102) Looking for a House
When everyone had gone after our Christmas holiday we had to try and settle down to work again. My ex boss Frantic Fred asked me if I would do some work for him. He had just got a job with an insurance company and needed to get someone to make appointments over the phone for him. He was just starting up himself so could not afford a salary but offered me a commission. I did not have anything else to do at the time so I agreed. I was not very good at it though. I found I could only make appointments with people who were very lonely and loved to have someone to talk to. They were very pleased to have Fred come round for a little chat, they could tell him all their problems and pass the whole morning away but they were not really interested in buying any insurance. I made dozens of calls each day and Fred paid for them but I made very few appointments and Fred did not manage to sell any insurance from them. I did that for about two frustrating months but then both Fred and I gave up the insurance industry, it was not for us.
The 12 month lease on our house was coming to an end and our landlady had told us that she was putting the house on the market so would not be renewing our lease. We agreed that we could stay in the house on a month-to-month basis but would have to leave once a buyer was found. We were not too worried as it was a funny old house and we did not think anyone would pay the price that they were asking for it.
At that time my Mom offered us a very generous gift, which would make it possible to buy ourselves a house. I remember she said that the gift had no strings attached but she would rather we bought a house that was not as isolated as the one we were living in, but that it was up to us. We did think about buying the Sunbird Road house but decided against it, as we did not think it was a good buy. After we got the offer we decided to have a drive around Hillcrest and Waterfall one Sunday to see the houses that were having “open days”, just to see what was on offer and what we could buy with the money once it came.
The houses in Hillcrest were rather beyond our price but there were houses in Waterfall that were within our budget. At one of the houses we viewed we met a salesman who did not even bother to take our names and address but gave us a list of other houses in the area that were for sale. We went from one to the other but did not see anything that we really liked. One of the houses he told us about was what is called in South Africa a ‘timber frame’ house. This method of building is not popular in South Africa but had been accepted by the Waterfall council so there were more here than in other suburbs. The method of building is to erect a timber frame for the house walls and clad the outside with a single layer of bricks and the internal walls are made from sheets of board. I said they were like Noddy’s house because once the frame was finished the roof could be put on. I remember when I was very little and read all Enid Blyton’s books about Noddy and Big Ears, when Noddy was building his house he suggested to Big Ears that they put the roof on first so that they would not get wet if it rained before they had finished. The timber frame house that the salesman had sent us to see was a mess; even Noddy could have done better. Walls were crooked, window frames were lopsided, things did not line up and the plumbing had a lot of what looked like garden hose connecting tapes to the main water line. The house was empty and looked very neglected but we thought that the only thing to do with it would be to knock it down and start again, so even though it was cheap we decided we did not want it.
Most of the houses on the list that the salesman had given us were empty and locked up so we were only able to view them from the outside. One of the houses that we went to see was being shown as an open house by a rival estate agent and we did not know what the legal situation was. We thought that we could have a quick look around and then contact the first salesman if we were interested. Once we were in the house the lady who was on duty there came and greeted us in a nice friendly manner. She introduced herself as Margaret Crawford and asked what we were looking for. We told her that we had been given the address of this house by another salesman and so we did not know what the situation would be if we decided to buy. She confirmed that if we bought that house or any that had been on the salesman’s list the commission legally went to him. We felt that this would be rather unfair as Margaret was much more helpful than he had been. It turned out not to be a problem as this house was very large and expensive, well out of our price range so there was no way we were going to buy it, (A fact that the first salesman should have known as we had told him what our limits were.) Margaret told us that she had other houses that we could look at and that she would ring us during the week to make an appointment. She asked us to just tell her if any of the ones she took us to were ones that we had been shown before so that there would be no legal wrangling about commission later. As we had just come from seeing that terrible timber frame house Jonny told Margaret that we were not interested in timber frame. We wanted a conventional brick and tile home and so not to bother showing us anything else.
The next morning Margaret rang and made arrangements for me to view houses with her. Jonny had to carry on working so could not come but I had a lovely afternoon looking around quite a number of houses that we thought we would be able to afford. I remember one in particular that Margaret had made an appointment for us to see. We knew that no one would be at home but arrangements had been made for us to gain entry. As we drove up to the house we could see that the garden was immaculately kept. There were no weeds, the grass was neatly cut, the paths were swept and clean, there were no dead flowers on the bushes and not a thing was out of place. We went into the house and the difference was like chalk and cheese, it was a tip. There were books and papers all over the place, children’s toys strewn all over the floor and the dinning room table was piled high with things. Laundry baskets of clean cloths awaiting ironing seemed to be in every room and there were little piles of dirty cloths in every corner. There were two bathrooms and both baths still held someone’s dirty bath water. No one had put away the records they had been listening to and the videos were on the floor too. After the tidy garden it was a huge shock and I asked Margaret “What makes me think that this house is being sold because the owners are getting divorced?” Margaret confirmed that I was right, you just could not imagine a man who kept his garden so tidy being able to put up with a wife who’s housekeeping was to say the least ‘casual’. I could imagine the wife tossing things all over the place just to annoy the man that by now she must believe was compulsive about tidiness. It was sad to know that the marriage was ending but one could only smile at the idea that this couple could ever have thought that they could make a go of their relationship.
