Ben VS Himself and the Tenants From…Heck.

I've learned some things about myself when it comes to being a landlord. The biggest is that, I…am a complete whimp. I make jelly look like cement in comparison to myself. I'm way, way too soft and it is KILLING me. 

One cold winters night, my tenants knocked on my door and asked me a question. "Hey, how much notice did you need before we leave?"

Forget the fact that they were on a 6 month lease and had only completed 3 months of it so far. Forget the fact that I had been out of work for 3 months, the taxation department had just bizarrely sent me a bill for the same amount that I had earned in the last financial year and that I was really starting to feel under some serious financial strain. No no. Let's just go with the spineless, nice guy approach.

"Oh… ah… two weeks?"

Two weeks? What the heck did I say THAT for??

Do you ever remember a time back in your school days when you were on the school bus, sitting in the back seat and closing your eyes because you were feeling motion sick? I do. Now remember that moment when no matter how hard you try, you just can't hold your nausea down and the milky coco pops you had for breakfast decide to make their reappearance. Of course, there's always that first moment where you half-control the initial stomach heave, where it's not a big enough barf to escape your mouth, but it's still enough to fill it like you're chewing a couple of tennis balls. For a split second you have a glimmer of hope; maybe, just maybe, that was all it's going to be? Just one mouthful. It's ok! We're ok, we can swallow it back down and noone will ever notice that it ever BLEEEEAAAAAAGH!!! Kids scream. Bags fly. Everything goes into a matrix-style bullet-time slow-mo as the regurgitated coco pops (just like a chocolate milkshake only chunky) jet themselves into the air, slowly flying down the aisles as havoc ensues all around, and before the last wobbling projectile has even landed on the floor, the bus is empty. Even the bus driver openned his door and stunt-rolled his way onto the tarmac. 

"It's ok. Just give me two weeks. I'll find some other tenants."  I said.  In my head, all I could hear was the sound of my own brain-regurgitation.  BLEEEEEAAGH!!!  Where did THAT come from?  If only I could have kept my mouth shut! It just fell out, I couldn't stop myself.  Very quickly I was alone with no tenants, and a whole lot of people just looking at me in confused awe wondering how I even got into my predicament, much the same way they'd look at the poor kid puking in the backseat of an unmanned bus still travelling down the road.

If only I could catch my own words and put them back. I tried to hide behind my wife Nicky.

"Darling!! I've totally told them they could leave! I didn't mean it! Can you talk to them? Please? Please?"  She was not impressed, and to be honest, I was asking a bit much of my pregnant wife who's almost ready to pop. When a woman has replaced walking for wobbling or putting on socks for an epic game of find-her-feet, to make her play the bad guy in a tenant conflict is not ideal. I knew it. I felt pretty wussy about it too.

Nicky didn't manage to stop them leaving. I didn't blame her. It was my fault for saying they could go, it's not easy to turn something like that around.

It's a lesson learned.  I just couldn't bring myself to say 'Ah no. You're going to have to stay in my granny flat. You're my prisoner for the next three months! Deal with it.' 

At the time I was caught off guard. It's the first time I've ever been a landlord. I only built my first house a few months ago, and I designed it in such a way that it has a 3 bedroom house on one side, a laundry in the middle, and then a two bedroom unit with a second kitchen of its own.  Depending on wether the doors on either side of the laundry are closed, I have a large 5 bedroom house, or two smaller places. This first time renting out the two bedrooms was my learning experience.

However, it's not all bad. After the tenants had packed their things and left, I inspected the place. I discovered that in the three months the tenants had been there, they had made some minor changes to the property. My brand new carpets had cigarette burns in them. A big blue stain stared back at me from the centre of the room that I can only guess was some kind of bong water. There was candle wax on the walls. The heat lamps in the bathroom were bung, had been tampered with and were half hanging out of the roof. The whole unit smelled musty and reeked of cigarette, and to top it off, the computer I had added as a furnishing was gone!!!

Wait… I thought I said it's not all bad. Whoops.

A positive light? Perhaps I could write it all off as, good riddance?

I'll admit it. When I saw my beloved other-end of the house suffering in the throes of disrespect, I died a little on the inside.

"Note to self.  Bigger bond. No more mister nice guy."

I always like to see the best in people. I have a belief that if I treat people with respect, they will treat me the same way. If I expect the best of people, they will prove me right, and if I expect the worst of people, they will still prove me right. But this time, I expected the best, and unfortunately they didn't value the same things that I did. Things like, showers.

So there was nothing left to be done. Nicky and I rolled up our sleeves and got stuck into cleaning the place. We hired a professional carpet cleaner who got set to work on the blue stains in the middle of the carpet. My sister helped out as well and scrubbed every wall with deodourising soap to try and get the cigarette smell out of the paint. We called the electrician to come and fix the bung heat lamps and reposition them back into the cieling where, going by memory, they used to be. We used a metal scourer to clean the caked-on gunk off the stovetop. In the end, the disasterous disorder slowly morphed back into a glowing, shining, new-feeling unit again. The stains came out, the cigarette burns didn't look so bad once the carpet had been properly cleaned, and the smell dissapated. The computer wasn't worth much anyway.

As it turned out, during the time that Nicky had spoken to the tenants in my act of brave chivalry, when she returned to my ground-zero mission headquarters (behind nicky's dress in my hidey-hole in the closet) and gave her report, she hadn't convinced the tenants to stay, but she HAD negotiated to keep the entire bond for letting them leave. I think at the end of it, we actually made a profit! Thank's Darlin'. I'll ah… get the next one? …What. Oh this? I was just…ah…admiring your dresses.

The next tenants? Well, I still want to see the best in people. But this time, I'll be a lot clearer on the rules, I'll be a lot more adamant about the non-smoking policy and I'll take a bigger bond for my own peace of mind. The biggest mistake I made was not setting the ground rules down properly in the beginning so that it was easier to enforce them at the end. I might also take a leaf out of Steve Mcknights book and occasionally give my new tenants a bottle of wine to 'thank' them for being such good, clean, house-lover types.  

"Dear Tenants. Thankyou for looking after the place. You can stay as long as you like, all rent is free and enclosed are the keys to my car."

BLEEEEEEEEAGGGH!