[Ben Reeve Lewis’ is in his dressing gown …]
Last Sunday for the first time since Xmas I actually managed to stay in my dressing gown all day. Apart from cooking dinner and catching up with three or four episodes of Treme- season 2.
Where do weekends go? I spend all week running around after rogue landlords, the evenings working on training notes for courses and weekends catching up on chores and often more homework of one sort or another.
To just sit and do nada is a rarity and a real joy.
All part of the problem of doing a day job whilst at the same time using up your annual leave working as a trainer.
People talk about modern life-types being cash rich but time poor. Frazzy and I are time poor and cash poor, so I’m not sure where I’m going wrong.
But…to the news
On the naughty step with a chain saw
The other day whilst chairing a meeting for my council’s rogue landlord taskforce someone from housing benefit asked me what criteria we have in place to identify a rogue landlord that would prompt us to place him on our naughty step.
A difficult question in fact, but not for council’s in Berlin who have the good fortune to have a new benchmark in the form of an unnamed landlord who was arrested and nearly shot by police for demanding rent owed from his tenants with a chainsaw
Now THAT’S what I call a rogue landlord!!!!!!!!!!
No ambiguity there, unlike some of the weasly little shits I have to deal with who cheat and lie their way through life, all the while protesting that they are honest, decent people.
Armless story from Wales
I noticed rather late this intriguing story from Wales Online about a family doing a house swap when they witnessed ghostly happenings.
“We saw arms coming around the door and legs coming down the stairs”
Said tenant Mrs Way.
Sorry to be a kill joy love but I see arms coming around the door and legs coming down the stairs everyday. The arms preceded by a cup of tea and the legs swiftly followed by a torso.
Arms coming down the stairs and legs coming around doors might be a bit more impressive and I couldn’t help noticing a later comment from new tenant Ms Purcigo talking about her daughter:
“She was over here as well when we saw the arm on the stairs”
AHA…SO….a contradiction. You can imagine Mrs Purcigo slapping the backside of her errant daughter saying “I told you legs,……legs…not arms, you stupid girl”.
Some people will do anything to get in the press. Get your facts straight first though.
Neighbours from Hell
I came across an interesting top 10 collection of neighbours from hell in the Daily Mirror topped by the rather strange incident of Norman Thompson who was evicted from his council flat for blasting out the speeches of Martin Luther King at loud volume.
And spare a thought for poor Derek Morris who had to endure youths gathering outside his house to do Nazi salutes in honour of his moustache. Mr and Mrs Morris sold their house to avoid what was rapidly becoming a mini Nuremburg rally on the front lawn.
Apparently they lost £20,000 for a quick sale. Don’t get me wrong, this was bullying pure and simple and must have been hell to live with but surely just shaving it off would have been a bit cheaper.
Staying with nuisance neighbours and the Daily Mirror we learnt of Aaron Knowles of Preston who with his gang of Fagin-ites who terrorised an estate.
Police took the rare and extreme measure of actually naming the playful scamp and said:
“He was involved in several incidents which police responded to, including assaults, stone throwing, criminal damage, loitering around local shops and ¬businesses, and being abusive towards people living in the vicinity.”
Little Aaron is now under an ASBO, and a fat lot of good that will do. Birching is too good for him if you ask me, or being made to listen endlessly to Frazzy practising Sloop John B on the piano…..as I have to.
And it isn’t just toe-rags who are accused of being neighbours from hell. Not being content with a high profile, new age, health conscious divorce Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow have run afoul of their neighbours over a nine foot gate that is causing havoc to the great and the good in California
One neighbour reported:
“There was always work being done at the house. I only got annoyed when the workmen would illegally park in my driveway and they hadn’t even spoken to me about it.”
Life is hell huh? [We talk about neighbours from hell and their landlord’s liability here – Ed]
And life is about to become even more of a hell for those in debt.
Restraining bailiffs
The press has been awash this week with news about new laws that have been ushered in for England to curb the behaviour of those loveable rogues, the aggressive and intimidating bailiff collecting council tax debts among others.
Much has been made of regulations that prevent them from taking white goods or computers that are needed for work and even the prohibition on seizing a mobile phone when there is no landline.
Two key things have been left out of most reports however:
- The new rules increase bailiff fees massively, providing more incentive for them
- These regulations were drafted by Labour and ushered in by the ConDems who as usual ignore the consequences..
The Telegraph reported on the plus side but left out the minus.
Fees for first time instruction have gone up from £11 to £75 and the cost of a visit from £23 to £230 plus 7.5% of the value of the debt if it is more than £1,500.
So do you think bailiff’s will be sobbing into their beer over the new law? Of course not, it’s a gift not a hindrance.
Anyone concerned by this new law could do worse than read Tommy Tubby’s excellent summary on Simply Wrong blog.
I shall be using my evenings up for the next few days compiling guidance notes based on Tommy’s writings for the increasing numbers of people attending my offices who will be adding loss of all they own to homelessness as well.
But dontcha just feel sorry for Chris and Gwyneth?
See ya next week