Frustration

We have a letting agency looking after our UK property, which is fine; it works well most of the time. Dealing with them remotely is not always plain sailing though. There seems to be quite a turnover of staff. New names keep sending emails about this, that and the other. Sometimes they ask you to reply to somebody else, the person who is actually dealing with the issue at hand. I am normally very organised, and with people like these, it is a must, but even I find it difficult to keep up with changes and to update my contact files. We have now had new tenants installed in the flat, and a change-over always raises issues. I just want it to be trouble-free, leaving the business in somebody's capable hands. This time it seemed to go well, the only issue being the identification of the sofa! Is it still the same sofa that we left behind? Because I cannot see how that could be taken apart and partly stored in the loft, partly under the double bed. Is it even the same bed? Have some previous tenants walked off with our furniture and replaced it with inferior quality? We don't know until the agents send us some pictures! How difficult can it be to take a few photos and email them? Frrrrustrrration!

Then there is the management company of the building. Frrrrustrrration again! Today we had a thick envelope with some letters sent to us by the letting agent. It contained a Council Tax demand, which we should not have, and a 'Final reminder before legal action' regarding unpaid fees from the management company. The letters had the London flat address on them and had been left in the hall by the leaving tenants. For more than three years the company have sent all correspondence to our German address, but now something had gone wrong. Guess what! They had a new computer system installed in the autumn and 'unfortunately all data had not been transferred, it seemed'. Monkeys! But we don't pay them peanuts. How many times have we all heard people blaming techie systems instead of human failure? There is always a person behind the keyboard, isn't there?

Maybe things would have gone better had they not had this little pop-up window on their PCs? You can't let the machines do it all, you know.