The future uncertain

It never rains it pours they say. Yesterday I was chatting with my housemate about the spate of bailiff notices that have been arriving with an increasing amount of capital letters, red ink and exclamation points on them. It appears that the landlord is behind in his payments and that a final warning has now been issued before the bailiffs have the right to come into the house and take out what they wish to auction.

Since the landlord does not live in the house, and my housemate does not have much in her room besides her work clothes, the objects that are likely to be taken will be mine. Amongst the pickings are my brand new mountain bike, a Macbook, cameras of different sizes and sorts and an iPod speaker console that I got for my birthday. Naturally, I don’t wish to part with any of them.

When I got to work this morning I told one of my colleagues about the most recent bailiff notice and she advised that I get my things out the house right away. Other colleagues overheard what we were talking about and agreed that it would be wise not to take any chances. Apparently after a fair number of warnings bailiffs will enter a property, take what they need to cover the debt owed and there is not much one can do about it afterwards. Having properly panicked me two colleagues then offered to help me pick up my stuff in a car so that I could store it at the school for a few days.

On the way to my house however they were stupidly excited. I am sure they were enjoying the excuse to be out of school for a while, but with my nerves frayed I was not exactly in the mood to make wise cracks and laugh with them. Perhaps they were just trying to keep me from worrying, but to me it seemed that they were simply happy not to be in my shoes, which is fair enough but irritating when you make it so obvious.

Once inside the house, they started looking about as if they were a couple of estate agents sizing the place up. They opened cupboards and doors as they wished completely disrespecting my privacy. One of them even put on a jacket that was left behind by a previous tenant, joking that it fit her perfectly and that she might as well keep it for herself. Amidst this apparent hilarity I was trying to think what to pack, what to leave and how to make sense of the whole situation.

15 minutes later I was back at school with most of my possessions hastily stuffed into suitcases and refuse bags and put into a little media room in our department. It felt strange to have everything that is of value to me in a place where there are hundreds of young imbeciles who given half the chance would rip and smash and break whatever they did not want to keep for themselves. The door would just have to be left unlocked for a moment for this to happen.

I realised at this point that it would probably be safer to take my chances with the bailiffs, so I called them and explained that I was merely a tenant and that the things in the house mainly belong to me. The bailiff I spoke to noted my name and said that should someone knock on the door they would have this information on record. I asked the bailiff if they could force an entry into the house when I was away and to my relief he said they could not.
 
Somewhat more appeased I then looked up what rights one has should a bailiff come knocking. Essentially they cannot enter forcefully but they could climb through a window or enter through an unlocked door. Should they gain entry however there are many things that they are prohibited from taking like clothing, bedding, tools, kitchen appliances and things that are needed for general day-to-day living.
 
So I may as well bring my stuff back home tomorrow if someone can assist me again, and simply find an alternative place for my electronic things, which is probably all the bailiffs would go after anyway.
 
Unfortunately the drama does not end there: More mail arrived to say that the landlord is now so far behind in his mortgage payments that the house will be likely repossessed in due course. I informed the landlord about the urgency of the mail that is arriving for him but he does not seem overly concerned and is clearly not providing a forwarding address to the people concerned. Perhaps he feels that he is so heavily in debt that he might as well just collect rent from his tenants for as long as he can before he loses the house altogether.

And so it is that my living arrangements are now as vague and uncertain as my work. There is so much that I know I am not being told and yet it affects me directly. The stress of not knowing what is going on and having no idea what will happen next is actually starting to weigh heavily on me. In all my life I have never worried about things like having a roof over my head or having enough money to get by - this is a first. It is also a first feeling this insecure about my place in the world and about what I have to offer.

All things considered my experience of England so far has been an utter nightmare. Nancy says that the good thing is that things are more likely to get better from here on because they can’t seem to get much worse. I do hope she is right.