Thursday 25 January 2007

Is This The Right Thing To Do?

Since we are renting the house we live in and have lived in for the past four years we have had to put up with four monthly inspections carried out by the real estate agent. Every four months over the past 4 years we have had our privacy invaded by these inspections in which the first one (which was done 6 weeks after we moved in) they pointed out a couple of small cobwebs that needed to be removed. I think it is quite obvious now that we are not the 'punch holes in the walls' kind of people and we respect and care for the property.

Other than the property damaging cobweb(!) there has really been nothing else for them to kvetch about, even today there was no problems. The real estate agent knows that we are good tenants and has even asked the landlord if we could make it 6 monthly inspections, but they said no. Even though the landlord and his wife spend every weekend up here in the small cabin just a few metres from the house and even though they come up here numerous times a week - at any minute they could just arrive out of no-where, they still said no. They made out that they would rarely be here when we first signed the lease and now at times they basically live here, which I really don't like - who wants to live with their landlord? And worse still who wants to live always under the watchful eye of the landlord?

While we were in Sydney for Ambers heart operation for 2.5 weeks the landlord decided to mow the lawn while we weren't here. The lawn was mowed by me the week before we went away and considering the lack of rain, I would imagine that it was not an 'emergency'. When we arrived home to find the lawn had been mowed, we wondered why it had been done. I told my husband that it was probably a good will gesture and that the landlord was just being helpful considering our circumstances at the time. We know that he is a snoop when we are not at home and has no problems wandering around the backyard etc and to think that the lawn was probably 3 inches long, to him would be mind boggling - he probably lost a couple of nights sleep over that!

About 2 days after we came home from Sydney I went to turn the pool filter on so we could use the pool. We had two very long outdoor extension leads joined to reach the outside power point. I plugged them into the filter and nothing happened... so I followed the first lead to the other end where the plug is... and where the second lead is supposed to be... it wasn't there. I looked in our carport to see if it had been wound up while the lawn was mowed and left somewhere, but it wasn't there. I went back to the end of the first lead where the second lead was supposed to be and laying in the garden was a one foot piece of the 'missing' extension lead... badly severed at both ends and obviously run over by the landlord while mowing the grass.

What really annoyed us was that he had not approached us to say what had happened, he had simply removed the extension lead and hoped we wouldn't notice. It was nice of him to mow the lawn for us, but I think it was pretty rude to take away the cord and say nothing. We explained what has happened to the real estate agent today and we made it really really clear we don't want this to turn into a major problem, but it has been annoying us and we felt that it wasn't the right thing to have done. If we took or damaged a $35 extension lead of his there would be a major problem and he would have no trouble bringing the topic up, infact he would come straight over and confront us about it.

I really don't know if we have done the right thing in telling the real estate agent about it or not. I know he has done the wrong thing in not saying something and trying to hide it too, but I just don't want conflict over the next few months we are here either and we know from experience he is quite a moody fellow.


What do you think? Should we have mentioned it or not?

.... Just another day ....

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