbidden smoking in the house. On the other hand, Jason told us that Okie was regularly setting off the smoke detectors by putting on the electric rings in the kitchen and the oven whilst he got ready for work, using the cooker as a form of heating…
Adrian contacted all three tenants to say that he needed to talk to them about 'issues.' and Okie asked which issues?
Okie:
Can you please tell me what issues?
Adrian:
Smoking, electricity usage, cleaning and so on….
We hoped he would get the message that we knew he wasn't a little angel either and that we knew he was abusing the electricity, by leaving it on all the time, as though no-one was paying for it.