A day in the life of TRO Ben Reeve Lewis.
The case of the countdown and the human champagne cork
Explanation: Tenancy Relations Officers (TRO) work for local council’s providing advice on landlord tenant law and investigating allegations of harassment and Illegal Eviction and prosecuting landlords. All names are false but the stories are true.
So it’s my last day at work before I head off for 4 days in Germany with friends. Everything is going smoothly, nothing too untoward has come through door, its mid-afternoon, my flight is at 9pm things are winding down for the week and everything is looking great.
The countdown begins
Then Jemal calls, saying that his landlady Mrs Okerefe is at his flat pressuring him to pack his things and move out and that she has told him that he has to leave the property by 6pm or some very unpleasant people will be around to sort him out. I get a sinking feeling and glance at the wall clock……3 30pm.
Jemal has been renting the 2 bed flat off of her for the past year and paying his rent from his wages that he earns as a hospital porter, but he has recently been made redundant and housing benefit has yet to be sorted out, so arrears are growing and Mrs Okerefe is in no mood to be patient.
Legal point. Although Jemal is in rent arrears the landlord can’t just throw him out. Rent arrears gives her grounds to apply for a possession order on the basis of the arrears but to evict him without the possession order would be a criminal offence.
I ask him to put her on the phone so I can sort things out quickly, mindful of my impending flight, but she refuses to talk to me. He disappears into another room so he can talk confidentially and tells me that her son is a well-known Nigerian gangster and he is concerned for his safety if things kick off.
Ask a policeman
I utter a couple of old Anglo Saxon words but decide that I have no alternative but to do a flying visit to stop things in their tracks but I am not keen to tangle with some dodgy characters if what he tells me is true, so I call Phil, one of our local community police sergeants that I have worked with before who agrees to come with me just in case………4pm
I meet Phil outside; he is in plain clothes but at least has his radio with him. I explain the set up and he says “OK, we’ll go in and try and sort it and if anything blows up we’ll come out again and I’ll call the real police” bless him. We both laugh at the absurdity.
A mum like Hagrid
We get into the flat and Jemal’s mum has arrived unexpectedly. She must be 6 feet 3 if she’s an inch and built like Hagrid from Harry Potter. She tells us that she is a psychiatric nurse by trade and can handle herself perfectly well if it comes to it, which I don’t doubt. I tell her that I am sure it won’t be necessary and we go upstairs to confront Mrs Okerefe who turns out to be a woman at least in her 70s, maybe more.
She is remarkably calm and just states her position regarding Jemal’s arrears and says that she doesn’t let to people who don’t work. I advised her that renting to non-workers is her prerogative but if he was working when he took the place on and then subsequently lost his job it can’t be helped and he hadn’t exactly breached his tenancy agreement by being made redundant. However she is adamant that he has to move out……4 20pm and counting
Mother love in action
Phil pipes up and tries urging her to see sense. All this time Jemal’s mum is standing calmly by just listening to the proceedings and not offering anything to the conversation. We continue in this vein for 5 minutes or so and then suddenly, without any warning signs at all, Jemal’s mum lunges forward and grabs Mrs Okerefe in a killer headlock.
She has 20 years and a 10 stone advantage on the landlady. Phil stares at me open mouthed, I stare back, we both glance at Jemal who is equally stunned and then we jump in to sort it out. Phil grabs Jemal’s mum by the arm and tries some well-practiced police move to break her grip but can’t budge it. Meanwhile I take the other end and lock my arms around Mrs Okerefe’s hips and try to pull her out the other side. The only sound that can be heard through all this is Jemal’s mum grunting with the exertion of trying to remove the landlady’s head.
Pop goes the weasel
I pull Mrs O, Phil pulls Jemal’s mum and between us something gives. In my memory there is a sound like a champagne cork popping (although this is probably fanciful) and Mrs Okerefe’s head finally comes free……minus her wig. She is completely bald.
Phil pins Jemal’s mum up against the wall while Mrs Okerefe drops to the floor wailing and waving her arms around shouting “Oh god, oh god” over and over again, making no attempt to retrieve her wig.
Jemal manages to push his mum into another room where he starts shouting at her for being so stupid.
Avoiding the paperwork
Phil beckons me aside. I step over the still prone and wailing figure of Mrs Okerefe to hear what he has to say. He is concerned that he doesn’t want to have to go back to the station and start writing up witness statements about this daft event and he says to me “I don’t know how you feel about this mate but as far as I’m concerned, when this happened I was in the bathroom and you were in the kitchen”……..4 30pm
I see his point…..no witness to the actual event, no statements to be written out. Perversion of justice????? You betcha but I have a flight to catch…….4 35pm
So I get Mrs Okerefe’s wig back on her head, albeit probably backwards and Jemal persuades his mum to leave. He says he doesn’t want any more agro and that he going to leave himself. I tell the landlady that it was appalling what happened to her and suggested that she go to the police station to make a complaint…………….…first thing tomorrow morning, which she says she will…….4 45pm
Alls well that ends well
So Jemal moves in with his mate, his mum gets away with it because Mrs O doesn’t know her name, Phil is in the clear because the landlady didn’t realise he was a copper, Mrs O makes her complaint while Phil goes shopping with his wife in Bluewater and I am supping a frothy pint in a Hamburg Beer Keller……everybody wins!
Ben Reeve-Lewis
About Ben Reeve-Lewis: Ben has worked in housing in one form or another since 1987. He has variously been a Homelessness caseworker, Head of Homelessness for a local authority, a TRO and Housing law trainer. He now divides his time between doing contract Tenancy Relations work and as a Freelance housing law training consultant for the CIH, Shelter, Sitra and many more. Read more about Ben here.
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