MELLIPOP MEGA-RANT: REAL ESTATE AGENTS ARE CRITTERS

NOTE FROM MELLIPOP: This is a very venomous piece I posted in anger, removed in cowardice, and then re-posted with a furry euphemism to replace a furry obscenity so it's now "cunt-free" and once more "pensioner-friendly". (See previous post). It still makes me cringe, though. And there are still too many "fucks" in it for my liking. But here is, back by request.


OK, so I’m REALLY shitted off today. Strictly MA+ rating on this one, folks.

Landlords and Real Estate Agents are the biggest pack of critters roaming the earth.

Yes. You heard me correctly. Mellipop – no stranger to holding back when it comes to obscenity - just used the word “critters”. Without irony. And I suspect that more than a few “fucks” are going to be thrown about today as well. You might want to put the kids to bed because I’m feeling mighty fucking prickly right now.

Every rental tenancy I’ve ever experienced has resulted in some critter-licking real-estate agent and/or landlord trying to rip me off and quite frankly, I’ve had enough.

So I get home today and there is a letter from the real estate agent in the mailbox. The letter from the real estate agent contains correspondence from the landlord, who is based in the UK. And straight away I know it’s not going to be a Merit Award for Always Paying My Rent On Time and Being an All-Round Good Sport type of scenario.

The type of all-round good sport who hasn’t kicked up a stinking diva fuss about the malfunctioning hot water system that doesn’t actually work if you turn the cold water tap on at the same time as the hot water tap - as I attempt to daily in my ongoing series of outlandish experiments to determine if I can feasibly have a warm shower in the morning. As opposed to either a completely scorching hot one or a completely freezing cold one.

I hear that on the East Coast, warm water is a proven theory, not just a frustrating hypothesis. But it’s been almost seven months now, and I’ve forgotten what a warm shower feels like. Or if in fact, they really do exist, or whether they are just a wildly delusional fabrication of my rose-coloured Sydney nostalgia.

This is the risk I take every morning as I dance around the shower head in a vain attempt to bathe without incurring third degree burns. Our real estate agent claims that “she used to have one just like that” and that it is actually a common quirk of design and manufacture over here. Apparently the previous tenants experienced the same problem, but it seems that the technology over here isn’t quite advanced enough to rectify the issue (though humankind in general has absolutely no trouble at all with interplanetary travel). Nor is the problem serious enough for us to legally be able to suspend our rent payments until it gets fixed. Case closed. CRITTERS!

Burn you little Sydney fuckers! But keep paying your rent on time – you’re both top sports!

So anyway, we pay our rent on time, put up with archaic hot water technology and refrain from having wild parties where holes are kicked in doors, windows are smashed and excrement is smeared all over the walls (puppy poo aside, of course). I mean, we aren’t exactly the calibre of A Current Affair-style “Tenants From Hell” but by god I’m tempted to give those destructive bogans a run for their money now. Those landlord fuckers have no idea what two toothsome Staffies can do to a place – given free reign and the wholehearted encouragement of their bitter owners.

But that’s all a moot point anyway. Our landlord’s outlandish scheme – as outlined in the correspondence that has prompted so much cussing right here - is to get us to pay for damage to the property that existed before we even moved in.

Now I’m a responsible lass (though somewhat prone to obsencity on occasions where it is justified). I have the utmost respect for other people and their property. Anton and I reassured the real estate agent, on her recent inspection, that the mess the dogs have caused to some of the plants in the garden outside would be rectified at our expense, and that we have no qualms in reimbursing the landlord for any damage that may occur as the result of our dogs during the period of our tenancy.

But the UK-based landlord fuckers have stated their intention to hold us responsible for damage that pre-existed our moving in to the house. In this case, they want us to have all the floorboards “”professionally sanded and sealed (at their expense)”. Now again, I would be OK with that if the fucking floorboards were sanded and sealed to polished pristine before we got here. However, the fucking floorboards were scratched to almighty buggery before we even got here, and don’t look as though they have ever been sealed, sanded, polished, sucked, fucked or blown. CRITTERS!

So the gloves are on. They also have the hide to try and browbeat us into submission on signing another six-month lease. Depending on how this all progresses, we may well be homeless, yet again.

This is the third time I have been royally fucked by real estate agents and bloodsucking landlords. The first time I took it to the Tribunal and kicked their coward, lying-asses. I lived in a ghetto block of flats in Parramatta, and they kept refusing to return my bond on account that all the other tenants who were exiting kept leaving rubbish on the property, like old TVs and piss-stained mattresses.

They claimed that the other tenants had accused me of dumping all that crap. I mean sure, that was convenient for them. IT WAS THEIR CRAP THEY WERE DUMPING! But what 22 year old girl keeps three filthy mattresses, a couple of ancient non-functioning TVs, some smashed up IKEA furniture and a box full of yellowing erotic fiction novels stashed away in her apartment for safe-keeping? I’m 22 right - I’m having PLENTY of REAL sex! AND all my furniture came from fucking OP shops anyway!

Round 1: Mellipop kicks Bottom-feeding Real Estate ASS!

The second time was a right corker. It was the last time I ever had a full-on screaming match with someone who wasn’t actually related to me (or was an ex-boyfriend).

An emphatic word of advice for the property-market rental-refugee. Never, EVER rent directly from the landlord. As critter-licking as real estate agents are, at least their interests are somewhat less detached to the property in question.

So a few years back I rented a studio apartment in Sydney from a couple of old wogs. One room the size of a cardboard box, with a dinky kitchenette and a bathroom. $185 criminal dollars a week. Rent paid on time – ALL the time. So the old wog man was OK (long-term Mellipop regulars will remember the post on my flirtatious success with old wog men). The old wog woman was – and sadly I can think of no more poetic or original way to say this – a TOTAL FUCKING BITCH.

To cut a long and painful story short, I went back on several occasions to do the final clean up, according to her excessively compulsive demands. I even enlisted poor old long-suffering Anton to help me do the once over on the apartment with me – though by this stage I was probably up to at least the thrice over. Thinking that my servitude to the Wog Bitch From Hell was finally over, I went back to hand over the keys with a great sense of relief, and walked into find her on all fours in the corner peering at a single speck of dust that mysteriously happened to evade both the broom and the mop on their many trips around the room.

So it was on. There was lots of yelling and screaming, her accusing me of being some filthy gutter-dweller, me accusing her of being an overly anal bitch just for the sake of it etc. All the while her sheepish husband stood by and witnessed her in full-flight in a way that made me suspect that this was not the first time during the long tenure of their marriage that he had to stand by quietly as she did her “overzealous bitch” routine. Her ridiculous claim was that she was going to take the whole $740 of my bond money to hire a cleaner to clean the dust from the corners of the ONE ROOM of the apartment.

Essentially it ended with me telling her that I would take her to the Tribunal – replete with all the usual “see you in court, critter” cliches – as we went toe to toe over my bond money. I think I even said something as overly dramatic as “I’ve come across worse than you woman, and still come out on top”. You get the drift.

In the end, the wog husband saw reason and reassured me that they wouldn’t try to take my bond money, and apologised for his harpie bitch wife. And I got my money back.

Round 2: Mellipop kicks Wog-critter Landlord ASS!

Man, I’m exhausted. Apologies to all for the overzealous obscenity, but I'm really revved up tonight. Congrats to all who made it to the bitter end of this post.

And sorry especially to Mum. But you’ve owned your own house for 30 years. You couldn’t possibly understand. You will though, when you have to get in our goddamn shower! I reckon I’ll hear a few “critters” and “fucks” from you then….