I’ve been asked to put away the dog bed – and even my shower gel. Surely prospective buyers should know that I’ll take all my mess with me when I leave Trying to sell a house is pretty much a once-a-decade event for me, so I shouldn’t be surprised that times have changed. When I sold my first flat in 2006, the norm was actively anti-tidy. Obviously you’d spirit away food waste and animal detritus, maybe you’d put a lid on your laundry basket, but the market was overheated; everything was nonsensically expensive. In that respect it was much like it is now, except that back then, we were still surprised and a bit baffled. Consequently, a bit of visible wear and tear was beneficial, because people felt they might be getting a bargain from a dumb seller, rather than spending 50 grand over the odds for some pristine skirting boards. Fast forward a decade, and things had changed somewhat. Everyone had got used to not being able to afford shelter, but the market was much slower, so you did have to spruce up your quarters a bit. For instance, I’d once managed to spill a triple espresso on the outside of the house, a vivid dark brown splash that no amount of weather, over the years, managed to shift. I remember arguing with the estate agent about whether or not I should get someone to paint over it – my point being, “What a silly notion, when the next people might want to paint the entire front some colour other than white,” and his view, to the contrary, being, “It’s just a bit off-putting, entering into a commercial exchange with someone who would spill coffee on their own house and never get round to painting over it. You’d wonder what else they hadn’t dealt with. Subsidence. Electrical hazard. A squirrel colony in the attic.” In retrospect I am ashamed at how slowly he had to walk me through this. Continue reading...