So here we are, onto number 4 on the landlord count and I've only lived in Dorset and been lodging for 14 months!
As mentioned they seemed a lovely Christian couple with 2 dogs and there was mention of a small holding with farm animals as well, perfect as I love animals! Once again the rent was just ridiculous for a room so....
A small aside. When you do not work due to having a debilitating and chronic illness people only see the 3 words DO NOT WORK. As I was slowly learning, this means "hello, my name is Helen, I am willing to be blackmailed to be your personal slave and will work for nothing".
So, with the rent being ridiculously high I was told, not offered but blatantly told that I could do gardening, housework, cooking, look after the dogs and the farm animals when needed, with no notice because hey, I don't work and therefore must do absolutely nothing all day!
The set up was overly friendly and I could see trouble on the horizon but they did seem very friendly. I was told that they will cook for me and we can simply take turns and I can cook for them a few nights a week, I actually love cooking so I didn't mind this, but at the time my M.E and Fibro was really suffering due to all the stress and house moves, this means that some days I can barely manage to throw a frozen ready meal into a microwave. The one thing you sadly learn very quickly about this illness is that your reliability to do anything is thrown straight out of the window, over a cliff and then it floats out to sea probably never to be seen again.
The first few months floated past beautifully, we all got on very well, I was doing chores for them in return for a slightly reduced rent and we became friendly and they even invited me to go grocery shopping with them to save me driving, very kind!
There was a problem though. They had money issues, this is a running theme I was starting to see with landlords with rooms to rent. They kept buying these awful wrecks of cars off eBay and they kept breaking. One day she asked to borrow my car. I said that I wasn't happy because she would only have 3rd party insurance. Wow. The face. Here we go, 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... "after everything we have fone for you, you would see me lose my job because you won't lend me your car, you don't even work or do anything, maybe you should find somewhere else to live". Yep, there it is, blackmail.
Watching someone drive off in your car (that you love) for the day when you don't want them to and have been blackmailed into it is a horrible and nasty feeling.
Sadly things got worse and worse from then. One of the dogs was very old and struggling. They would spend hundreds of pounds during the week on alcohol and online gambling sites but they didn't take the dog to the vet, instead she was crushing up paractemol and putting it in the dog's food. My heart was breaking. There are 2 types of situation which I will intervene with, 1 of them is child abuse the other is animal abuse because if I didn't try and do something I couldn't live with myself, no matter what the cost to me.
The old dog went downhill quickly and still she did not take the dog to the vet, it took so much pestering from me for her to do it, maybe I am in the wrong but I cannot watch this happen and do nothing! Eventually the vets trip came, he was very ill, possibly cancer but they didn't want to pay for any tests or scans so it was back to poisoning the dog with human medication. That took a quick toll and the dogs kidneys failed. They left that poor dog to wee out blood for several days before they had him put to sleep. They then acted hard done by and wanted all the sympathy in the world for their loss. Despicable people.
If that wasn't bad enough the farm animals came next. A pig with a disabling hernia, 4 other pigs all with overgrown feet and tusks, 2 sheep sweating to death in summer with overgrown and unshaun coats and all of them lacking food, water and proper shelter. It was always me who stepped in to say "that needs doing". It got so bad in the end that I rang the RSPCA and DEFRA. She got into trouble so had to take action, good!! It wasn't good enough for the pig with the hernia who spent weeks in miserable agony and was eventually put to sleep having not moved for 3 days. People like this should be banned from keeping animals and then kept an eye on to make sure they don't break that rule!
They kept intervening in my life and private issues, trying to get me to work and psycho anylising my relationship with my boyfriend. The landlord was a weirdo, I have nothing against Christianity but he spoke in a patronising manner as if he was Jesus Christ himself, yes, Jesus Christ the animal abuser! You see my problem with this.
Things got pretty unbearable in the end, I was driving her to work because reading between the lines of her analysis of me I was afterall a workshy scumbag who was not contributing to society and should therefore be her personal slave so my existence was worthwhile. I hated the pair of them at this point. Christmas came, their present to me was an extra £25 a month off the rent, New Year came and my present was eviction. So the hunt for landlord 5 began!
I was almost at the end of my 1 months eviction notice when I found a suitable sounding room to rent advert. I figured a single person was definitely better than a couple and preferably another woman. This was spot on, a nice village which I knew well, close enough to my boyfriend, shops and doctors, a single lady with a cat. I had my own parking space and there was a nice garden. I rang and arranged an interview. One small issue, the rent for rooms to rent was now bordering criminal. I'd somehow managed to get a reduction by offering my slavery services so figured I would at least try that again!
On the day of the interview I spoke to my good friend, we had a giggle about the ladies name, clearly not her birth name, we thought she might be a bit of a hippy.
I turned up a little bit early, she was in her late 40's but had rapunzel length blonde hair, she had a very friendly smile and was indeed very airy fairy hippy like! I liked her, she was quirky!
We had a lovely chat and then the inevitable question came, "where do you work". The awkward answer I usually give whilst staring at the floor was given and then I had the surprise of my life. She did not work as she suffered from... ME and Fibromyaglia. Unbelievable! In her own words "it was meant to be". We came to yet another gardening and housework to reduce the rent agreement and I had a moving date.
I got 'home' feeling really happy and was looking forward to telling dumb and dumber I had found somewhere to move to. I didn't get that far as they launched into some kind of weird intervention thing about what I should do with my life. I said nothing, just smiled. So on the next Saturday while they were out, probably plotting my demise I moved out without telling them. A small victory.
