When, before I arrived shaken and financially distraught, clinging onto the so-called housing ladder, I was renting a house at a rent that was more than the potential mortgage payments for a mortgage that the bank wouldn’t give me. Well, technically, it was a house, if you can attribute that term to something that possesses walls, doors and a roof. It was an overpriced problem. But the experience gave me a valuable insight into how a simple home insurance policy is a handy tool in the worldwide war between landowner and tenant.
The utilities were to say the least, inconsistent. Whether it was a faulty tap or the failure of the entire electrical system, the owner of the house had a rather dysfunctional attitude to the legal obligations of the tenancy agreement she was so keen for me to sign.
She also had a habit of going away on holiday for a month which, given the weekly occurrences of domestic problems surmountable to determine the house uninhabitable, made me hate her. It was my £500 a month going out and I was getting nothing but exasperation and financial and mental expenditure in return.
To my polite, courteous, factual letters outlining ‘work to be done’ or ‘issues to be resolved’ her standard written response was literally: ‘Sorry to here you are having so many problems, perhaps you should move out.’
That would have been fine, had I had the time, energy, and somewhere to move out to. More so, there were advantages to the house. It was a quiet area. I’d previously lived in a street that seemed unpoliceable, lawless and in a constant state of anarchy. Screeching kids and drunken women fighting would greet me as I returned from work each evening, and usually as I left in the morning. I’d had enough of frying pans and fires; this time I was going to stand my ground.
One night there was a ferocious storm. From the detritus on the ground and in the trees I didn’t have to look at the house to know what was missing and what was still on. Both the composition and contents of what appeared to be most of the roof were now features of the front garden.
Making their way down the street were various uniformed figures of authority, each with their own agenda of health and safety, environmental protection and social welfare. One of them approached me and on inspection declared my overpriced hovel no longer fit for human habitation. As if it ever was.
The landlady’s home insurance company had to re-house me – in a plush, expensive hotel for 3 months while they re-did the house, not just repairing the storm damage, but after inspection by various authorative busybodies, a whole range of other faults.Her selfishness and greed had backfired. She was now compelled to fix everything out of her own pocket as the home insurance only covered the weather damage. Then I moved out into my own place. Ha ha.
About the Author
Sarah Maple is a writer and quite confused about his landlady's attitude towards proper home insurance
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