Sad Estate of Affairs

As we privileged First Worlders move through the 21st century, trivial matters become gut-wrenching experiences full of existential despair. Of these, amongst the worst is moving home, which I've just had to do, again, and I’m left with a deep sense of utter despair from the whole experience. It never gets easier.

Well, for one thing there’s the actual physical part of it. Unless you've got enough money to hire a large man or men to do it for you, there’s a lot of hard work involved. This leaves me very sore for days after, meaning that instead of unpacking I lie on the sofa and feel sorry for myself.

A condition made worse when you have to deal with trying to get your deposit back on the old place. Dealing with agencies is never made easy, as they seem to employ people who delight in making something out of nothing. As in:

“The thing is Mr Harrison, there was a small amount of dust on the top shelf of the cupboard.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, so we’ll have to get the whole flat professionally cleaned, which will cost £200.”
“Eh?”
“Also, the inventory listed a box of 115 matchsticks, of which I've noticed one has become slightly bent. The cost of replacing these will be £20…”

And so on. Anybody who’s dealt with these people before may well know exactly what I’m talking about. My advice to anybody would be to always check the inventory with intense scrutiny and take plenty of photographs of the property the second you move in.

I've long been of the mind that people who work for estate/letting agents are complete swine because life has dealt them a bum hand. Even the most down-on-their-luck alcoholic street wreck can, whilst drinking White Lightning at eight in the morning, look at themselves in a puddle of what may well be their own piss and sick and think “at least I’m not an estate agent. For that alone I think I deserve another drink”. And they’d be right to do so.

Essentially, no child ever thinks “when I grow up, I want to find ways of not giving people their deposits back. Yes, that’s the life for me”. Only a series of cruel circumstances sees a person go down that path in life. Perhaps they made a bad deal with the devil when they were young: “Oh, I really wish that girl who sits next to me in Physics would give me a hand job”, and then the dark lord appears and offers to make that dream come true, but only at a terrible price. Maybe not that day, or even in the near future, but someday they will have to become an Estate Agent. These are the kind of people we have to deal with when trying to find somewhere to live. Weak, weak people who may well be Satan's envoys on Earth.

But should we hate them? Should we whisper about them in dark corners, point at them in the street to inform our children to beware and spurn them at social gatherings? Should we not instead pity them and offer sympathy for their wretched existence? Surely they must go home every night, wash themselves with bleach and drink a bottle of Scotch to just blank out the horror of their pathetic and futile lives.

After some thought, I decide that no, we should hate the fuckers with everything we've got. Wankers the lot of them.