Month: June 2006

Those of you coming to Birmingham, be aware! After much debating on Paul‘s blog, it’s been kinda-somewhat agreed that we will gather at The Cottage at 9:20am. We’re currently looking at me, Paul, Claire, Rory and probably Suz. Bryn and Heather have also expressed an interest in coming, which’d be great not only because they’re fabulous and we like spending time with them but because they’d bring an extra car, too.

My Gran’s been taken into hospital: we could’ve seen that coming when we visited while up that end of the country for my cousin’s wedding. She’d protested about the possibility of being admitted then, stating that “she’d been in hospital three times before and they hadn’t managed to kill her yet,” which is an interesting attitude to take. Nonetheless, she’s not in a particularly good state. We shall have to see.

And… my co-worker, Alex, didn’t come in to work today. He’s instead gone to the hospital to have his hand looked at, which he apparently injured last night. We know that he was at the pub until late and that somebody stole his car keys and he needed to examine the landlord’s CCTV footage to determine where they’d been hidden, but apart from that, we know nothing: he carefully avoided saying how he’d managed to hurt himself, which implies that it’s something particularly stupid or embarrassing. Let the speculation begin!

My rant about ALP Property Management continues to gain interest and attention from all kinds of folks. Recently I received an e-mail from a young man (who’d like to remain anonymous), telling me about his experience with what might well be Aberystwyth’s least ethical estate agent.

If you’re interested, his story is below. Do bear in mind of course that this is his experience and his opinions, not mine.

Part One
My story begins in 2003. I had just moved out of my shared student house. The people I’d been sharing with frequently played very loud music at ungodly hours of the morning and I’d had enough, so I figured that I’d find myself some new accommodation.

I looked around several property companies, but none of them seemed to have anything in my price range. It was then that I stumbled across ALP Property Management. The agent was welcoming and helpful and found a few properties within my price range. I chose a few that looked good and he told me to come back tomorrow when he’d be able to take me to look around them.

Returning the next day, the agent seemed to be bending over backwards to help me, giving me a lift to several different properties and showing me around them. I liked one of the properties and agreed to take it; a small bed-sit for £60 per week. Back at the office, I handed over £100 holding deposit, and, a few days later, returned to sign a contract and give him a further £165. The total deposit was £265, £5 of which was for the “key deposit”. I also parted with £260, to cover the first month rent.

So far, everything was going well, and I thought little more of it until the day I was due to move in. I went along to the office to pick up the key and begin moving my stuff. This time I was not greeted with the same welcome. The agent seemed very slightly agitated. When I asked for the key, I was told:

“Unfortunately I made a mistake with your property. The rental price is £65 per week instead of £60. You’ll need to give me an extra £43.32 to cover the excess on the deposit and the first months rent. I’ve drafted another contract for you to sign here.”

He showed me a new contract with these new terms.

“I can’t give you the keys until you sign it.”

These may not be the agent’s exact words, but this is the gist of what I was told. At the time, I was confused by this. I felt that this was wrong of him, but thought that there was nothing I could do about it. I told him to wait while I got the money.

Instead of getting the money, I went and got some backup in the form of my fiancé and her parents. We went back to the ALP offices again to confront the agent. We told him that what he was doing was illegal as I’d already signed a contract to £60 per week. The agent told me that he’d lost (convenient, that!) the contract and so I had to sign another one. Unfortunately for him I had a copy of the contract with me. Once he realised that I wasn’t backing down, he gave up and gave me the keys. He apologised and said that he would pay
the extra £5 per week from his own wages.

He also showed us the contents of his top drawer, which contained a ripped up contract bearing my name. He told us that he panicked when he realised his mistake and ripped it up himself! Not only was what he was doing illegal, but he knew it!

Part Two
While at the property, so new neighbours moved in upstairs. These new neighbours were probably the noisiest people one the planet. Every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday night they would play loud music before going out and even louder music upon returning home, often until 5am. Since this was a little familiar – the very reason that I moved out of my last property – I decided to have a word with them. Not surprisingly, they ignored me.

Since their property was also rented through ALP, I thought that maybe the letting agency could have a word with them for me. I went into the offices and explained my problem to the agent. I explained why this was such a problem for me and tried to be as humble as possible. I was essentially told that “boys will be boys” and there was “nothing they could do about it”.

Part Three
One day when I went in to pay my rent, I was told:

“I tried to get into your place the other day, but the key didn’t work so I couldn’t.”

I remembered feeling relieved because I had not been told about anyone being shown around: this was the first I knew about it. It worried me more that he might have been lying… Maybe he had been in my property and shown someone around! The very thought of this angered me.

Part Four
When I came to move out of the property, I didn’t want to take any chances. On the final day when the agent came around to inspect the property, I had my parents, my fiancé and her parents all waiting in the room. When he walked in and saw the amount of people… surprise surprise, he was a nice as pie.A few months later, I still hadn’t received any bills from the property. I rang British Gas to enquire about the electricity account, which the ALP assured would “all be taken care of”. British Gas had no knowledge of me renting the property and said that the electricity was being supplied by another company. I rang the letting agent to find out who was supplying the electricity, as I didn’t want to be hit with a huge bill. The response I received from ALP was hostile, saying that it wasn’t their responsibility. Getting nowhere, I said:

“I fail to see how why you don’t know who is supplying the electricity”

To which they said:

“Don’t be cheeky to me. If you want to sort this out, then come into the office and we can talk, but don’t get cheeky with me!”

