A lull in the rental market? It seems like an impossibility, as for a decade or so we have seen almost continual growth in the rental sector, much to the chagrin of many a prospective tenant and to the hand-rubbing glee of their landlords. And yet, in the late 1990’s (yes, showing my age now), we had such a phenomenon.
It was during this lull that one of my tenants made the cracking decision to break his lease and enlist my professional skills to re-lease the property. The tenant moved to his new abode in Bondi, leaving me to lease the unit, a modern one bedroom unit with a storage mezzanine in Paddington. The letting process was beyond boring; week in, week out, standing at the open inspection to have a pathetic few (or no) people turn up.
One overcast Saturday I opened up, prepared for another session of staring at the walls, pondering what shade of white it was. An unusual fish-like smell greeted me immediately upon opening the front door. Actually it smelt more like 20,000 Rotten Leagues Under the Sea. Being a Saturday, I had indulged in several tipples the previous evening, and that smell was not my first choice of hangover cure. On the far wall was the kitchen, and on the bench was the very visible culprit: an open can of sardines, the most stench-worthy of all fish. Ew. “My job is shit” I state out loud, mentally calculating the distance from bench to common property bin.
Thanks goodness for the emergency tissues in my bag. I took a deep breath and bolted to the kitchen, wrapped the tin in a tissue and dumped the foul load in the bin in record time. Phew. I headed back to the kitchen and opened the windows, which promptly pushed the putrid odour back into the common hallway. At this point I hear a snort. Great, I’ve pissed off the neighbours for defiling the common areas. I walked over to the door, prepared for a barrage of abuse, not expecting the sight that greeted me.
In the loft mezzanine (which had a small opening overlooking the living room) was a half naked male, who had been woken up with my clamouring about. It was the former tenant, who had gone out on the previous night and instead of trekking back to Bondi, had crashed at the Paddo Pad. He asked me to pass him his pants, which were lying on the bedroom floor. I happily complied with the request, admiring the rather attractive view while I was at it.
Once the tenant emerged from the loft in his clothes from the evening before, I asked the obvious question: “So you couldn’t just go a burger on the way home?”, smirking at him in doing so. He replied that he had accidently told the taxi driver the wrong address and thus had not intended to come back to Paddo. He realised when he got there that the only food left in the place was the sardines, so the drunken decision was made to down the tin.
After telling his tale, Sardine Boy thought it was a wise move to ask me to dinner. Did I mention that he was a bit cute? Had he not had a fine layer of fishy crust covering two-thirds of his chin, I may have taken him more seriously. My response was fuelled by the coffee sculled 10 minutes prior (which had just kicked in), as I am not normally so quick off the mark. I said “Dinner? Perhaps we could try that new seafood place down the road…”, before bursting into another fit of laughter. I passed him another from the lucky stash of tissues and shook my head, giggling out the door.
And so, on that grey Saturday, I was glad that there was a lull in the rental market. Because NO-ONE needed to see (or smell) that!
Have you seen something that did not belong at an open house? Have you been hit upon by a client?
