Malone is swinging cows

I’m letting out my old flat. This means I must clean it like it has never been cleaned before; have the boiler checked and get the damp sorted. The damp in the bedroom is so bad my electrician tells me pools of water have collected inside plug sockets! I suspected this when I pulled out the TV plug and noticed rusty limescale on the prongs! Last thing I need is to be sued by my first tenant.

I’d like my first landlady experience to be a pleasant experience, not one involving electrocution and solicitors. Actually it’s not my first experience of letting the flat out, but I’m not counting last year’s lessons in ‘how not to let out our property’.

The lessons I learnt last year were
1. Always get a full month’s deposit even if they’re friends (in fact, especially if they’re friends) as asking for money if they break something is unpleasant.
2. Don’t take friends’ recommendations for tenants – ‘he’s a good guy’ – as you can’t sue them later when the good guy turns out to be someone who refuses to pay the second month’s rent and after moving out, never returns the keys.
3. Estate agents are definitely worth every penny! I don’t want to deal with finding tenants and referencing. I’m too nice. I’d end up agreeing to doing their washing up for them as part of the contract. Well, maybe not the washing up as that’s the one thing I can’t do. It gives me sore ‘rashy’ hands. Honestly! In the new flat we don’t have a dishwasher. Yet. We will get one. We must. Are we allowed to plumb in a dishwasher? I’m too scared to ask in case the landlady says no. I can live without wooden floors, a garden and a power shower, but a dishwasher? No. I’d start using paper plates.

The new flat is amazing. It’s more of an ‘apartment’ it’s so light and bright, I pinch myself that I’m allowed to live there. My daughter’s eyes have never looked so sparkling, she’s exuding glee at her new room and even the size of the hallway! The hallway is probably bigger than the whole of my old flat. It’s so big we can swing cows, never mind cats. I love it. I love my new home (not swinging animals in small spaces – don’t call the RSPCA!). It’s worth the huge rent every month, it’s a place to grow in, a place to develop ourselves and a place to collapse after working the extra 90 hours a week needed to pay the rent. But mostly it is a place to enjoy swinging cows in.