hot and cold

The previous post was rather positive and cheerful, much to my surprise.  It took me a while to recover from that.  The post did not exactly mirror my state of mind in the hours leading up to the delivery of the oven and during its installation.  I feared the worst.  I don't expect anything good when it comes to workmen, repairs, or anything to do with building infrastructure.  Things are oftentimes not done as I would expect them or in ways that make sense to me.

Take my place of work as an example.  The lifts are regularly out of order, as if they were there to provide backup for the stairs.  Steam leaks that take down heating, the hot water supply and sterilization facilities occur regularly.  At least once a month, there's a building-wide email warning of an impending emergency steam shut-down so another leak can be patched.  It would certainly be better and in the long run cheaper to install a new reliable system instead of patching the old one again and again, only for new leaks to break open only weeks later, but no one seems to take this option into consideration.

That is because doing it right is not how it's done here.  Making things work is usually the goal, fudging things to arrive at a temporary solution, to give the appearance of a solution, in other words.  Most external building work is done with a brush and a bucket of thick paint.  Coat after coat is applied until the paint itself provides structural stability while the walls below are rotting away.  Indoors, duct tape, glue and putty play similar roles.

I expected the oven business to go along those lines, and initially it did.  When the technician unpacked the appliance, the first thing to tumble from the box was a handle that had broken off from the oven door.  That's how the thing had been delivered.  Behind the door were a number of trays that made sense and various implements that didn't.  There were grips supposed to clip to the trays that I still haven't figured out how to use and a floppy piece of aluminum that looked as if it had fallen off somewhere.  The technician explained that it was a guard to keep the oven door open while using the grill.  This seemed strange to me.  Why would I want to keep the oven door open?  Was the idea to use the grill as a fireplace and warm the kitchen on cold winter days?  There was no good answer, but it didn't matter.  Even though both of us tried, we found no way of locking the guard in place.  It might have been too bent out of shape before its first use already.

It's entirely possible that the thing was bent out of shape by design.  It's not always easy to tell function from design.  I was reminded of this the other day when washing my hands at Imperial.  Washing your hands in the UK is often a journey into the dark past.  Many homes have separate faucets for hot and cold water.  They are called period fittings by estate agents as if functional moribundity were something to be proud of.  I've never understood the appeal.

In many homes, mine included, appeal plays no role in their continued existence.  It's simply a question of money.  If a fifty-year old faucet works, why replace it?  I understand this.  What I don't understand is why you would replace it with something equally obsolete.  This is what I observed at Imperial the other day:  Two faucets controlled one spout, but the hot and cold water weren't mixed.  Instead, two parallel streams of water exited the spout, scalding my index finger while chilling my thumb to the bone.

Hot and cold

Three sets of questions are in order.

1. Who invented this and why?  What problem is this a solution for?  When would you ever want hot and cold water separate?
2. Who built this?  Who thought money could be made from not mixing hot and cold water?
3. Who bought this?  Who decided it would be a good idea to install this idiocy in the bathroom of a university that carries in its name the word technology, referring, presumably, to the cutting edge of it?

There is so much that I will never understand about this country.

new cooker

The cooker was a legal requirement.  So many things are legal requirements in this country that it's impossible to keep track.  Even so I was surprised when I got a call the other day from a number unknown to me.  The man at the other end of the line inquired when the new cooker could be delivered.  I hadn't ordered one.

What I had was a gas safety inspection only days earlier.  The engineer, a slight but energetic woman in her late twenties, didn't waste much time on my flat.  She bounced up step ladders to check mains valves and ripped out the plasterboard behind which the boiler was leading its rather uneventful life.  It all took just a few minutes.  She set the pressure a notch higher – to make sure the hot water's always hot – and stuck her head into the oven.  When I demonstrated, after she had taken her head back out, that the flames of the grill won't stay on, she marked down my report, and that was that.

