Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign let's Talk let's an original podcast.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: From the Lettings Hub.
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the latest episode of our podcast, let's Talk Let's. I'm Heidi, the CEO of the Lettings Hub. The tenant referencing business that got good at tech. Let's Talk let's is our regular roundup of news and views on a whole range of subjects spanning the private rental sector. Our regular listeners of let's Talk let's will know that we always end the pod by asking our guests for a funny story or anecdote.
Well, I had a long think about this because obviously in a long career there's many, many and I'm sure all of us could club together and write some sort of book on hilarious scenarios. I mean obviously we deal with a lot of students and things like that, so I could tell you a billion stories about hilarious students, but the one that the team always come back to me on because they find it fascinating is one years ago, which is still, still to this day. The strangest reason I have had a tenant come to me for early surrender of a fixed term lease and that was because they had a poltergeist.
So I'm a non believer in things like that. So I had a phone call from his mother to say that his son was being terrorized by a ghost and they needed to break tenancy or get an exorcist into the property.
I stuck very hard to keep a straight face and I explained, I asked what this podcast was doing apparently slamming doors, pulling at clothes and being a nuisance.
I never had any reports of this house before. I'd managed it for years.
But the mum was deadly serious and she'd even she got me a telephone number for a priest who was happy to come in but she wanted the landlord to pay for his time or release and I had to deal with this situation. And still to this day it's the oddest reason I've had someone to break tenancy and I did have to let this woman down quite gently of, you know, I, I, this isn't gonna fly as a reason and I, I don't believe, I mean if you feel there's a poltergeist, maybe you could get a priest in if you'd like. And, but yeah, that was, that was amusing. I had to deal with many meetings with many guarantors of that property about a potential ghost. Oh wow. It's, it's that it's funny, isn't it? Because that's a classic example of how do you prove anything like, you know what I mean? So it's like. It's a very bizarre situation. Anyway, it might have been friendly, who knows? I mean, I don't know. She claimed not, but I. It was a very. It was a very surreal conversation that I had to have with someone.
[00:02:40] Speaker B: Yes.
I think 20 years in the industry and I should have made notes along the way to make a book. I think there's a lot of letting agents who would say the same for me, it's always maintenance when the maintenance inquiries, maintenance reports come through. And this is going back in the early days.
I've got two instances. One, we had a family over from Saudi, Saudi students. And again the language barrier was there a little bit.
And we had this report in and this. He was so stressed on the phone before the days of fixed flow. There's monsters in the garden.
Pardon? You have to help me. There are monsters in the garden. So we did a property visit. We were like, okay, there's no monsters in the garden. Where do you see monsters? They come at night. We don't see them.
[00:03:35] Speaker C: What?
[00:03:36] Speaker B: And it took us about three to four months to realize there were moles. Molehills popping up in the lawn. And of course they've never seen a mole before.
Oh my gosh. But they wanted to move out. It was just, it was so scary for them.
And the other one was. We had then the report again, very limited English.
There are wiggly black lines in my kitchen.
Right.
They move okay at speed or you know, occasionally. Oh, we don't know. They just move sometimes. Wiggly black lines. And again we do a property visit and there are no wiggly black lines anywhere in the kitchen. And I think that one took over a year to us for us to resolve that they were slugs coming in.
The slugs. Oh. So yeah, you look back and at the time it was funny as well. I mean your heart goes out to these people who are really, really stressed. But yeah, the monsters in the garden and the wiggly black lines I will take with me forever because I definitely.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: Think we should compile a book at some point for stories from letting agents of just questions that they've had or situations that they've had to deal with because I think it would be a significantly big book.
[00:05:03] Speaker D: So I was a bit nervous actually when you asked me for this. So the funny story I have, it's not work related because we keep it professional and above board every day between nine to five. So it's a, it's a gym story.
Myself and my friend Laura, we were Doing the new year, new me thing. Not this year, this is last year. And we were in a heaving commercial gym, so very, very busy. We were deciding we were going to get a hot bikini body. So we were doing this ab workout together. We were passing a medicine ball to each other, folks, and it's sat down facing each other, like, you know, doing a crunch and passing a medicine ball. And as I leant forward to pass the medicine ball to her, I immediately.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: Felt this huge waft of air.
