Approximate reading time: 5 min

Last week was a tiny bit surreal, amazing, but surreal.

On Sunday I got yet another noise complaint about my tenants in South Africa. If you recall these would be the same tenants that I had to evict two weeks ago due to ongoing noise complaints.

(For pretty much the last two years.)

In fairness to my tenant, who is a young man in his early 20s, it’s not actually him making all the noise. He is a young up-and-coming sportsman and rented the flat for himself, his mother and his little brother. Unfortunately, there have been way more kids and teenagers living in the flat.

I probably would have just turned a blind eye to that were it not for all the bloody fucking noise they were making!!

I have had complaints about the children playing in the corridors and lifts, slamming doors and the teenagers sitting outside on our front door steps with groups of friends when they have been informed NUMEROUS times that this is not allowed. So, I feel for him, I think it’s pretty commendable what he has done for his family and most of the noise complaints seem to come in while he is aware on tour.

(Which in hindsight is probably why I have given him way too many chances in the last two years.)

So on Sunday evening, (7 pm, no less), I got sent an irate message from my neighbour who said that there was drilling and sawing going on in my flat and asking if I gave any permission for work to be done.

Um hell no!

I was then informed that he could see through the window that the entire kitchen sink had been dismantled and was standing against the wall.

Oh MY GOD!!!

Is he stealing my KITCHEN!!!

Needless to say, I then contacted my estate agent and asked her to find out what the hell was going on in my flat.

She forwarded the tenant’s response to me:

He would be correct.

During the tenant’s stay, he had bought a huge industrial-sized (Bloody noisy) washing machine that was never hooked up properly. The water pipe was simply left to flow into the sink which had then splashed onto my wooden counter and over time completely warped it. My lovely new contractor, Mark, had flagged this as one of the repairs he would have to do when they moved out. These repairs would have, without a doubt, had to come out of my tenant’s deposit.

So, I appreciated his making the effort, to fix what he had damaged

but still, you can’t just go chopping up people’s flats ya know!!

When my estate agent phoned him and pointed out that the kitchen sink counter needs to be very carefully matched to the rest of the kitchen countertops his simple response was:

“But I’m going to replace them all.”

So feeling a little dumbfounded I asked that all the unapproved renovations of my flat be stopped until my agent and new contractor could come and check the quality of the work being done.

My contractor, Mark messaged me the next day with photos.

“Sjoe man but he is maar doing a lekker job in there!

(Spoken with a South African twang. ‘Lekker’ = ‘Great’ )

The countertop he has put in is bloody awesome. He has bought all the wood already for the rest of the cupboards…if I were you I would just let them go ahead and finish it, your place will look beautiful when it’s done!”

First off, I found it very sweet that Mark was so honest and positive about it all…especially since my tenant has just done him out of a job. Secondly, I was blown away by the fact that my tenant was even doing this. In this day and age when you hear such horror stories about how tenants destroy flats…isn’t it nice to just hear a positive one? Even if I had kept his deposit it would have only covered about 1 third of what it would have cost me if I had redone all the counters myself.

I will admit I spent a couple of hours panicking and worrying about how this surprising ‘gift’ could backfire on me.

Was he hoping I would allow him to stay on and then refuse to leave in two months?

My dad was a man of few words but the one thing that he taught me that did stick was:

“If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.”

In fairness, to my dad….he was right. I have come very close to being scammed a couple of times throughout my years of travelling …and these words have often brought me to my senses. I like to think I am pretty vigilant these days and that I have a sturdy built-in bullshit detector thanks to my father’s wise words!

(Except of course when I am sick!!!)

But I decided last Monday that I wasnt going to ‘borrow trouble’ and worry about this.

I decided that I was going to take it as the ‘gift’ that it is and just be grateful for the money that my tenant has saved me.

Maybe sometimes in life good things just happen!

Maybe sometimes people are just kind.

(I sincerely hope I won’t have to eat my words in two months time……;-)