THE AGENCY 1

Bloggets. Well, what a fun couple of days?

Not!

My friends are due for a three months holiday next Friday. The agent that we booked through in December paying the deposit and so on for the two flats, have given me a head ache.

Telling me yesterday that we couldn’t have the second stay. The best flat. Why? Because she has put someone else in.

Well, my friend Di came to the rescue today and this is the story.

Are you sitting comfortably? It’s a long one Bloggets, so put your feet up with a nice drink and here we go, on the Fifi chugga chug express!

               

Way back in December, my friend Olga told me that her, her Grand Son her Son who I have known since he was eight now I think he is 33, his wife, and perhaps the Nanny, would be coming over to the  UK May till late August.

I spent a few days trying to find an agent that would take three months of rental.

Most agencies only do six months accommodation.

Well we found one. We went to meet the girl I shall call Sharron.

Sharron showed us around the most stunning apartment. We loved it. Then we went into a house from hell. OMG?

Floor tiles coming up, damp all over the walls. Foisty smells. Then the best bit, to get to the bedrooms, no, not a staircase, but loft ladders.

The house was a mess, so small too. Hideous. I was embarrassed.

Anyway, we said then that we would love the flat from May till end of August; Olga thought that it would be untill 28 of August. That was fine but for the first three weeks, that would not be available as the three lads who were in the flat, were not due to leave till end of June. But we were re assured that there would be another flat that we couldn’t see for some reason I have forgotten but it was the same as the one we loved. Same block, just two bed rather than three.

Fine we would move after three weeks. All sorted.

 

Wrong. Nope, we got a call saying that the two bed owner didn’t want a child in her flat. Back to the beginning and my friend and I went to view another flat as my friend Olga, had gone back to Russia.

 

The flat my friend and I viewed, was nice, nothing special, but modern, clean and in a great location, looking over the river.

 

We said yes to the flat for the first part, then I confirmed the big flat for the rest of the stay, stating end of August.

 

Long story short. My friend due a week today, agency phoned saying that they could only give my friends the flat until July. I called to say we paid a deposit. We stated August. Answer, sorry, it’s been let out.

 

I phoned my friend. I told her that we could look at a couple of two bedrooms. My friend was not happy. Nothing worse than an unhappy Ruski, right? Hahaha.

Anyway, my friend told me that the whole trip would have to be cancelled. So the deposit would be lost of just under £500 and the nursery school deposit as well as the nursery would have to be told  at short notice we didn’t need them anymore. This was going to be embarrassing, as I booked it months ago, again after spending weeks and weeks on the phone to try to find a nursery who would take the little boy. Internet searches and so on. I literally had to fight for a place, soon learning that I had to say my friend’s child, rather than my friend from Russia.

 

So when I got a nursery that said yes, I then told them they were from Russia. See, private nurseries would have taken the little boy, because you were paying a huge amount of money, but, he had to be three and he is only three months over two.

 

The nursery I found is perfect and my friend loved it too. Then I heard that the same company with the same policy were opening five minutes from where my friends flat was going to be. So I stupidly thought this would be better as the other one, is a forty minute drive away, so began to make plans to go to the closer nursery.

 

Well, a couple of weeks ago, my friend said she didn’t mind driving that far. I do worry about her driving in the UK, as she won’t understand roundabouts and so on that we have over here and in our tiny island, there are too many cars on the roads. I know she is a great driver in Russia, but the roads there are straight.

 

So a couple of phone calls later, I have been told they will accept the baby in the nursery further away, but my friend would have to stay with him for a few days. All sorted, though still waiting to talk with the blooming manager who was to call me back who didn’t bother, though I have left messages, to clarify starting date and times.

 

So I shall phone back today and ask for an email so it’s in writing.

 

OK, so back to the flat hunting, my friend Di said she would go with me to look at another flat they had. But my friend Olga the night before, told me a two bedroom flat for the second place, would be no good, as how can she, her Son, his wife, their child, her Mother father and Brother, stay in a two bed?

Say what?

How many are coming now? Hahahahahahehehh.

Em, panic dot com!

 

Hell, I had just read too that if there are additional people staying, more money would be expected to be paid. Oh and the nanny, is no longer coming. This is good as the stress of getting her into the country would be pretty bad, as she is from the Philippines and I know of people who have had difficulties getting into the UK, we are not the easy country to get into anymore.

 

Well, they had one three bed flat on their books. One? So if this was not suitable, what to do? Em stuck there sadly.

 

Oh I had no sleep the night before the viewing. My body in knots. I want so badly for my dearest friends to have a lovely holiday. And would love my D, my friends Son to live here too, as I adore him.

 

Off Di and I went on the bus, chatting all the way, she’s great and we get on so well.

 

Had a lovely walk to the flat, she was amazing, she found it straight away.

 

OK, met with Sharron. Dizzy as ever. I told Di before we met with Sharron; she would do a silly little run with her high heels on. And she didn’t let me down.

 

So the shoes came running towards us and we walked into the main entrance of the flat. OK, it smelled clean. Of disinfectant actually.

 

Went up in the lift to the apartment.

 

Oh my God, I really hated it. I shouldn’t have really, but I just felt like the kitchen was like one would imagine a student accommodation to be like.

 

It was so basic too. It had the cheapest equipment in. It was tidy, clean, but not at all homely.

 

Di is great, oh what a team we would make professionally, as I feel smell and just know how things should be when it comes to houses. I know how to make a house into a home, as I always say, outside my land, I am hopeless, but once in a house, fine. And this place was simply awful and dull and depressing.

 

The worst thing about it was it had the most ridiculous staircase inside the flat itself to another two bedrooms. The en-suites were open plan, the shower and basins were in the bedroom. The toilet was in a cupboard. God I hated it. The stairs inside a flat I struggle with too, this kind of makes it into a house? Or maisonette as they called it. The stairs were open wooden and a horrid thick chrome rail, as if in a huge department store. And  they twisted around so a spiral staircase and in one of the bedrooms up stairs, there were five doors, one into the cupboard, one into the toilet, one into the wait for it, room with the washing machine? One into the room from the flat and one to the landing of the flat where the lift was. How flipping ugly?

 

Di said that the couch in the living room was blue, the two chairs were cream, so they didn’t even match and it was so bare, no lamps, nothing, for such big rooms. Oh it was just horrible.

No way as bad as the house we looked at, but the house, you would be able to do something with if you bought it, I’m not too sure what to do with the flat? I mean, like the house, the bedrooms were in the loft, but a better set of stairs, well, at least not a ladder, though they were lethal, and dopy Sharron, said wait for this one too?

It would be better if you took your shoes off using the stairs? Well, fine, unless you wore slippy socks? I mean, shoes have a bit of a grip, socks don’t.

 

Oh she is just unreal; I had no confidence in her. She would ask a question, and then when you were answering, she would talk about something else. She really just didn’t listen.

 

I told her that I wanted the flat we initially agreed with. I was not going to back down; she told us that she couldn’t as she had let it out to four other individual people. I told her to tell them she had overbooked and give us our flat, but in nicer words.

 

I also told her that we had found another agency and would go elsewhere, now, we are talking £10,000

Yes, you read right, that is how much they would lose if we didn’t go with them.

I also told her my friend was famous in Russia and with connections. Haha. I said that they are going to come at least once per year, possible twice and how much money they would spend with the right agency. I had told her at eight in the morning over the phone that I had media connections and this would not make good publicity and another few facts that made her decide to take us to the office and sort something out. I said what, find other accommodation for the other people who were taking our flat? She insisted that we couldn’t have the other place.

 

Got to her office and OMG? Just wait to find out what happened next?