[00:05:47] Speaker D: And I looked at her and she looked back at me and she's like, what is wrong? And I scuttled forward and I said, laura, I think my pants have just split. And I opened my legs. She went, oh, my God, close your legs quickly. And I was unfortunately wearing a thong and my pants had completely given up on me all front, all the way up my back. So we were sat there, I couldn't move. I couldn't move. So Laura had to take her top off. I was like, please give me your top. I had to tie it around the back of me and tuck it into the back of my back of my bands. Like I was wearing it like a flag. And I had to sprint out of the gym and I never went back to that gym ever again.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: Never.
[00:06:30] Speaker D: No.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: So I don't, I don't have the.
[00:06:31] Speaker D: Rocking holiday body now and it's, it's my pants fault.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: Yeah, there you go. Hey, but that is the benefit of you must always go to a gym. Go to the gym with your friend. That's kind of the moral of the story. Because imagine if you were there on your own. You know, that's a whole different ending, isn't it, then to that story?
[00:06:48] Speaker D: Definitely. So I had to strip some clothes off my friends and run out.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: I, I thought about that and Heidi.
[00:07:00] Speaker C: And I'm thinking the one thing that.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: I've never laughed anymore in the charity is seeing Ben Madden wear a pair of black mesh tights and a mini leather black skirt. And yeah, that to me was my funniest. And seeing Simon wow. And Christian Byfield dressed up as the Spice Boys, I think that was.
[00:07:26] Speaker C: And now they strutted out onto that floor.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: I think that all in, you know, aid of charity, I just think that was a special moment.
[00:07:38] Speaker E: I'm not a comedian, but I will, I'll tell you a little. I'll tell you a little story. And anybody who's worked in a staying seat and has gone to an area they don't know will understand this. It was my first week at Foxton's and I was in Chiswick and I just been given a Mini and this, this applicant walked in and they wanted to go and see a flat and it was in, I remember this, it was in Bassian Park Road, W12. I didn't know where it was, right. So I put this lady in the car, I've got the keys. Put this lady in the car and asked her to, you know, read the map on the way there. Okay. What else you do? You know, sat nav wasn't, you know, this was 2005 or something. Satnav wasn't like it is now. You get a tom Tom back then. So we, we probably took 25, 30 minutes to get to, you know, two miles in London. We got to Basin Park Road, I went up to the door, put the key and I had the wrong bloody keys. We had two flats in the same road. I had the wrong keys and she really wants it. So I was, I felt like an absolute idiot. Get back in the car. She then drives, reads the map on the way back. We've all done this, right? Get back to the office, swap the keys over, get back in the car. We find our way back there again, go into. She absolutely hated it. Riddled with that.
So we've all done that.
I think I used a swear word on the way back, said I'm really sorry, you must think I'm an absolute.
And I got back to the office and I was telling my colleagues about this and it up pings this email and this email said, thanks for meeting me today. The flat's not for me but you want to go out for a drink?
[00:09:02] Speaker F: Oh.
[00:09:04] Speaker E: And she became my wife and we've been married 18 years. So it was my, my first applicant at Fox and we were together, we've been together 19 odd years now. So yeah, always be closing, always be closing.
[00:09:21] Speaker G: My, my line of work is not inherently littered with funny stories, I've got to be honest. So if I go interesting story, that might be the best I can. Best I could do. I want to tell you about the oldest tenancy I've ever ended. Now this was a. Before the assured. Well before the Housing Act 1988, before assured tenancies there were rent act tenancies. If you're old enough to remember them, then I'm sorry but they, they are tricky things and by their nature they can't be created. You can't get new rent out tenancies anymore. The ones that are still around are from tenants who had them back in the 70s, 60s and even earlier. And Rent out tenants could be inherited. So what I dealt with was a tenancy which originally started in the 1930s and it had been inherited, I think twice.
