The Landlady
Gay day in Hastings
Last year, I purchased a flat in Hastings with a gay male friend of mine. He had recently split up with a very long-term partner and, I think, needed stuff to take his mind off things. So, having got rather drunk in the Atlas Lounge one night, we trolled off to Hastings the following day in his Range Rover to look at flats. Amazingly, we put an offer in on two flats and ended up purchasing just one, as the seller of the other got fed-up with how slowly we were proceeding.
“I arrived for my first appointment, mildly marinated in hastily drunk Sauvignon Blanc”
Then, within a matter of months, my friend emigrated to Australia, where he is now nicely settled with a new partner and has recently bought a house at auction. Alas, now his roots are firmly in Oz, he now wants to sell our flat. I have to say that, even in the current market, I’m not that bothered, as renting out flats can be hard work. Since we’ve owned it, we’ve rented it to people who’ve recently left prison or rehab for two thirds of the market value. This is a charity that I’ve been involved with for some time and the flat that Katy and I own is rented to the same people. Curiously, we’ve had less trouble with our council funded tenants than I’ve ever had with supposedly well-balanced, working individuals, which just goes to prove the point that the slippery slope is never very far away from any of us. Last year, however, we rented the flat to an ex-con who then had to be evicted by the charity as he’d all but decimated it. There were fag butts burned into the carpet and holes in every door. The flat looked awful when I last went to see it and was valued at little more than we actually purchased it for.
Since February, a new tenant has lived there and, as you can imagine, I was a little apprehensive at the thought of going there to get it valued. It was a fabulous, sunny day when I arranged to meet estate agents there. Furthermore, all the appointments were in the afternoon, so I stopped for lunch in Lewes with Disco Nikki and arrived just in time for my first appointment, mildly marinated in hastily drunk Sauvignon Blanc.
I opened the door, expecting the worst and was amazed to find a lovely, sunny flat filled with Buddhas, flowers and a definite woman’s touch. Everything was spotless and, on the kitchen table was a cafetiere and two mugs with a note saying: “Dear landlord, please help yourself”. I was even more surprised to find that the flat was – in its current state – worth rather more than I’d anticipated. I was so grateful to the tenant for her woman’s touch, that I rushed out between appointments and bought her some flowers. Both the second and third estate agents valued the flat at roughly the same price and, by the time I was trudging up the stairs with the third one, I had almost told him my life story – well, the flat is on the fifth floor and therefore there are many stairs to climb. I told him that I owned the flat with a gay man who’d moved to Australia, not really thinking about how that sounded. The cheeky young chap chuckled and said: “Wow, it’s normally me who turns girls gay – I’ve never met a girl who turns guys gay before…” I couldn’t resist saying that I wouldn’t be held responsible for his gayness, as my friend was gay before I met him… Guess who won’t be marketing the flat..?
