A Jar of Cockroaches for the Council... With Compliments

My first council flat in Camberwell, south London, wasn't exactly what you'd call a dream home. It was a two-bedroom flat in a crumbling tower block that looked as though it had been built in a hurry and neglected ever since. If the council had been honest, they'd have called the place "Asbestos Towers." 

It didn't take long to discover we weren't the only residents here. Every evening, just as the lights went down, the cockroaches made their appearance. They weren't the occasional stray insect you'd squash with a slipper. These were an organised gang. They marched confidently across the kitchen worktops, on single file, very regimented & disappeared into the cupboards and cracks within seconds and scattered only when you switched the light on. It was as if they were paying the rent and we were the unwanted lodgers.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

My first council flat in Camberwell, South London, wasn't exactly what you'd call a dream home. It was a two bedroom flat in a crumbling tower block that looked as though it had been built in a hurry and neglected ever since. It didn't take long to discover we weren't the only residents here. Every evening, just as the lights went down, the cockroaches made their appearance. They weren't the occasional stray insect who'd squash with a slipper. They were an organized gang. They marched confidently across the kitchen worktops on single file, very regimented, and disappeared into the cupboards and cracks within seconds, and scattered only when you switched the light on. It was as if they were paying the rent, and we were the unwanted lodgers. Normally I might have moaned a little, sprayed a bit of insect killer around, and just got on with life. But this wasn't just about us anymore. I had a young baby, and the thought of those filthy little creatures crawling around, especially where she slept, fed and played, was enough to make my blood boil. The council's answer was the usual one. Fill in a form, wait your turn, and someone would eventually come around and take a look. But we can't give you a firm time now. Eventually, that just wasn't good enough. The cockroaches just weren't going away, and me waiting was no longer a viable option. If the council wouldn't act quickly, I decided I needed to give them a reason to act a little faster. After spending more than a year squatting in a derelict flat in the back streets of Peckham, no heating or hot water, which I can assure you was more than a bit of a challenge, I was finally offered my own two bedroom flat in a bleak tower block on Windham Road, Camberwell. In hindsight, cockroach apartments would have been a far more realistic name for the place. The day I went to view the place didn't seem too bad. It clearly needed a good cleanup and a lick of paint, but compared with the unsecured property I'd been living in, it felt like a major improvement. Most importantly, I was no longer an illegal occupier. For the first time in over a year, I had somewhere I could legitimately call home. Looking back, I somehow managed to ignore the stained floors, the tired communal areas, the broken windows on the staircase, and the smelly lifts, as some residents appeared to treat as both a public toilet and an art gallery. Not that it made much difference, because the lifts spent more time out of order than they did moving. On the rare occasion they sprang into life, climbing aboard felt like buying a raffle ticket. You never knew whether you'd reach your floor or end up waiting for the fire brigade to come and fish you out. Despite all of that, the flat still felt like an improvement. In hindsight, I can't help thinking that luck had played a far bigger part than judgment in choosing my new home. Then again, when you're desperate to get out of one place, almost anywhere else feels like a step up in the right direction. Nevertheless, this was a legitimate council tenancy. To me, it felt as though my name had been carved into the front of the rent book. In stark contrast to my earlier situation, where I had lived with no security whatsoever, I now stood on solid ground for the first time in my life. Plus, I now had tenancy rights. Inside my rent book was the tenancy agreement. I poured over every word, reading it from cover to cover, not just once, mind you, but twice, then one more time, just for luck, determined to familiarize myself with every clause, every condition, and every paragraph, searching for any loopholes along the way. If the council intended to play by the rule book, then I was absolutely determined to know it even better than they did. More than once, it proved remarkably useful to quote their own rules and regulations back at them. Page 17, paragraph four, clearly states it was a great tool for disagreement. Before long, I found myself back at the housing office, again dealing with the very same housing officer that I'd seen before. We were almost on first name terms. By then they knew exactly who I was, and I got a distinct impression their guard was always up, just in case I tried to pull a fast one. The security seemed a bit more obvious when I had arrived. They might not have been the sharpest knives in the drawer, but they certainly weren't fools either, so they were always on the lookout for me. Before long, I'd learned how to navigate not only the system, but more importantly, the people who worked in it. Eventually we reached the stage where everyone was supposedly on first name terms. I would cheerfully greet them by their