Trying to remember the exact details of it, but basically it was super old. But the nice little bit about this one is we didn't have the original agreement. And the reason we didn't have the original agreement is because it was locked up in a safe office in Oxford, I think it was.
Or was it Reading somewhere in the center of England and it was bombed by the Luftwaffe during World War II. So we had to explain to the court the reason why we don't have the. Why we don't have a tenancy agreement is because of Adolf Hitler. And I haven't had to make many, haven't had to make many arguments like that before.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: Wow, what a story.
[00:10:45] Speaker G: I bet we got possession by the way. You did, yeah, they were perfectly fine with that.
[00:10:51] Speaker A: I wouldn't expect anything else. Right.
[00:10:57] Speaker F: So the one that always sticks out is evaluation that I did in Reading. And we had all sorts of properties in Reading, you know, lots and lots of drugs, houses and all the rest of it. All the usual stuff in a city.
But I rocked up to a house. The lady who booked in the appointment was outside crying, somewhat distressed and she told me that she was too embarrassed to go back into the house and could I just very quickly run in and then I would meet her back at the office to go through the valuation. So okay, yeah, no worries. At this point I'm a little bit concerned for my safety. I'm thinking, okay, what the hell's in this house?
So, okay, you go back to the office, I was like, mate you a cup of tea. All good, I'll meet you back there in like 10, 15 minutes.
Went into the house and it was being used to film pornography films. Movies.
Wow. So in the living room there was every piece of apparatus you could possibly imagine.
I was slightly, yeah, just intrigued, you know, I was kind of, I think mid-20s at this point. So it was a bit of an eye opener in some ways.
I think the one thing that always stands out in the dining room was a black rubber padd pool with a commode in the middle of it, which is interesting.
And then, yeah, there was, there was a full on edit suite in one of the, the bedrooms upstairs.
So, yeah, fascinating. There was, you know, big cross with the handcuffs on the wall.
I mean everything you could ever imagine was in there. It was a bit like 50 Shades of Grey in a house. And then at the garden there were Two people sort of hovering at the back of the garden. I was like, I'm not, I'm not going to go say hi. I just, the, the tenants, this is, this is fine. Anyway, so I quickly ran round, went back to the office, still a little bit shelf shocked and kind of like, okay, how, how do I approach this? You know, this is this poor woman's house. She clearly didn't know that this was happening in her property.
And so I get back to the office and she's there, she's having a nice cup of tea with my colleagues and turns out it was her daughter that was renting the house off of her.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: Oh my God.
[00:13:18] Speaker F: And she had no idea that her daughter was using the property for.
Yeah. Filming pornography. So I think that's probably the.
Yeah, the one that always stands out.
[00:13:30] Speaker A: No wonder the shock. That explains that.
[00:13:38] Speaker H: So I talk in my sleep, okay.
I talk in my sleep and it's, it's not an attractive part of me, but that's what I do. It's what. I guess it's better than sleepwalking. And there's a lot of people that would say to me, you know, you must talk about this in your sleep. You know, you must kind of, you know, just go through all of those motions. So I can tell you that, that this week I was told that in my sleep I was having a conversation with Mr. Pennycook around amendments on the renters rights bill, particularly the one that I feel very passionate about, which was the kind of four months down rent. Yeah, I just think that's, that's unacceptable. And I was very animated apparently in my, in my sleep about this. That's all I'm going to say on the matter. But for those of you that, that don't think these things bother me greatly, I can tell you they do. And they bother my little boy when I wake him up ranting around. Four months in arrears. So there we go, campaigning in his sleep.
Yeah.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: And how about you, James?
[00:14:48] Speaker I: Nothing is. I mean, I tried to have a think about it earlier. I have a student story very quickly. I had a.
Some students that were in, in the student property and I had a phone call once about that. The oven was broken. The oven was broken. It's not working very much. But it was a relatively new oven, so obviously fine. Okay, I'll come and have a look at it. I went down there, I had a look, opened the oven and there was a takeaway box, Styrofoam, everything, and it melted all over in the oven and everything I looked at the tenant, the student, I said, well, there's, there's a takeaway in there. He said, yeah, but you told me it was a self cleaning oven. And the mind boggles. But it's self cleaning. It doesn't incinerate everything that is in there. It cleans a little bit in there. So I had to add to the, to the, to the inventory. You know, basic appliance understanding was, was, was for the next year. So that's the story.
