A DAD'S LIFE:You'd imagine it would be easy to rent a house these days, writes ADAM BROPHY
I WANT to rent a four-bed house for around the €800 per month mark in the countryside but within a couple of miles of our town in west Cork. In this house will live: myself, my spouse, my two daughters, two small yappy dogs, and a pair of goldfish. We need the house to be somewhat spacious because two of us work from home and so that nobody gets killed. There, that doesn’t sound unreasonable does it?
It isn’t. You would think there are a million homes in the countryside, lying empty, waiting for a house-trained family to come along and pay the mortgage for a while, but you would be wrong. There are a lot of houses out there, but there are also lots and lots of expectations.
First, and most importantly, there are the landlords’ aspirations. There’s a lot to be said for working with a letting agent. An agent has no emotions invested in the property, he only wants to see the thing let and he knows the going rate. The landlord, on the other hand, still thinks it’s 2007. He sank his pension into building this box that resembles every other square box built on the island in the past 10 years and can’t quite believe it isn’t the golden goose successive finance ministers swore it would be. He tells you what he wants you to pay, you suppress a smile and tell him what you’re willing to hand over.
Stand off.
Then comes the emotion. “I paid X for this, Y for that. If you were paying a mortgage for this place you’d be paying a fortune, you’re basically insulting me and my family by expecting us to allow you to live in it for that paltry amount.” I hear you buddy, but I didn’t build or buy the thing and now I’m offering you what it’s worth. Sorry if that isn’t what you want to hear.
Then they become family counsellors. In a throaty whisper: “This is a great place for kids. You can let them run up here, roam down there. We live over the hill, we’ll babysit whenever you like. And dogs? Sure the dogs’ll be in heaven with the rabbits and the walks and what have ye. Where else would ye be?”
Then the anger returns: “But not for that filthy price ye gurrier. I’d rather leave it idle than hand it over for that ye dirty chancer! Now feck off before I set the hounds on ye . . . . . . but it is a really great spot for kids.”
Fresh from a number of battles with landlords I decide to engage only through a letting agent. It narrows the field somewhat but also means you’re not openly whipping those affected most by the property slump.
Now the expectations come from within.
The elder’s demands are invariably animal related. She wants a pony in situ, wherever we move to. Sorry, darling, two chances. But skilled negotiator that she is, this is only a distracting precursor to her real request: “We need a big dog. You promised.” This is one of the missus’s promises, made in a moment of weakness a long time ago and never forgotten, that we will buy a big mutt when we own our own gaff again. I explain the difference between buy and rent and get wailed at in return: “You prooooooomised!”
The younger steps in. She wants the next house to be in her friend’s estate. She won’t live anywhere else. Ordinarily this would be blown out of the water, but a house looks like coming available in that very estate and I would seriously consider taking it. I have the sense not to give full details to the child, but do not reject the suggestion out of hand.
Elder twigs her sister may have an opening and launches a full offensive. “What? No way. I don’t know anybody who lives in there. If we’re living in any estate, it’s the other one where all my friends are. You do everything for her, nothing for me. Nothing!”
But for all their demands, the decision lies with me, as the seat of power. At least four times I have found the perfect residence. Each time, skilfully rejected by wife. Reasons have included: the drive being three minutes too long out of town; the carpet in the hall; don’t like the distant view of the creamery from the kitchen window; and one in particular “just didn’t feel right”.
Yes, it’s a straightforward decision. Four beds, bit of a garden, close enough to town, the going rate. No problem. No pressure.