Next thing I knew was a new cooker waiting on my landing a week later, tall, white and still shrink-wrapped, its cardboard box in tatters around it.  It's a mystery how the thing made it up the tightly wound stairs.  For delivery and installation, rather ambitiously, a two-hour window had been scheduled.  As the original gas inspection had been half an hour late, I anticipated a similar delay.  But when I arrived home with a backpack full of work, the first part of the deal had already been done.  Drilling and hammering in the flat upstairs indicated that the installation part would not be long in coming either.  I propped open the door to my flat and started reading a paper.

Not much later, the gas engineer was back in my flat ripping the wrapping off the new cooker with one hand and the old cooker from its fittings in the kitchen wall with the other.  It was a sight of focused frenzy much at odds with what one usually associates with those occupied in various trades of home maintenance and improvement in this country.  Plumbers, builders and electricians are considered slow, careless and unreliable – unless they are foreign.  A Polish plumber is apparently the best you can get.

That point was, somewhat obliquely, illustrated when the old cooker was picked up a few days later, by a gang of three migrants whose leader wore a yarmulke and curly bangs down his temples.  My narrow mind places Jews into the high-tech industry of Tel Aviv or the fruit orchards of the occupied territories, but that's not the story.  The story is that when I told him to grab the cooker and pull it out of the flat instead of delicately dancing with it as he did, he refused in accented English, saying he didn't want to damage the carpet.

The engineer in my flat was English, but before I could get too worried about this, my attention was diverted to the cooker.  I had never heard of the brand and dismissed it outright.  A Chinese manufacturer in European guise, with a name I was sure the vice president for marketing had chosen for sounding vaguely Dutch.  To me it sounded pound shop.  I wouldn't give it a second look if it came up as an option on my favorite e-commerce site.  It turned out to be Slovenian, made in Europe, its purchase by the landlord an act of Continental patriotism.

The installation was finished before the allocated two hours were up.  When I had been made familiar with the safety features of the new cooker – the flame on the hob stays on only when the regulator knob is held down for a good ten seconds after ignition and a wobbly sheet of aluminum has to be wedged between door and oven when the grill is on – the gas engineer asked for hand broom and dust pan and went on her knees to sweep up the Styrofoam beads scattered throughout the hallway.

I had just got back from a trip.  The flat hadn't seen a vacuum in weeks.  I told her not to worry.  I'd take care of it on the weekend.  "Aren't you supposed to leave a mess behind?" I asked.  We argued back and forth playfully while she continued to clean, catching defiant foam fragments in mid-air.  "We were told to do it, even if the customer insists otherwise."  Even the best stereotypes are far from universally true.

confrontation

The other day, my landlord sent me a letter inviting me to sign a new tenancy agreement.  Rent would be a few quid higher each week.  For the privilege I was asked to pay the same few quid as a one-off renewal fee.  This struck me as a bit over the top.

My rent is below average; I would stomach an increase without suffering too much indigestion.  Even with the new numbers, I'd be getting a good deal.  When I walk by estate agents, this plague of the high street that has overtaken pound shops in severity, flats similar to mine go by far higher amounts than what I pay.  How anyone in London can afford that is a question that won't be addressed in this post, but it's worth keeping in mind for anyone considering buying into this city.  There's only one way for prices to go, and it's down.

For the moment, all they do is go up, though.  The landlord has caught on and sees a chance of increasing his return.  There is no financial justification for this; it's pure greed.  Interest is so low that it's only a theoretical consideration.  The flat has benefited from no improvements at all over the last four years, all the while I've diligently increased the landlord's equity in the property, decreasing the principal and thus the interest paid each month on the mortgage.  I should be paying less, not more.

I understand that this reasoning does not fully reflect the reality of real-estate investing.  As I said above, I'd be quite willing to accept a small increase.  I'd pay it from next week without discussion if the landlord just asked politely.  What he does instead is get on my nerves about a new contract and about a contract renewal fee.  He sends me forms to fill in my personal details, banking and job information, and next of kin, as if I were a new applicant, not a tenant of four years.  What a waste of paper and time.  And even if there were the need for a new contract, which there isn't, a copy of the old one with a new number inserted would do just fine.  Nothing that would require a fee.