[00:15:49] Speaker A: Thank you very much. And.
[00:15:56] Speaker C: Oh, I do have one.
And I've laughed at myself so many times about this because I was just completely stupid. But I'm hoping that people who listen to this won't take themselves too seriously because we all live and learn anyway. So I was, I was, I was, I was doing a loft extension and the builder sent me a picture and said, patricia, I've removed this particular, whatever it was that he'd removed. He sent me a picture to say that he'd removed it. And I thought, oh, I've got a structural engineer. I wasn't expecting for him to be removing anything without the structural engineer saying, yes, you can remove it. So I messaged the structural engineer with the pictures and said, the builders removed this is it. Okay?
Because I'm that kind of person. I am careful. And I didn't want to then get to the end of the project and see that we'd done something wrong. Anyway, so I remember so, so clearly. I woke up on this Sunday morning and there was an email from the structural engineer saying, oh no, he shouldn't have removed that. He's going to have to do such and such and such.
No, no, no, no, no, it was, oh, I don't, he shouldn't have removed that. I need to come and have a look. Let me know. So I messaged him immediately and I said, oh, please come and have a look now I'm going straight there. So I jumped out of bed. I'm not even sure if I brushed my teeth, got, got dressed, rushed over there and guess what I did? I went into the loft and I sat there and I held this kind of like beam like that with my hand. How stupid was that? If, honestly when I think about it now, I think, what were you thinking? So I thought, you know, the roof might, if the roof was going to collapse, what was my hand doing to.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: That's like my mum when we were children and if she was driving and we were in the front seat and she thought she was going to crash, she'd put her hand on the brake and put her hand across us. But obviously it was never going to do anything, ever going to do anything. And I'm assuming it all got sorted for you in the end?
[00:18:07] Speaker G: Oh, it did.
[00:18:08] Speaker C: It wasn't as bad as I thought it was, but when I let and the said to me, but why would you think that you'd be able to even hold.
[00:18:17] Speaker A: Hold it, hold the roof up.
[00:18:19] Speaker C: And when he asked me that question, it suddenly dawned on me that I was a complete idiot. But I woke up that morning, saw the email, panicked, rushed over there and sat there with my hand holding this thing up. Oh, honestly.
[00:18:35] Speaker J: It certainly does. When I was working at your new home magazine, we were heavily involved in exhibitions and we used to travel far and wide, set up a stand to try and flog some of our magazines.
We attended an exhibition in London and we thought we were very cutting edge technology because we'd set up a booth and we'd interviewed somebody very high up at the nhbc and we had the camcorder with us and we took it on a night out at an Irish pub and we had a very good time and much alcohol was consumed. And when we boarded the tube train the next morning and we thought we'd look back, play back the video of the very prestigious house building, figure we discovered it been taped over completely by some drunken antics.
I'll never forget, because it was the days before Things in the Cloud. It was on a small tape and it was gone forever. And we had to break it to our managing director that us young bucks had gone out, got drunk in waxy O'Connors and ruined everything. And that sticks with me forever. The face of my colleague on the Tube train when she just. It cut straight to a round of flaming sambucas and not the interview.
[00:19:57] Speaker A: That is a brilliant story and I think we've all got those stories where something has happened in our past that then every time you're in that similar situation again, it instantly comes back. I know Colleen, who is our marketing director, she's. She's sat on this pod right now, many, many years ago, she sent an email to a customer, to customers, and it went multiple, multiple times, like thousands of times.
And I think every time now we say, if you can just send an email, I'm sure it plays on her mind. I'm sure we remember it.
Lisa, thank you very much for your time and all your insight to all of our listeners. To ensure you never miss an episode of let's Talk Let, please follow us on Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcast. Please leave us a review if you like what you hear. And thank you all very much for listening. Let's talk.
[00:20:48] Speaker B: Let's an original podcast from the Lettings Hub.