first names, much to their obvious discomfort, a little joke that amused me far more than it did them. They, however, invariably continued to address me by my surname. It was a subtle but constant reminder of who they believed was in charge. Only once the ice had been broken would I casually introduce the real reason for my visit, slipping it into the conversation when everyone seemed relaxed and in a good mood. I soon discovered that people are much more willing to help when they don't feel they're being confronted or people being rude to them. After thoroughly examining the tenancy agreement, I came across a rule the council took extremely seriously. No subtenants allowed. As someone who prides themselves on following the rules to the latter, you can imagine my shock when, during an unusually scorching British summer, a thriving colony of cockroaches moved into my flat. While most people were heading off on package holidays to chase the sun, these enterprising insects discovered their own ideal retreat right in my kitchen and bathroom, especially anywhere there was warm pipe work. I soon christened them the cockroach squatters. The younger cockroaches raced across the worktops with unmistakable confidence, behaving as though they owned the place. The older ones wandered about slowly and deliberately, as if they'd earned a lifetime past to roam wherever they pleased. Then there were the teenagers, forever huddled together in little gangs, disappearing beneath the skirting board, or squeezing beneath the little cracks around the woodwork the moment anyone switched on a light. As for the youngsters, there seemed to be hundreds of them. Just when I thought I'd seen the last of the brood, another tiny small army would emerge from another gap, as though answering the school bell at the end of playtime. Living with this unruly horde felt less like sharing a home and more like hosting an unwanted family reunion, one that showed absolutely no intention of ending. The cockroaches had claimed the heating cupboard as their headquarters, a snug retreat that in their world probably qualified as a five star hotel. Then all the relatives taking up residency in the bathroom, their social life seemed to thrive. They only ventured out after dark, transforming my hallway into their own exclusive nightclub. As a chronic insomniac, four o'clock in the morning was a normal bedtime for me. Night after night I'd shuffle through the darkened kitchen, only to hear that unmistakable crunch beneath my feet. It sounded like walking across a carpet of rice krispies, except these rice crispies scattered in every direction the moment I switched on the light. I'd lost count of how many times I'd reported the infestation to the council. Predictably there were only two chances of anything being done, slim and none. Their response was always the same. We've referred the matter to environmental health. They'll be in touch. But guess what? They never did. Days turned into weeks, then into months, and the only visitors to my flat were the bleeding cockroaches. Their numbers grew so rapidly that I started to wonder if they'd been officially recognized as tenants. I half expected the council to send them their own tenancy agreement, or council tax roach bill, or in them days, I think it was called poll tax from memory. Whenever I tried to phone environmental health, the line was always engaged, or if it did ring, nobody ever answered. You couldn't even leave a message. It was so frustrating. I couldn't even find out where their offices were. Otherwise, I'd have happily turned up in person and pestered them face to face until someone took any notice. By then, my daughter was about a year old, and at that wonderful age where crawling had become her favourite pastime, she was into absolutely everything. There was simply no stopping her adventurous little explorations, which made the thought of cockroaches roaming freely around the flat even more worrying. I certainly didn't need to waste money shopping for toys. She already had plenty of fascinating little things to chase around the flat. The only problem was they were dirty, brown, hard shelled, had six legs, and disappeared under the skirting board whenever anyone got too close. I don't think I was being unreasonable here, in expecting the council to get their act together a little quicker and do something. After all, most parents spend their time stopping their toddlers from pulling Lego bricks in their mouths, or even down the loo, but I was trying to stop mine from picking up cockroaches. The councils are often sharp enough to move travellers on, even when they aren't doing anyone any harm. So what about my illegal immigrants? I'd already bought all the everyday insecticides you can think of from the local supermarkets, but they had very little or no effect. After several failed attempts to arrange a meeting with my new housing officer, who always seemed to be off sick in a meeting, on leave, or just simply unavailable, I was beginning to lose my patience. It usually took months for a new housing officer to get their feet under the table. Just as they finally started to understand my situation, they'd disappear and be replaced by another. It was like trying to hit a moving target while the target kept changing jobs. After my repeated attempts to secure an appointment had been brushed aside, I began to suspect that more dramatic action would be needed if I was ever going to get anyone's attention. So, feeling a little frustrated and determined, I collected a dozen or so of very lively