To battle what I couldn't agree with, I chose to engage in a passive aggressive confrontation.  Thanking him for his kind offer, I told the landlord that I was quite happy with the current tenancy agreement, and that we could all save ourselves a lot of trouble if we just kept it as it was.  If there was anything that needed attention, it was  gas safety.

The gas I considered a stroke of brilliance.  By law, landlords have to have rental properties inspected by a Gas Safe registered engineer once a year.  This ensures that the boiler won't explode and the cooker set the kitchen aflame.  Such an inspection had taken place once, but it was many years ago.  Mentioning this would keep the landlord occupied for a while, I reasoned.  He's not evil, just incompetent.  The outcome I was shooting for was a delay of the new tenancy agreement so I'd save the renewal fee by paying lower rent for enough weeks.  A month or two was all I needed.

It worked brilliantly at first, and then it didn't work at all.  Or maybe it did.  The story is so hot that I haven't made up my mind yet.  What's clear so far is that the new cooker I got as a result of the gas inspection works better than the old one.  But I might not have much time to enjoy it.  Stay tuned.

getting curiouser

I wish I had something else to talk about, and the other day I thought the apartment/landlord drama had come to end, but it keeps escalating, although for me it has long reached a level where I'm not comfortable following.

Yesterday, I found two letters in my mailbox. The first was from my landlord. It was a document I had requested nearly six months ago, though I made my case again on the phone on Wednesday. The letter states, categorically, that "the Landlord, any of the Landlord's employees or any of the landlords [sic] agents will not enter the property without 24 hours' notice". It's pathetic that this would need to be put in writing, but I was happy. The beautifully placed apostrophe on the "24 hours" was an added bonus and made me generously look over the one that was missing on the third "landlord".

I got down to signing the new tenancy agreement that has been lying around and gathering dust ever since it was sent to me three weeks ago. But there was the other letter. I opened the second envelope and retrieved a color photograph of my building, the yellow of the downstairs shop's sign eye-wateringly bright.

Besides the photograph was a detailed description of the building, its tenants and the lease terms (total current rents just a bit more than I earn before taxes and deductions), there was a second sheet that invited me to bid on the property, being the "occupational tenant" and all. My building is coming up for auction.

I was getting sufficiently frazzled at this point, I have to admit. A property auction usually means economic distress. Has the landlord not been paying the mortgage? Is a bank now trying to minimize the damage by extracting from the heap what it can? Is this a repossession and what does it mean for me as a tenant? The letter reassures me that "this should not affect your current tenancy agreements", but how naive do you have to be to believe a real estate agent? And note the strategic placement of "should". Could I be out of the flat the day after the auction?

I will have to call the landlord on Monday but I'm not very optimistic about learning much. After all, Kingstar UK didn't consider it necessary to tell me that the auction was coming up in the first place. They didn't even tell me what the purpose of last Monday's inspection was. And why do I have to sign a new lease? The sales sheet mentions my old rent.

It also mentions that "viewings are by appointment only". With the landlord I had agreed to put the original lock back into the door as soon as they sent me assurances that they wouldn't enter without notice. This has happened, but was it just a ruse? Who will the appointments be with? I don't think I'm gonna change the lock back quite yet.

What the sales sheet doesn't mention is the reserve price of the property. It's not that I'd be interested. I'm happy to rent and, under normal circumstances, let others deal with the aggravations of owning property. Plus, the moment I owned my flat, I would have to take care of it and bring it up to my standards. We're talking new kitchen and new windows at the very least. Not something I want to deal with.

In addition, prices in London have never let up in their Ponzi-like rise, and while I could probably afford my flat with a bit of scrimping added to the usual parsimoniousness, especially if on offer at an auction, there's no way I've got the bucks (or, rather, quid) for an entire building. Still, I wanted to know what the guide price was and surfed over to the property consultancy's website.