Margaret and I looked at about four houses that afternoon and when we had finished I went to our post office box to collect the mail. There was a letter from my Mom to tell me that she would not be able to send us the money after all. Someone, the bank manager I think, had just told her, that she would not be allowed to send the money to us. It was rather disappointing but we had not really got used to the idea of owning our own home so we were not too upset.
The 12 month lease on our house was coming to an end and our landlady had told us that she was putting the house on the market so would not be renewing our lease. We agreed that we could stay in the house on a month-to-month basis but would have to leave once a buyer was found. We were not too worried as it was a funny old house and we did not think anyone would pay the price that they were asking for it.
At that time my Mom offered us a very generous gift, which would make it possible to buy ourselves a house. I remember she said that the gift had no strings attached but she would rather we bought a house that was not as isolated as the one we were living in, but that it was up to us. We did think about buying the Sunbird Road house but decided against it, as we did not think it was a good buy. After we got the offer we decided to have a drive around Hillcrest and Waterfall one Sunday to see the houses that were having “open days”, just to see what was on offer and what we could buy with the money once it came.
The houses in Hillcrest were rather beyond our price but there were houses in Waterfall that were within our budget. At one of the houses we viewed we met a salesman who did not even bother to take our names and address but gave us a list of other houses in the area that were for sale. We went from one to the other but did not see anything that we really liked. One of the houses he told us about was what is called in South Africa a ‘timber frame’ house. This method of building is not popular in South Africa but had been accepted by the Waterfall council so there were more here than in other suburbs. The method of building is to erect a timber frame for the house walls and clad the outside with a single layer of bricks and the internal walls are made from sheets of board. I said they were like Noddy’s house because once the frame was finished the roof could be put on. I remember when I was very little and read all Enid Blyton’s books about Noddy and Big Ears, when Noddy was building his house he suggested to Big Ears that they put the roof on first so that they would not get wet if it rained before they had finished. The timber frame house that the salesman had sent us to see was a mess; even Noddy could have done better. Walls were crooked, window frames were lopsided, things did not line up and the plumbing had a lot of what looked like garden hose connecting tapes to the main water line. The house was empty and looked very neglected but we thought that the only thing to do with it would be to knock it down and start again, so even though it was cheap we decided we did not want it.
Most of the houses on the list that the salesman had given us were empty and locked up so we were only able to view them from the outside. One of the houses that we went to see was being shown as an open house by a rival estate agent and we did not know what the legal situation was. We thought that we could have a quick look around and then contact the first salesman if we were interested. Once we were in the house the lady who was on duty there came and greeted us in a nice friendly manner. She introduced herself as Margaret Crawford and asked what we were looking for. We told her that we had been given the address of this house by another salesman and so we did not know what the situation would be if we decided to buy. She confirmed that if we bought that house or any that had been on the salesman’s list the commission legally went to him. We felt that this would be rather unfair as Margaret was much more helpful than he had been. It turned out not to be a problem as this house was very large and expensive, well out of our price range so there was no way we were going to buy it, (A fact that the first salesman should have known as we had told him what our limits were.) Margaret told us that she had other houses that we could look at and that she would ring us during the week to make an appointment. She asked us to just tell her if any of the ones she took us to were ones that we had been shown before so that there would be no legal wrangling about commission later. As we had just come from seeing that terrible timber frame house Jonny told Margaret that we were not interested in timber frame. We wanted a conventional brick and tile home and so not to bother showing us anything else.
The next morning Margaret rang and made arrangements for me to view houses with her. Jonny had to carry on working so could not come but I had a lovely afternoon looking around quite a number of houses that we thought we would be able to afford. I remember one in particular that Margaret had made an appointment for us to see. We knew that no one would be at home but arrangements had been made for us to gain entry. As we drove up to the house we could see that the garden was immaculately kept. There were no weeds, the grass was neatly cut, the paths were swept and clean, there were no dead flowers on the bushes and not a thing was out of place. We went into the house and the difference was like chalk and cheese, it was a tip. There were books and papers all over the place, children’s toys strewn all over the floor and the dinning room table was piled high with things. Laundry baskets of clean cloths awaiting ironing seemed to be in every room and there were little piles of dirty cloths in every corner. There were two bathrooms and both baths still held someone’s dirty bath water. No one had put away the records they had been listening to and the videos were on the floor too. After the tidy garden it was a huge shock and I asked Margaret “What makes me think that this house is being sold because the owners are getting divorced?” Margaret confirmed that I was right, you just could not imagine a man who kept his garden so tidy being able to put up with a wife who’s housekeeping was to say the least ‘casual’. I could imagine the wife tossing things all over the place just to annoy the man that by now she must believe was compulsive about tidiness. It was sad to know that the marriage was ending but one could only smile at the idea that this couple could ever have thought that they could make a go of their relationship.
Margaret and I looked at about four houses that afternoon and when we had finished I went to our post office box to collect the mail. There was a letter from my Mom to tell me that she would not be able to send us the money after all. Someone, the bank manager I think, had just told her, that she would not be allowed to send the money to us. It was rather disappointing but we had not really got used to the idea of owning our own home so we were not too upset.
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