The Continuing Adventures Of Your Own Personal Jesus

Day in and day out all we hear from different people are complaints about the rising costs of rental properties in and around our fine city. I can understand this and also appreciate the difficulty in finding suitable rental at an affordable price – after all rental has gone through the roof and yet wages and benefits haven’t increased at the same rate to keep up with it all. Most real estate agencies and tenancy bodies refute this though and will claim that rental increases with the CPI and no higher. Let me tell you right now that they're all lying and here’s your proof. In 1995 I moved into a large two bedroom property in a suburb just outside of the city. When I moved in the rent was $110 per week, when I moved out in mid 1998 the rent had increased to $125 per week. I was partially working and partially living off the goodwill of our Federal siblings at the time at a rate of around $320 per fortnight with some rental assistance, bringing the total up to around $375 per fortn...

“ You know where you are? You in the office baby, you gonna die! ” Word travels fast in all Government jobs so although these events have yet to happen in the department where I work I fully expect that eventually some bright spark in upper level management will swoop on this as a great idea indeed. I’m also aware that by writing about this someone might seize on the events and introduce them anyway, the downside of that, for the person seizing that is, is that they’ll have to admit that they not only read this blog but also take notice. There’s people in the field where I work who’d rather admit to paedophilia than that. Over at our Federal chums they’re attempting to solve the age old problem of internet usage and productivity. Instead of merely dumping dud workers who sit there all day surfing the likes of Facebook and MySpace, they’re looking at a blanket solution, roughly translated, “Let’s penalise everyone in order to get the few slackers that we want.” The problem being tha...

Funnily enough the worst part of attempting to evict disruptive tenants doesn’t come from physical eviction, nor does it come from any investigation, threat or physical actions. It comes from the one section that should be assisting us but instead throws up multiple roadblocks in the name of ‘fairness’. You might have guessed who I’m talking about – the Residential Tenancies Tribunal. The RTT was set up to act as an independent body to oversee tenancy issues in any state, county or country where housing is available to rent. In effect they’re there to protect tenants from a landlords who might see fit to jack the rent up or sexually harass them. It’s also designed to protect landlords from tenants, where needed. It’ll step into disputes and adjudicate, but only if asked to. It has the power to make an order and see that the order is carried out. All orders are legally binding and the cases are overseen by all aspects of the legal fraternity, judges, barristers – you name it, it’s a g...

I had to laugh, eventually. One of the perks of having a rich job history is that I run into pals from different industries from time to time, some of whom read this blog. One of my pals works in the print media and recently I sat down for some coffee and we had a quick and quiet chat in the shadow of a building, inside of which sat one of the self-important demi-Gods who believe that not only do they make a difference to the blue rinse set, but that they are the most important people in the world, nay - the UNIVERSE - today. God love 'em all. If nothing else they are entertaining. PAL: "So, mate, your blog, damn it's funny." ME: "I hope you mean funny ha-ha and not funny jeez that's shit." PAL: "Weeelllll...nah, seriously. What made me laugh the most is how amazed you get about the wankers in there," he said, jerking a thumb behind him, "I'd have thought you knew the media well enough by now, after all you're still in, albeit ...

“I bet you fucking love your job, don’t you arsehole?” It wasn’t a rhetorical question; at least I didn’t take it that way. After the police had escorted the waste of valuable oxygen into the back of a paddy wagon I thought about what was posed. Do I love my job? To answer that I needed to go back and review what I wanted to be in life, what I wanted to do with my life and that would lead me to an accurate answer. I’ve never really known what I wanted to be. If you asked me at the age of about 5, when I was first asked, I’d have probably replied that I wanted to be a firetruck. Not a fireman, but the vehicle itself. I grew out of that about the same time as Marc Bolan got into a mini and met a tree. Eventually I graduated to wanting to be a fireman but I developed an entirely rational fear of being burnt to death after seeing the Poseidon Adventure and Bambi. So you can blame Irwin Allen and Walt Disney for beating that one out of me. I’m sure I’m not the only person over the age of ...

They were the best of friends. They didn't live next door to each other, nowhere near. In fact a large black car park separated their houses but this didn't matter. They hadn't known each other long, and wouldn't get to know each other for any great length of time, a mere two years. That didn't matter either. They were happy in each others company and appeared to get along very well. And why wouldn't they? They both came from similar backgrounds. The young man, not yet 40, who had a partially self-inflicted hard life and who was busy trying to deal with his demons, along with a serious Hep C problem and assorted issues that a long life spent injecting drugs provide. The older man who'd also spent a life wrestling with the white powder devil and the lifestyle it brings, who had forgotten more than most people would ever wrestle with in regards to ethics. They had a lot in common indeed. They'd spend long nights together, talking about everything and not...

