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Interior Life of an Estate Agent - part 15

I had an odd visit today. Never mind that the houses that we sell are at the lower end of the market, but I was unprepared.

I meet a young couple buying their first home in an ex-heavy industry area. It’s a tiny terraced cottage and, when I open the door, I take a breath and try not to move far inside. Obviously someone very old has recently died here. The brown, yellow, and orange wildly swirling carpet is an inch deep in filth and dark, sticky looking stains, and it smells.

I try hard not to appear as nauseated as I am feeling and keep looking out of the window where the sun is shining and I can see an apple tree and a line of washing blowing in the Spring breeze.

As I gaze outwards a fat, ugly bulldog waddles past, onto the grass beyond the window and squats down to dump his load onto the garden. I now remember being warned at the office that we had a place on the books where the neighbours’ dogs use the garden of the property for a toilet whilst it’s empty, and I wonder if the young buyers have spotted the stinking mess all over their grass. They are very happy measuring up inside however, and the father, who has come along too, says that our photographs of the interior don’t do the place justice. I look at him twice to see if he is trying to get a rise out of me but he means it.

A noise outside draws my attention back to the window. The neighbours are all outside and there is a ferocious snarling. The tall, and well built man from next door is wrestling a Doberman past the window but it is so huge I am sure it must be a Rottweiler. This has to be the most heavily muscular Doberman I have ever seen, and it is straining against him as it also makes its way to empty its bowel contents onto the grass. I’m getting really anxious now and don’t know whether I should alert the young couple to the dangers of living with a small baby next door to this charming pet.

When we step outside though, the next door neighbours not only have the most charming smiles and friendly faces that I have seen in a long while, but their children are the same.

“Ah, new neighbours!” They beam, and the young couple beam back. Next thing they are all happily engaged in animated conversation and I am dismissed with a wave of their hands. I almost trip over in my haste to get back to the car; I'm not from round 'ere.
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