And they put the phone down.

Part Five
In 2005, I was returning to Aberystwyth after my “Year In Industry” as part of my degree. This time, I was looking for a property to share with my fiancé. Unfortunately, once again, the only company with any affordable property was… you guessed it… ALP. I told my fiancé that I didn’t want to go with them, but she told me that many people were saying how they’d cleaned up there act. I was still sceptical, but after seeing that they had a lovely house to rent, I decided (against my better judgement) to rent with them again.

This time, the renting went fine. They were very nice throughout the tenancy and I actually started to think that maybe they had cleaned up their act. I was wrong!

When we came to move out, we had arranged with the agent for him to inspect the property on the Friday. It was made clear that he was looking round to assess any damages. It was also arranged (and had been verified several times) that he would decide how much of our £546 deposit would be returned and write us a cheques there and then.

Friday came and so did the agent. He looked around the property for a total of five minutes. He said that he didn’t want to be long as he was “meeting the boys down the pub for a drink”. After he had looked around, both me and my fiancé asked him if we would receive the full deposit. He told us that we would. We asked if he could write a cheque. His response was as follows:

“We don’t give cheques anymore. Instead we do direct bank transfers as it’s a better way to prove transactions took place. Give me your bank details and we’ll transfer the money next week.”

Straight away, alarm bells started ringing in my head! We had specifically asked for the cheque today, as we were leaving Aberystwyth. But, in the interest of good faith, we took his word for it. We figured that he’d been good throughout the tenancy, so it would be fine. We moved home and awaited the transfer.

A week went by… No deposit.

We telephoned the agent at ALP and were greeted by the familiar hostile tone. It turns out that although we were promised the £546 refund, he has since been round the property with “a more thorough inspection”. He’d found sufficient reason to withhold £114. When asked what the reason was, we were told that the oven was dirty and there were crumbs in the toaster. We offered to come back to Aberystwyth and clean the dirty items, but alas we
were told a professional cleaning company had to be employed. We tried pointing out that the entire house was dirty when we moved in but to no avail. Oh yeah… Did I mention that we left a sofa and a chair (totalling £70) in the property out of good will? Apparently that didn’t count for much either.

I have since been in touch with ALP to request receipts for the “professional cleaning”. I was told that they will be sending them to me. Fingers crossed, eh?

I’ve heard other stories about ALP, and I’d love to collate them all here together in one place. If you’ve got any horror stories to tell about them (or even if you’ve got something nice to say) leave a comment with your e-mail address and I’ll publish them.

We’re back. Hope Troma Night went well (nobody’s told us so or otherwise yet) and that everybody had a fab week. I’m absolutely knackered so that’s all for now.

Claire and I’ll be out of town for a couple of days, visiting my folks and going to my cousin’s wedding. This means that this week:

• There won’t be a Naruto Night.
• There won’t be a Geek Night.
• Troma Night will be held at Matt P‘s new house. Hopefully he’ll be cool and useful and post a message on his blog teling you all how to get there, and I’m sure Paul will be his usual supportive self as far as helping set up tech to play the more unusual film formats is concerned.
• And if we’re really lucky, Adam will record Dr. Who for us, which we’ll trade him a copy of for giving his cake slice back (we’ve been looking after it ever since Bryn‘s birthday).

I’ve got my mobile if anybody needs me, and I’ll try to check my e-mail a couple of times while we’re mobile. Have a great weekend, everybody.

Troma Night starts tonight at 7pm at The Cottage or your other favourite Dr. Who watching place and continues at 8pm at the Arts Centre for “The General” before returning to The Cottage no later than 10pm (and probably a little earlier). There’ll be somebody (probably Jimmy, perhaps others) waiting at The Cottage to let you in if you get there before we get back from the Arts Centre.

We’re not sure what we’re watching yet, but I’ll bet Paul has some ideas.

My friend Paul is doing a survey (WayBackMachine link) into different hot and cold beverages and other lifestyle choices preferred by different kinds of geeks, looking for correlations (do all web designers really have pony tails? are mac users more likely to drink specialist coffees?). If you’re any kind of geek and you haven’t done it already through reading his blog, give it a go.

Well; the move was a successful one, although – as always – moving house is an excessively stressful and difficult experience. The weather remained good, and we’re very grateful to friends like Matt, Andy and Jimmy for all their help with the move. Claire and I still haven’t finished unpacking – the living room and bedroom are still full of boxes, although the kitchen, study, and utility room are starting to look as they should – but the important things are working: computers, network, internet connection, and so on. I thought I’d commemorate the new internet connection with this blogpost. Perhaps, if I can find the box that the batteries and the link cable are in, I’ll take some pictures and put them on here. It’ll also give me an incentive to keep unpacking stuff.

Just like last time, I’ve come up with a convenient way to make available to you all our new address and phone number (yes, the phone number has changed) without too many crazy stalker types getting hold of it without excessive effort. Just do the “Where Is The Cottage?” quiz and you can get all the information you need – all you need to do to answer the quiz’s questions is know a little bit about The Place, where we lived previously. Off you go.

Right; better start reading some of these million e-mails I’ve received while I’ve been offline.