cockroaches and sealed them inside a large coffee jar. Most shoppers leave a supermarket carrying bags full of groceries from Sainsbury's or Tesco's. I, on the other hand, made my way across London carrying a bright green Harrod's bag. Anyone who saw me probably assumed I was transporting something suitably expensive and sophisticated, but they couldn't have been more wrong. Nestled inside was nothing but a large jar of highly agitated cockroaches, unless, of course, cockroaches had suddenly become the latest culinary craze. Still, before resorting to extreme measures, I decided to give the conventional approach one last chance. I left my unexpected lodges safely sealed in the car and headed into the housing office, now with a security guard on the front door. I will tell you why in another story. I was prepared for the usual routine. My details were taken down, I was handed a numbered ticket again, then I settled down for what turned out to be a very long wait as usual. For the next two hours, I leafed through the same dog eared copies of woman's own and country life that I'd already read on previous visits. By now I knew some of the articles. With every passing minute, my patience wore a little thinner, while the cockroaches waiting outside were probably beginning to wonder what the hell had happened to me. Eventually I'd had enough. I marched back to the reception desk and insisted on a definite appointment to have my flat fumigated. The woman behind the counter barely looked up. She slowly shifted her chewing gum from one side of her mouth to the other, before informing me, with all the enthusiasm of someone reading the ingredients of a cereal packet, that there was nothing she could do. Apparently, it was impossible to contact the relevant department. My housing block didn't even have an assigned housing officer, so nobody was authorized to approve the work. I'd just have to come back another day when a housing officer might be allocated. In other words, I was right back where I started. I calmly walked back to the car, retrieved my little travelling companions, and returned to the reception desk, just avoiding security this time, hiding the coffee jar under my jumper. Without saying a word, I unscrewed the lid. Then I tipped the contents onto the counter. The cockroaches exploded into life. They shot off in every direction. A few disappeared across the counter, while several squeezed right through the gaps where tenants normally handed over their rent payments. Within seconds the reception area had become absolutely chaotic. The receptionist, who had seemed half asleep and completely uninterested all afternoon, suddenly shot up and stood on her chair. It was without doubt the quickest I'd seen anyone in the office move all week. Doing my best to keep a straight face, I said, You can have these to start with. If you'd like, I can always pop back and bring a few hundred more of their friends, if you like. Then you'll know what it's like working with them from nine to five. I have to live with the little blighters twenty four hours a day, and they're not even paying me any rent. The contrast was priceless. Only moments before the waiting room had been packed with weary tenants, patiently waiting to be seen. Now it emptied in seconds, as everyone scrambled for the nearest exit. In all my visits in the housing office, I'd never seen the staff or even tenants move so quickly. Ironically, it took a jar of cockroaches to get the place working efficiently. Once the receptionist had finally summoned the courage to climb down from her chair, she disappeared into the inner office and returned moments later with the housing manager, Mr. Jackson, a familiar face from some of my previous battles with the council. He knew me well. Jackson was clearly unimpressed, but he also realized I finally had his full attention. He insisted the council wouldn't be intimidated, yet within minutes he was assuring me that someone would be at my flat first thing the following morning to deal with the infestation. For once, the council kept its promise. The very next morning my flat was fumigated, and before long my unwanted lodges were gone. I couldn't help wondering whether they genuinely wanted to solve my problem, or whether they were simply worried I'd return with another Harrod's bag full of reinforcements. Ironically, the council offices were then closed for the next three days, while the environmental health team thoroughly fumigated the building. They had, however, dealt with my flat first, which at least proved they now realized I wasn't taking the matter lightly. One moment still makes me smile. As the workman arrived at my flat, one of them shook his head and said Bly me. Someone at the local housing office went absolutely bonkers yesterday and released hundreds of cockroaches all over the place. The staff were terrified. We have to send a whole squad around to deal with it after this job. He paused, looked around the kitchen, then back at me with a puzzled expression. What sort of person would do something like that? he asked. I did my very best to look just as baffled as he was, then nodding in agreement. No idea, I said, thinking to myself, You don't know the half of it, mate. It's peculiar, though. The council didn't have to wait long for their turn, did they? Their office was sorted out in record time. I must admit, once the pest control team got started, they were exceptional, good and thorough, and after two weeks, I never saw another one come back. The things you have to go to to get things done. Honestly, hey?