Part of my weekly job involves me going out to large flat groups and just sitting there in the hopes that something might happen, or that someone might want to come in and talk about something more than the stench that cat urine gives off in the summer, or those pesky neighbours, you know the ones I mean, those people (or as we now say across the board, " Those people? What? People from Salisbury ?"), the latter always reminds me of the bigot in Love Thy Neighbour who I am now convinced is one of our tenants as he constantly calls about the problem's he's having with various 'darkies'. I put it to him last week, "Do you think that you might be contributing to the problem?" Silence. Come on down Snowflake! A few weeks back I had the joy of spending a couple of hours in a small unit, waiting for something to happen. The police came to arrest a tenant, that was fun, but sadly the guy in question wasn't home, so it was over as soon as it began. ...

Nice day, sun shining, drive past...oh dear. Have to stop, check some details and wander up the driveway and knock on the door. It's a simple question, but seriously, I've never asked it before. ME: "May I ask why you've got clothes hanging off tree branches in your front yard?" T: "Well where else am I supposed to hang my washing out to dry?" ME: "Perhaps you could use the clothes line out the back? That's why we install them." T: "Don't be stupid. That's where my boyfriend hangs his car parts when he spray paints them." ME: "Silly me then. Why is there a television out here in the middle of the lawn?" T: "If you know of a better place for a broken TV I'd love to hear it." ME: "Perhaps the dump? Or the bin?" T: "Isn't it against the law to throw out TVs?" ME: "Not that I'm aware of. I do know it's against our policies for you to have one on your front l...

I couldn't help myself. I know I shouldn't do it as it only frustrates me when I do. But like a moth being drawn towards a flame I found myself sitting in a car listening to the morning radio. Today's topic? Same as yesterdays, same as tomorrow, same as last month. I'm sorry Mr Parslow, but the record's stuck the record's stuck the record's stuck the record's stuck the record's stuck the record's stuck the record's stuck the record's stuckBRRRRRRPPPPPPZZZZZZZZZTTTTT Sorry. But that's how it feels sometimes. Today's rant, same as previous days, revolved around our utter inability to address the serious issue of disruptive tenants. You see, according to the 'announcer'* and his panel of 'experts', we don't do enough to assist those tenants who have the unfortunate experience of living next door to the Alans of the world. We sit in 'ivory towers' drinking 'tea' and just basically 'laze about...

Following up from my previous entry. I spoke to a guy the other day and we discussed the rental crisis, in particular the concept of rental auctions. "But," he said, "this has been around for decades." "I agree," I replied, "housing has been going downhill for about the last twelve years or so, but rental auctions are a relatively new thing." He was a bit puzzled. For the past six or so years he's had to compete in an open auction to secure rental accommodation and as such that's all he now knows. He's been doing it so long that it's now second nature. He fails to see a way out of all of this. "Don't compete," I told him, "just withdraw from the process." "Not that simple," he replied, "you see it's easy for you, you know what to do and say. However when you're faced with sleeping in the parklands or getting a place then you do what you need to do." It was futile. He pointed ou...

So you want to rent, or you need to rent but are finding it impossible to find a place? You're now walking the streets wondering why landlords and real estate agents have to be such pricks. So what do you have to do in order to secure a decent rental property? Let me tell you, it isn't that difficult. And now I'm going to make it a lot easier with my Few Simple Rules To Renting. You read this and follow the rules and not only will you be in a place so fast your head will oscillate, but you'll be wondering why you were so worried in the first place. RULE 1] BE REALISTIC ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT AND CAN AFFORD Now this is important. You have to be totally realistic with what you want and what you can afford. What you want will probably not be what you can afford, so you're going to have to work a bit to find that middle ground. We all want to live in the CBD, in a four bedroom rooftop penthouse but the facts are that you're not likely to find such a property for und...

Remember those tv advertisements that ran over the past few years about Violence Against Women? I'm not sure if they're still on the idiot box, but they were powerful indictments on how women are frequently bashed and raped in domestic situations. Strong stuff. They offered up a number of solutions and alternatives for women who needed to flee abusers. The tag line was: "Violence Against Women? Australia says no!" Great weren't they? I hated them. With a passion. Thought that they were not only demeaning but also ignorant and insulting. Why? Because they put forward an ostrich approach to domestic violence - the way the ads were presented domestic violence and sexual abuse only happens against women. men are immune. They're all superman when it comes to these kinds of things. Men don't get bashed, or raped, only women do. I always thought that the ads should have gone further and shown men in situations of domestic violence and ran the proper tag lin...