Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to the latest episode of our podcast, let's Talk Lets. I'm Heidi. I'm the CEO of the Lettings Hub, the tenant referencing business that got good at tech. And let's Talk let's, as most of you should know now is our regular roundup of news and views on a whole range of subjects spanning the private rented sector. For all of our regular listeners of let's Talk booklets, they know that we don't let any guest leave without kind of getting a funny story or anecdote of something that's happened. And I imagine you have many in the archives. Can you share with us our Last1 of 2024?
[00:00:41] Speaker C: Okie dokie. So I had a couple in my head, but I think the one that kind of like stands out most and people may or may not know him. Have you ever heard of Charlie Bronson? He's quite.
Yeah, so he was in one of my jails, I won't say which one. And I had to be honest with you, he was very, very nice to myself and my team and was always very polite, very, very amenable, which you don't always get that kind of viewpoint when you look in the press, etc. And he used to make my tea.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:01:17] Speaker C: So there you go. So, you know, hard and fast criminal. But he was really good and I'll tell you something, he's a great artist and he actually did a picture for my friend and she still got it to this day, you know, and he was absolutely lovely and you know, from that point of view. But you know, there were still challenges but you know, the fact that he made my tea and to be honest, it was really nice. It was really good cup of tea.
[00:01:39] Speaker D: Ho, ho, ho.
[00:01:40] Speaker E: Oh gosh. Okay, well, I'm going to share one from lettings, not recruitment.
So when I was in. Let's. When I was in lettings or. Yeah, I. I was doing some viewings and it was in a vacant property, you know, repossessed property. So I went and I thought, oh my goodness, you know what? I'd been on viewings all morning. I thought I'm absolutely desperate to go to the toilet so I'll just nip upstairs before they arrive. It's all going to be okay. So I was like, oh, fantastic, there's toilet roll and everything. That's wonderful. So.
And then, and then I realized that all the services has been turned off just before everyone arrived. So that was, that's. Yeah, that was a bit embarrassing. But you know.
[00:02:28] Speaker F: Yeah, you're right. I think Every letting agent must have a back catalog of greatest hits. And certainly I've had a lot of very funny moments. I've dug through rubbish bins for wedding rings. I've had to help tenants who had locked themselves out in the nude.
I've had to deal with bats stuck to fly paper.
But I thought the one I would share with you today, which I think is the most memorable thing that's happened to me in property, isn't so much funny as a little bit spooky.
And I thought, we're getting into autumn. It's only a month or so until Halloween. So I thought I'd tell you this one. And I hadn't been at the company all that long when I went with our then managing director to move a tenant into their new home. And bath being bath, this was a big Georgian manor house on the outskirts of the city. And we went sort of at dusk. It was just starting to get dark. And typically, for some reason, this house was. It was partially furnished and a lot of antique furniture. It had these sort of stuffed mannequins sitting in the windows, like antique rocking horse with the paint peeling. It couldn't have been any creepier. Anyway, we. We met the tenant. We gave her the keys.
My colleague gave her her mobile number in case she needed anything. And we came back to the office. And by the time we got back to the office, she tried to call. And we missed the call because we'd been in the car. But she left a voicemail.
And we listened back to the voicemail. She put it on speaker. We all stood there listening to it. And it's without doubt the creepiest thing I've ever heard.
So the tenant started talking, saying, hi, thanks for meeting me earlier. I just had a quick question. And then her voice trailed off and there was like static on the phone line.
And then a different voice came onto the voicemail and it said one word.
And that word was like a horse whisper. And it said, mother.
And then there was more static. And then the tenant came back and said, anyway, if you could get back to me, that would be great. Thanks. Bye. And she hung up. And, like, the hairs on my arms stood on end.
I don't believe in ghosts. I don't believe in spirits. But we just all screamed, we were so freaked out. And to this day I cannot come up with a rational explanation for it.
[00:05:16] Speaker B: But did the tenant ever say it was weird living there?
[00:05:21] Speaker F: We never mentioned anything to the tenant because we didn't want to freak them out. And no, no, never mentioned anything so what can I say? Maybe it was a ghost who just wanted to get in on leaving a voicemail. But yeah, it was so creepy.
[00:05:38] Speaker D: But this one, this one has always stayed with me. You will remember that I mentioned that when I managed to have an interview for the job in the partnership firm I didn't have a dress or anything like that and my mother made me one. Well, I also thought I better have a necklace and a pair of earrings and matching shoes. So I went and bought these things and, and in the middle of this interview, I don't quite. And that was a very formal, somber interview because there was a senior partner of lettings, there was the newly appointed sales manager and this ops manager. So I only knew Johnny from primary school. I didn't know these other very scary people. So in I was.
And halfway through the interview, spontaneously, my earrings, I had clip ons, I don't know why, it unclipped itself, it flicked across the room, it went into the area of the desk where there's always a gap in those old fashioned gaps.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:39] Speaker D: I said to these three people who kind of watched something fly across the air, oh, excuse me a minute. My earrings just fall off. I then dive to the floor, scrabbling on the floor to find my earring, hopped back onto my seat, plucked off the earring and popped it back on my ear and said yes, now where were we? And they were all sort of sat. I would say still life shock.
