Poetic Licence

I'm seriously losing patience with realtors. Flat hunting in London is not a pleasant experience at the best of times – rent prices are extortionate and ads placed online state “available immediately”, who I ask is able to move out at the drop of a hat? Then there’s traipsing around the city, changing tube lines and racing to make appointments with estate agents. And then… they go and outright lie.

Not wanting to waste all my free time at the weekends I’ve made a few viewing appointments in my lunch hours. Last week – when it was pouring outside and I was still feeling the effects of bronchitis – I missioned into the depths of Clapham South; the alleged ten minute walk from the tube station was more like twenty-five (and I’m hardly a stroller!) and once at the flat it became clear that the agent’s idea of “recently refurbished” was actually code for: current tenants have taken to tearing apart furniture.

Today I again ventured south, this time to Brixton. The ad on Gumtree.com showed a chic one-bedroom apartment, complete with photos of the modern kitchen (chrome fridge and dishwasher) and a living room and bedroom decorated right out of the Habitat catalogue. I emailed to confirm that the apartment came furnished (assuming this would be interpreted as ‘the apartment looks like its photos’), and an affirmative reply encouraged me to jump once again on the Victoria line.

After waiting almost fifteen minutes for my agent to arrive at the property, the two of us were greeted at the apartment door by one of the three current tenants (who are being evicted for breaking their lease agreement) and a whole lot of mess. The kitchen was filthy, the lounge room had been turned into a makeshift second bedroom and dirty laundry littered the “newly laid carpet”. I stifled my anger at having wasted yet another lunch hour and instead commented that I still had a few more places to see and that I must be off back to work.

Disillusioned a rode the train back to Oxford Circus. With little over a month to go before boyfriend and I move out I’m starting to think it would be easier for us to simple pitch a tent on the Common. If only it weren’t still so icy outside.

The ad

The reality