I had to scroll down to the second page; there were dozens of lots in the raffle, promising returns on investment of anywhere between 0.4 and 40% per year. One of the few lots that didn't display an expected return was my building. There was no guide price. The lot had been withdrawn. How curious, I was thinking. Why go through all the trouble?

It got even curiouser. When I came back from a 15-mile run this afternoon, more devastated than after the London Marathon (but then I haven't run in two months), I discovered a large plywood sign protruding from between two of my living-room windows. "Auction - Freehold investment", it says. What's going on?

motivation

Monday morning, I was kicked out of bed by Levent, the same dude that had already tried to get into my flat the Friday before. On Monday, he was there with a wingman to do an inspection – or so he said. I didn't know and I had no way of finding out. My landlord hadn't notified me.

Stupid as I was, I let Levent's wingman in. Friends, don't do this at home! Don't let anyone in just because that person knows his way around. Crime is up in London, and burglary especially so. Levent and his wingman could have just as well been a couple of burglars on a reconnaissance mission. I wouldn't know – my landlord never told me someone would come by.

Sometimes I think my landlord is willfully aggressive and that he tries to bully me as if I were a clueless immigrant with no recourse besides a tearful letter to his mum. Sometimes I think they're just clueless immigrants themselves. But when I call the office, the person I talk to is invariably kind and helpful, and immediately connects me to whoever I want to talk to, and things are usually sorted out quickly – more or less.

So it happened this Wednesday when I called Kingstar UK and inquired about their attitude towards trespassing and "quiet possession" and concepts like that. I don't want to mince words; the argument was heated. My contact on the other end of the line raised her voice, and so did I. It wasn't in vain. In the end we agreed that I would sign another lease, at the conditions they set but only once they've sent me a letter renouncing in writing further attempts to trespass on the property I'm renting. I'm still waiting.

Friday night we went for drinks. The bosses had got a grant funded and reckoned the lab deserved a cheer. What could be better than a pint of Broadside or a double Black Bush in the campus pub? I was late to get to the gathering but not the last to arrive. A few pints into the socializing, the bosses took off. Some students did so too, but postdocs arrived to fill the gap.

The group had thinned down, but the discussion became lively and potentially essential. How do you secure the next job? I maintained that qualifications didn't matter. At our level, we're all good. What sets the good apart from the rock stars is the motivation. If you convincingly show that you want the job, you will get it.

I've written plenty of cover letters and I've been invited to enough interviews to not have off days for vacations since Easter. Clearly I'm doing something right. But maybe I'm doing something wrong as well. I haven't got a job lined up, after all. Maybe I shouldn't focus all my energies on my flat.

rogue trader

This morning on my way out, I was greeted by a dude by the building's front door. He was inside, obviously had a key, and looked as if he had business to do. I wished him a good morning and proceeded to make my way through the door, but his question held me back. "Are you living in flat 1?" he asked me.

Indeed I do and I knew what was about to unfold – yet another skirmish in the ongoing battle between the landlord and me. I remind you that my landlord, Kingstar UK, thinks not only that trespassing is legal but also that I should leave my doors unlocked for them when I'm out. I don't agree and I'm ready to fight my case, though verbally it feels much like trying to convince the Pope that God doesn't exist. Facts don't cut it, and I'm not good at screaming sense.

With either party failing to make headway, we're engaged in a standoff that I consider futile for them and acceptable for me. After all, since changing the locks I don't care anymore what their attitude towards trespassing is. They, in turn, have learned to send letters advising me of the presence of an electrician or gas man a few days in the future. That's not the same as asking me for permission – which they are legally bound to do – but it's good enough for me.

Is it also good enough for them? I was wondering that when I opened a big envelope ten days ago that contained a new lease, ready for me to sign. The accompanying letter began thus: "As you are probably aware, your tenancy is due for renewal from 19 September 2011."

As it happened, I wasn't aware of this. What I was aware of is that I signed a six-month lease when I moved in. When that expired, it automatically converted into a periodic tenancy agreement, on unchanged terms and conditions. My tenancy agreement doesn't need renewal. It continues until either of the parties bails out.

