The Gerrard Chronicles 2004 - Business Column

After everything going fairly smoothly for several years, almost everything that could go wrong, did. Ken thought he had fixed a leak from Flat 4 into Flat 3 & redecorated Flat 3’s bathroom. The tenants left in May on the day we went to France, so Ken had the prospect of more decorating ahead of him on his return. When we did, he had not only to redecorate but the bathroom problem had recurred. He fixed it again & redecorated. This took ages & meanwhile, 3 other tenants gave notice, leaving us with only two flats let. While Ken had to redecorate one, fortunately, the new people in Stamford Hill wanted to decorate themselves, although we paid for the materials. Phew! However, Ken did do their bathroom, not trusting tenants with this potential source of trouble. And while Flat 4 moved out, her father took it over. Ken took his alpine trip in middle of all this. Then, he repainted the halls & long overdue front door at St. Peters Street.

Just as things seemed to settle down, the Colebrooke Row flat flooded the flat below, at appalling expense in repairs & compensation, as the tenant (not ours) below was on holiday & his suits were covered in fungus when he got back. Ken ended up redecorating that flat. At the same time (& during Avis’ birthday party), the ceiling fell in on Flat 2’s kitchen, filling the place with 144 years of under-floor dust, much to the rage of the tenant. To add to her woes, Flat 3’s bath tiles decided to leak into her bathroom & Ken had to take down part of that ceiling, which threatened to follow its fellow in the kitchen. To crown this, the loo in Flat 4 leaked &, while the new tenant took the initiative to fix it himself, the Flat 3 bathroom decoration was ruined for the 3rd time. All this rather put the mockers on our trip to Greece. As soon as we were back, Flat 1’s boiler, which has been a constant source of trouble & expense, finally packed up. We had already replaced Flats 2 & 4’s crap French Saunier Duval boilers & now, only Flat 3 has one. (At least, our de-industrialised country can still make decent boilers). Then, we had to retile Flats 3’s bathroom, as it leaked into the one below. So did the one in Stamford Hill! Trying to be a good Socialist landlord can be, errr, trying.

Ken also decided that the job of replacing the false wall in our Dining Room could not be left any longer. The wall prevented access to copper pipes set in concrete, which gradually corrodes them & he built an easily removable false wall of tongue and groove, which makes the place look more like a climbing hut, to his comfort. He nailed the official Swiss Alpine Club hut regulations to the wall (in German).

All our buildings are basically sound, though. The amateurs buying new flats to let at high prices will discover that, at least in Islington, these 'luxury flats' are mostly jerry-built & will have much more severe maintenance problems.

The government loves us to spend money on training, so apart from the nieces' degrees, Avis has learned sufficient French at the City Lit (because of her French ancestor) to enable her to chatter to our first French landlady on the Pyrenees trip in May, impressing Ken no end.