Move 'em in, Move 'em out, Rawhide!

Never had I felt the words of the old TV cowboy, "Rawhide" seem to apt as they do today.

Move 'em on, head 'em up,
Head 'em up, move 'em out,
Move 'em on, head 'em out Rawhide!
Set 'em out, ride 'em in
Ride 'em in, let 'em out,
Cut 'em out, ride 'em in Rawhide. 

 

(a new song for buy-to-let student landlords perhaps)

It's the beginning of September here in dear old ailing yet surviving recession hit UK and those new university students who seem to have overcome the fear of student debt, loans and tuition fees are taking up residence all over the City.  Now some with be living on campus but the vast majority it seems will be living next door to us!  I exaggerate I know,  but that is how I feel right now. 

 

We live in a terrace of modern houses with the usual array of fixtures, fittings and paper thin dividing walls that make up most of today's new builds in modern Britain.  But it seems that the old fashioned concept of "student digs" has long gone as these 21st Century future sports, therapists, musicians and actors will only accept a brand new (or nearly new) house to share with central heating, 42" TV and all the usual appliances associated with a family home.  Good luck to them is all I can say and well done for bettering yourselves.

OK, it's not their fault, well perhaps it will be, that they are going to be annoying me with their youthful exuberance and noisy comings and goings at all hours or the day and night. No, it's their landlords that are going to get the brunt of my temper tantrums when things get out of kilter.

Take our nearest house of sin as dear old Rigsby in "Rising Damp" always looked upon his lodging students in the 1970's TV sitcom, it will house six youngsters. Yes six!  Can you for one moment just imagine six teenagers, two of whom I am assured are female, living in close testosterone, oestrogen, progesterone and emotionally charged proximity?  No I can't either but I can only fear for the worst that once these future leaders of British society (OK, how can I know that) are released from parental control for the first time.

 

The next issue I have is with the very negative effect this has had on the value of our home.  This was the home where we planned to see out our days in and then near the end sell it to move somewhere smaller and perhaps better.  But our hopes are dashed by the somewhat inconsiderate actions of our former neighbours who all but "did a moonlight" to escape the noise of only THREE students next to them.  I forgot to say that in our terrace of six houses only two are owner occupied with the remaining four housing a total of 18 students. Forgive me for feeling let down.

So, our neighbours.  Having lulled us into a false sense of security telling us they were going to make some improvements to their house by adding "sound proofing" went on to drive us insane by the constant racket as the builders ripped at their house.  The owner cleared off in the day to let us suffer the racket.  Then we were told that there would be two lodgers who were nice quiet professional people who would be quiet as mice.  Hmmmmm, almost right there.

Next the lodgers vanished and then things really started to get odd.  Plants and containers vanished from the garden, a bird nesting box went, then a van turned up and furniture went.  Still nothing was said and we saw nothing of our neighbours who we thought were on holiday.  So after a swift email to them asking after their health and well being the truth was out!

"We have decided to rent the house to students".  Words failed me, I was shocked but not surprised if that can be possible. I don't think, looking back, that I trusted the people is probably why I was not surprised.  Anyway, "we knew you would be upset", yeah right!  Only upset because you didn't have the common decency just to warn us.  We didn't care what they did to the house, that's up to them.  But it was been so underhand about it that really upset us.

We were then given all sorts of sob stories which I wont bore you (or me) with here but suffice to say we were to expect four lovely polite well mannered students who would be studying music and the arts. Hah! Rubbish, we have six of the blighters crammed into what was a three bedroom house.  To make matters even worse our errant former neighbours seem to have forgotten that their quarter of a million pound investment is actually a house and a home.  The grass often reaches a foot high and their plants and shrubs nearing Brazilian rain forest proportions.  The exterior of the house, the windows and paintwork have not seen a clean in three and a half years and at one stage having got fed up with the need to email the owners asking that the grass be cut so that we don't have to look out over a pasture I took a bucket of water to the front door and washed it down.  It then took me an hour to clean the cloth and sponge I had used as they were so impregnated with filth.

So this week the first three have moved in.  We really do fear for our peace and tranquility and I wonder, sanity?   I have decided to beg some early respite from our new student neighbours by just writing to remind them them we are retired, the couple of the opposite end are workers and opposite there are families with young children and would our new neighbours make sure they have some consideration when coming and going late at night.

I live in hope that we don't have any problems and that we can sell our house and escape this madness all together and live somewhere far from a university and never trust a neighbours good words again.