We Gotta Get Out of This Place: Prologue

 Before we moved to Dungloe, we were in a place we’d thought we’d be living in for years. It was a place we’d lived before and the person who rented it after us was a problematic and disruptive tenant in various ways. The process of moving her along had begun. We were looking for somewhere to go. So I contacted the letting agent and asked about a deal with the landlord, who wanted someone reliable in the place long term. We offered to sign a 5-year lease in exchange for a slightly lower monthly rent. This is not unheard of and indeed, the very same letting agent has offered the same kind of deal on other properties he’s listed. His response was that yes, we could come back, but no one was sure when the tenant would be gone. I kept checking in as the weeks and months went by, at one point, confirming with him that the landlord had agreed to our offer. I was assured that he had. Finally, I got the call that the place was available. We gave notice within the hour and after that went to the library, where we knew an acquaintance of the librarian was looking for a place. He ended up moving in after we left, so it worked out well. There was not much available in that area, so we were glad it all worked out.

We began moving our stuff to a friend’s home—he had been our neighbour and would be again. We set up a day and time to go sign the lease and the day before, we left our home, tossing the keys through the mail slot and bringing the last of our stuff with us to our friend’s house where we would spend the night. He was away.

The next morning, we went off to the letting agent’s office. Everyone was smiling, me in spite of the ongoing heatwave and Bill in spite of the fact that he really did not like the guy. The atmosphere changed quickly, though, when he gave us copies of the lease to sign. He was at his copy machine and he handed me the first copy out of the machine, then turned to watch my reaction, which wasn’t good. The lease was not at all what we expected and what I was told the landlord had agreed to. The rent was higher, it was only for a year, and a few other small issues were contrary to the supposed agreement. Had I felt like there were other options, I would have told him that this was not what we agreed to and I would take a week to decide whether to sign it or not. We could have stayed at our friend’s house while we looked at other places and tried to move elsewhere. But we’d been keeping an eye on things and we knew there was no place else. We’d passed on one or two others in order to wait for this one—something we regretted then. So we signed. Bill’s dislike of this idiot increased a great deal and I knew to never trust him. The vibe in the office got decidedly chilly and uncomfortable. 

He said he had to get a key made and would meet us there in 5 minutes. We walked back to our friend’s house to wait. Bill was pissed. I was more sad, I think. It was not a surprise when the jerk sent his mother to let us in and give us the keys. I had the sense that this guy was intimidated by me and I later learned from a friend of his brother that this was the case. Good.

His mother could not get the key to work, so in the end. Dick (not his real name) had to come himself. We walked in and I saw the TV—an older one that took up too much space in the small living room. I’d asked for it to be removed, because even with the free TV service, we would not use it. In an annoyed tone I said, ‘He wouldn’t remove the TV?’ ‘I forgot to ask him, Dick squeaked in reply, ‘I’ll take it now.’ And he did.

Dick never was up to the task. The day we moved in, we discovered that the instant hot water heater didn’t work, leaving us to boil the kettle to do dishes. It took two weeks and a few emails and phone calls for him to say, ‘Oh, right, I was supposed to call the plumber.’ We learned to always send emails, even though he would not ever reply to them. We followed up with phone calls, but the emails provided us a dated record in case we ever needed it.

When the bottom stair developed a soft spot, he never bothered to have that fixed. When the fridge wouldn’t work, I got lucky when his mother answered the phone and took care of it. In short, things were deteriorating in the dwelling and neither Dick nor the landlord seemed very interested in doing anything about it, so we kept our eyes open once our lease was up. Then one day, the apartment in Dungloe showed up and we went for it.

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