I can understand that the landlords wants more money – which is the one change I noticed in the lease compared to the old one. The proposed increase is within my means and within the rental value of the flat. In my limited understanding, rent increases in a periodic tenancy agreement need the agreement of both sides. As I do agree - paying a bit more beats finding another flat - I could just go ahead and sign the damn thing. But I'm on my way out of London, off to greener pastures (though details haven't been sorted out yet), and I'd prefer to stay on periodic tenancy.

Should I just sign the thing anyway and take a gamble? Should I call the agency and remind them of the situation - and encounter irremediable delusion? Should I ignore the new lease and risk being evicted, with a notice period of two months? These thoughts were still going around in my head when I started arguing with the gentleman by my door.

He pointed out that, for emergencies, the landlords needs access to the flat but couldn't quite get my point that an electrical inspection is not an emergency and must be scheduled in advance. (Their problems at scheduling were emphasized by the fact that the person actually doing the inspection - my guy was just an agent - had gone AWOL.) We kept arguing about the locks and privacy and got nowhere. The dude insisted my flat should be open to him. "It's in the contract", he said at some point and when I didn't believe him, he showed me. It was there, black on white. Baffled, I went to work.

Tonight, I couldn't wait to check my lease. The one I was asked to sign did indeed state that the tenant shall "Permit the Landlord or the Landlord's employees or agents to enter the Premises at all reasonable times with or without notice [...]" It could be argued that there are no "reasonable times" to enter my flat without notifying me, but that's beside the point. The point is that my current lease doesn't include the "without" part. There's no way I'm gonna sign the new one.

own space

I'm sitting on my dining table, sipping on a Marqués de Caranó Gran Reserva 2001 and wonder whether anyone has missed the oenophilic intros? When I lived in Grenoble, when I didn't have a dinner without a glass of red wine for a solid two years running, it was pretty much de rigueur to start a post with a reference to a current or imagined red delight in my glass. To me as a writer it was very interesting to see in how many different ways stories could evolve that all started from the same liquid premise.

In a very similar way, I'm curious to see where this post is going to go. Some things have happened; they deserve mentioning. Surprising connections have been imagined; they have an equally prominent place here. Nothing is as the readers' eyes see it. Or is it? Ask me – it's my blog.

The other day I got a letter from Morgans, the trading name of Morgan Management, as the fineprint helpfully informs. I was advised of an upcoming property inspection sometime during the next months. That's how vague the letter was. It would take place "during the course of the next month", the letter said, expecting that I'd happily give up any claim to privacy during that period.

I don't. I've argued my case before. I don't appreciate the possibility of someone walking into my flat while I'm taking a shower or practicing a post-modern dance routing in the nude down my endless corridor. This time, this wasn't even my greatest concern. I was much more preoccupied with the sudden name change of the company that I'm dealing with. How does Kingstar turn into Morgan, with a new telephone number but the same old address? Am I under the spell of a tax-evading letterbox company?

I called to find out. There wasn't much to it. One is the rental agent, the other the management company, but the operate from the same offices. This resolved, I found myself absorbed in an animated discussion with a telephone wallah who was not in the least sympathetic to my situation. She reminded me that I was in breach of contract for having changed the locks but couldn't be bothered to schedule an appointment for the inspection. The letter said that "we do not propose that any specific arrangements be made in advance", and there was no way for me to convince her otherwise. It mattered not a bit that they would again be in breach of contract if they tried to enter my flat without my explicit consent.

Tomorrow I might call the company enlisted to execute the inspections. From their website (They do have one!), they seem to be more legit than Morgans/Kingstar. I can't see they would do their business in disregard of the law. But tonight I don't much care. The Marqués de Caranó is far from the best wine I've had. But it put me out of my mind and into the right mood to enjoy the four CDs I've recently purchased, four CDs that, as a set, would expand almost anyone's collection.

