There’s a hole in my flashing
The Landlady
As almost every Tom, Dick and Harry these days knows, being a landlord/lady can be a right pain in the bum. That is, if you bother to do it properly. Last week, I had a very unwelcome call from the man who owns the flat below my rented flat off Dyke Road. He used to live in his flat but, like most of the rest of Middle England, has decided to rent it out and bugger off to France in order to do up some kind of crumbling gite in the Dordogne. While he is doing-up said wreck, he is virtually un-contactable and appears to have no interest whatsoever in the old Brighton homestead. I have to admit that out of sight is out of mind and I would be exactly the same in his chaussures.
To be fair, he is a very nice man and was exceedingly hands-on when he did live in Brighton. He is very good at doing specialist building jobs – mainly through patience, determination and a good eye, none of which have ever come naturally to me – and has saved his fellow lessees thousands of pounds in work that he has done on the property. Unfortunately for me, he also seems to be in possession of an almost photographic memory as far as the property is concerned and this is where the unwelcome phone-call comes in.
“When the wind and rain are in the wrong direction it’s like high noon in Penang during monsoon season”
He came back for a visit over the festive period and became aware of a satellite dish which has appeared – at some time over the past four years – on the wall directly above his conservatory. Because none of the tenants who’ve lived there during that period – there have only been two – have ever asked me if they could put up a dish, I attempted to deny all knowledge of it, which is a pretty pointless exercise when the offending cable leads directly into your flat. The trouble is not with the dish per se, but with the attaching of said eyesore, and whoever did thedeed managed to make a huge hole in the wall, damage the conservatory roof and, perhaps the greatest sin of all, make a hole in the lead flashing so that, according to my neighbour, when the wind and rain are in the wrong direction, it’s like high noon in Penang during monsoon season.
My neighbour, who had to get back to France fairly urgently (who wouldn’t?), being a practical chap, had stuffed the hole full of silicone and left a very long phone message for me to sort it out. I am not sure how long silicone lasts, but if rumours about breast implants are to be believed, I think I have about 10 years in which to get round to repairing it. Joking apart, I do take this kind of thing very seriously, so I called my neighbour back as soon as I got the message to assure him that I’d give it my utmost attention next week, when I had the time to do so. He then proceeded to tell me – in almost impossibly minute detail – about the flashing, the offending cable and the virtually impenetrable wall beneath. He even threw in a rather too graphic description of the state of the sills on my bay, which, according to him have been in need of replacement for the past 10 years.
After we’d been on the phone for about half an hour, I suddenly realised that he was back in France and I was paying for the call. Gah! Happy New Year.
