Hello there and Happy Easter to you all.

I talked yesterday about my time as a rents officer in the 1990's, and some of the evictions I did then well I've remembered another one I did, that you may like to hear about.

I had an eviction coming up which should have been a walk in the park, it was a marriage break up  and the lady of the house had left and taken the children with her, the gentleman was a long distance lorry driver, who had a new lady friend and wasn't bothered about losing the house - it should have been a case of just going through the motion, until the day before when his mother- in - law contacted me to say that the child's rabbit had been left in an upstairs bedroom - he had given her a set of keys to go and fetch the rabbit, but she was a bit nervous about going there on her own and would I meet her at the property whilst she went in.

I said no problem - as we hadn't formerly got possession, I couldn't enter the property but I would stand outside whilst she went in and retrieved the rabbit. I met her outside the property and she opened up and went in, I could see that he had removed all his belongings through the open door.

She went in to the property in a blue dress and went up the stairs and when she came out she was in a brown dress. The rabbit had had fleas, when it was put in the bedroom, the heat and the nice warm carpet had caused the fleas to multiple and she was covered. She looked at me and  just said "Look at my dress!"

They used to teach us that if we felt threatened at any time to back step away from the threat - I back stepped all the way down the garden path so fast -  I was out of there and gone before any of the fleas could jump from her to me.

I knew that the rabbit was safe, but I'd still got to go into the property the next day and accept it back from the bailiff! So on the morning of the eviction, I forewarned the bailiff what to expect and I turned up with the locksmith and a very kind gentleman from disinfestation - he was all kitted out with the spray tank on his back. The locksmith got the door open and we then pushed the disinfestation man through the door and told him to just check all the rooms for us as he was spraying.

We then removed ourselves to the end of the garden path and the bailiff said "I think that this ones OK don't you - I think I can hand possession over to you now and be gone" and I said "Yes give me  the papers and I'll sign them and be gone myself"

We left the locksmith to tell the disinfestation man to shut the door behind him and left - it was the only eviction I ever did where I didn't go into the property and take formal possession and it certainly was the quickest one  that I ever did.

Comming up to twent years on - I'll always remember that nice caring little lady standing there, holding the rabbit, saying "Look at my dress"


Speak again soon

Byee