But I just swept on in my inimitable style as if you have imagined an earrings just popped off and I've scrabbled on the floor to pick it up again. But I, I left that interview thinking. I thought the interview went very well. When I went home I said to my husband, I think the interview went very well but I had a bit of a mishap over my wardrobe. I'm not sure if that's going to go against me to this day. I don't know if that's the reason they thought she's crazy, we're gonna take her or it was nothing to do with the earring at all. I don't know to this day.
[00:07:35] Speaker G: Well it was. Finding it hard to think of that many. I mean I was training a young 12 year old boy who had some autistic challenges and he nearly knocked me out punching me in the nose without a warning. But that's, that was interesting trying to explain to somebody that had been attacked by a 12 year old boy and had a big bruise across my, my nose luckily didn't break It. But I think back in my dorman days in my 20s in Blackpool, there was an interesting incident, was about 50 guys from a rugby team on a stag night. And the nightclub that I worked in had a swimming pool in the basement because it was kind of like a spa hotel. And they were jumping in the hotel and that. That got a bit. Bit hairy. And if you want to know more about that, perhaps if I meet anybody in person, I'll tell you what happened.
[00:08:29] Speaker D: Ho, ho, ho.
[00:08:31] Speaker A: Well, I hope so. There have been some really good ones over the. Over the various series. But. So one day I. I arrived at work and I just. Well, something didn't feel quite right. Something felt a bit.
I looked down, I realized that I had managed to put on two completely different shoes.
[00:08:49] Speaker B: Oh, they were both black.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: They were fairly similar, but one had a slightly higher heel than the other one was bit pointed toe. The other one was a bit rounded. But I literally spent the rest of the day kind of walking around a bit wonky, probably looking like I had one leg shorter than the other.
I was quite embarrassed about it, but I. There was nothing I could do about it. I kind of did, you know, explain to people and we had a laugh about it. But Heidi, since then I have actually kept my shoes in the boot of my car. All of my. Not pretty much all of my shoes in the boot of my car. So I am partly. So I'm always prepared. But also, it also means that I've actually been able to kind of discreetly hide just how many pairs of shoes I've accumulated over the years. But just don't tell Stu, okay?
[00:09:32] Speaker C: Let's hope he's not listening.
[00:09:35] Speaker H: Okay. I'm just trying to think of one on the top of my. My head with it.
I think. I think for me, I'll go with the one that you. We spoke about before, which is how I met my partner, because I like that one. And that is. That is for me going, I am never going on a dating app. Ever. Never going on a dating app. I go to a manifestation day in London and it's all sponsored by Bumble. And I think, right, okay. My best friend goes, go on. You need to do this. This is the only one that the woman makes the first move. I download the. I have lots of dates which are just horrendous, you know, awful dates. And I think, no, this isn't for me. I need to be more particular. I need to categorize the person I want and be, you know, And I paid the £40 premium option to do so. And even then I still was like, absolutely not. And I happen to be up north because my family lived there. For people listening, I live originally lived down south and my friend at the time was never been on a dating app either and he wanted to go through the app and he was swiping on everyone that I wouldn't want to swipe on in that sense. And I thought, right, okay, this is funny, but this needs to stop. Now. I go to bed, I go to delete the app and before I do it, a person is there on my screen and only had about four people to ever swipe on. Because I was so particular about what I wanted and this person was there. I went through their pictures and I thought, take it easy, here we go. And I messaged them and next year, no, they're love of my life. So I think these kind of things are where you don't know what's going to happen. And my story is one that I go, you know, this is great that's happened to me. So the reason why at the beginning when I was telling the story about Francesca, Amber meeting her love of life, obviously hers turned out to be gay. I just hope that my partner doesn't.
[00:11:39] Speaker C: Turn out to be gay.
[00:11:40] Speaker D: Ho, ho, ho.
[00:11:42] Speaker I: Yeah, absolutely. And again, this goes back to when I had a letting agency myself. So a few years old, I'm afraid this was a bog standard day for doing property inspections. I had one particular property that I only inspected once a year because. Because it was always so immaculate. Tenant always paid the rent on time, there was never an issue.
Her job was a sex worker and she worked from home and we were aware of that. Probably why the property was so immaculate because obviously that's her place of work and she was always the last one on my property inspection list.
So I went round to do the property inspection, knocked on the door and let myself in, as I always did.
Went round, got up to the upstairs, did the downstairs, got up to the upstairs, walked into the bedroom and as you can probably imagine, oh wow, she has a client.
She was just like, whoops, you know, she wasn't too bothered. The client, however, was mortified because he was actually my boss.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: No way.
[00:12:49] Speaker I: Yeah, absolutely. So that was a case of we never spoke of it again.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: Oh my God, that's the best story I've ever had on here. Yeah, honestly, that's a great way to end the year.
[00:13:03] Speaker C: Oh, no.
[00:13:03] Speaker A: God.
[00:13:04] Speaker F: Crikey.
[00:13:06] Speaker B: For all of our listeners, to ensure you never miss an episode of let's Talk, let's Please follow us on Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcast. Please leave us a review. Thank you so much for listening and all of your support in 2020 and wishing you, your team, your families, a very merry Christmas and a brilliant 2025.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: Merry Christmas.