• Fondo by Vieux Farka Touré
• Juno Soundtrack
• The Division Bell by Pink Floyd
• Quatour pour la fin de temps by Messiaen

dodgy dealings

It's sixteen months now that I've been living in my present apartment. The memory of the old place faded quickly. The new one was nicer in most regards. There are the little issues that are inevitable in England – the windows don't seal, the plumbing works on hope, the kitchen is ancient – but apart from that my apartment is nice and I feel at home.

Despite this generally positive situation, the odd dark cloud here and there has kept me cautious from the beginning. The agency that mediated the transaction operated from the back room of a terrace in Paddington. The emailed me the tenancy agreement once it was signed all around but never a hard copy. They also never emailed me proof that they had payed the deposit into the government-backed deposit protection scheme. Nothing to get worked up about, I think, but something a diligent agency would take care of.

The landlord is another issue. It's not a person but an obscure company by the name of Kingstar (UK) Ltd. According to the internet, they don't exist. According to the address and Streetview, they're someone's home office effort. None of this mattered initially. The hallway and stairs of our building are being cleaned weekly, and problems with the flat are being dealt with quickly. When my sink didn't drain, a geriatric handyman arrived the next day to botch it back together, doing the plumbing equivalent of painting the damage over to make it go away.

All was good, but one day I came home to find my door locked. I never lock it. It snaps shut by itself which is good enough for me. I called the landlord and was told the rent collector, on his way to the flat above, must have entered by accident. Why there is the need for a rent collector in the 21st century is a different issue, and why I have to write a physical check every four weeks yet another, but back then at the phone, there was only room for my exasperation at, first, someone unlawfully entering my flat and, second, the person I was talking to not being particularly contrite or apologetic. It almost sounded as if this were the way things were done. I told her this was not the way things are done, and please tell the rent collector.

I have no proof the rent collector ever returned, but when I had boiler issues earlier this year, when the heating failed or the hot water and sometimes both for no obvious reason, I called the guy in charge of the building, then called him again and, when nothing happened, again, leaving messages on voicemails and being cold. When I finally got hold of him, he told me he had checked the boiler and it was ok.

Maybe the boiler was – it keeps acting up but can usually be tricked into producing hot water to fill the bath or the radiators – but entering my flat without my permission most certainly wasn't. I told the guys in anger but he did what felt, through the telephone, like waving me off. That's when I changed the lock.

On Friday I got a letter from my landlord, telling me (quite correctly, it must be admitted) that I am in breach of contract for having changed the locks and relating, with perfect nonchalance, the third attempt at trespassing. Worse yet, the letter concluded with eastern promises of forcing my locks and breaking into my flat.

I was speechless for a while, but not hopping mad with anger. I felt reassured in my decision to change the locks, which I'm pretty confident they wouldn't dare to break. Trespassing might only be a civil offense without serious consequences, but breaking a lock to enter a flat someone else lawfully occupies is criminal damage. Just to make sure (which I'm not entirely, to be honest) the landlord understands the situation, I sent the following letter back:

I would like to draw your attention to the tenancy agreement, in particular clause 4 where it clearly states the following: “The landlord agrees with the Tenant that the Tenant paying the Rent and performing the obligations on the part of the Tenant may quietly possess and enjoy the Premises during the Tenancy without any lawful interruption from the Landlord or any person claiming under or in trust for the Landlord.”

Over the course of my tenancy, I have noticed two instances when persons working for you broke the law and trespassed onto the premises I’m renting. I alerted you to each infringement (rent collector and Xxx checking the boiler) and asked you to desist. You have failed to do so and admit in your latest letter that you consider trespassing your prerogative. It is not; it is a civil offense. Breaking the lock, as you threaten, would be criminal damage and a matter for the police.

I will not tolerate continued violation of the privacy of my home and will only restore the original lock once you’ve assured me in writing that you will refrain from further trespassing. Should you need access, please call me at xxxxx xxxxxx to make an appointment. Unless I’m out of town, I am generally available at a day’s notice.

I hope the tenancy will continue in mutual agreement and respect.

The aggressiveness has been toned down considerably since the first draft, but I think the message still comes across forcefully. Fingers crossed that it registers.