james mckay dot net

It’s great to be on the property ladder. What is best about it is the knowledge that the next time I move house, I won’t have to put up with the ordeal that I went through yesterday afternoon.

It’s funny how landlords and letting agencies always send round Mr Magoo to do the check-in and Rain Man to do the check-out. When you arrive on the doorstep of your new rental property, you are given a tour of the place where they go over the state of the rooms etc. They note if there are any obvious marks on the carpet (like, a great big splodge of curry stain by the kitchen door), tell you that there’s a microwave oven in the kitchen, that the house has been, erm, professionally cleaned and the curtains laundered, hand over the keys to the place, and head back to their offices.

A week later, they send you an inventory of the place, which you are supposed to check and notify them of any discrepancies within a fortnight. This is strongly advisable, as the inventory usually deviates from reality in ways which are either geometrically impossible, or violate the laws of physics, or both. Unfortunately, it is usually rarely possible to do so. Within two hours of check-in, the microwave, which was never opened during check-in, is languishing in the cupboard under the stairs behind a huge pile of boxes, having been replaced by your own one, so it’s not practicable to verify that it is listed as being “as new”. Your piano, which is a two-man job to move, is over by the fireplace obscuring a stain that neither you nor they seemed to notice. And although the inventory states clearly that the whole place had been professionally cleaned, it still stinks of dog — a fact which for some reason seemed to be omitted.

Fast forward to checkout, and enter Rain Man. You know how in the film he notices that the waitress has dropped exactly two hundred and forty six toothpicks? Well, he was obviously a graduate of the finishing school for letting agents’ inventory check-out clerks. They don’t miss anything. Nichts. Nada. Zilch. Diddly squat.

They find that the microwave, which only came out of the cupboard the previous day, has some food stains in it.

They find the almost invisible spot on the carpet that was covered by the piano for three years, and reckon that it was caused by you ironing on it. Never mind the fact that your piano was sitting there for the entire time, it’s not in the inventory so you must have done it.

They complain that you haven’t cleaned the kitchen thoroughly enough, although you and some friends spent the entire previous day scrubbing, dusting and polishing, and the doggy smell, which their professional cleaners completely failed to even dent before you checked in, has long since vanished.

They note the solitary cobweb at the top of the stairwell, five metres out of your reach.

And do some small chips to the paintwork from moving furniture about after a period of three years count as “fair wear and tear?” In your dreams.

The whole ordeal lasts an hour and a half, and in the end of the day, it all comes out of your deposit.

Checking out of a rented house is probably the nearest thing the property industry has to root canal treatment. Come back, Dell, all is forgiven.

Posted at 20:51 on 6 October 2006.
Tagged: letting agencies, moving house