A comedian once said that “Penge” sounds like a hermaphrodite’s genitals. In reality, it’s part of South East London. To be seen outside without a can of beer in this neighbourhood is like being seen outside without clothes on. If you don’t have a can of beer, you will either be attacked or offered a can of beer.
Considering the estate agent had told us the flat was in Sydenham, it seemed oddly close to Penge East train station. My friend and I couldn’t quite articulate what was wrong with the flat. There was a subtle but persistent sense that it was awful. However, it ticked all the boxes so we went for it.
On the day we moved, I noticed something. A snake of litter, blown into a frenzy by the wind, settled at our door. As a dog-leg shaped road which sloped downwards, litter from Sydenham - where we thought flat was - blew down the street and collected at our door. A short wall that jutted out of the house acted as a sort of net. This built up until we routinely had fly-tippers leaving us broken furniture and stained mattresses.
We soon discovered that the boiler had been disabled and having noticed how weak they were, we joked that the chairs would fall apart. Over the next few weeks, the chairs slowly collapsed, ejecting people onto the floor.
The single-glazed windows would rattle every half hour when a bus came down the road and I would often wake to the gentle clanging of the clothes bank being broken into. The prepaid meter exhibited a level of greed I had never seen before and we would routinely return home to find we had no power. However, nothing was quite as bad as the estate agents who would collect our rent and neglect our emails. To protect their identity, I will henceforth refer to them as “Not Property World Sydenham”.
When the dry cleaners directly downstairs complained that their ceiling was leaking, Not Property World Sydenham were characteristically nonplussed. Eventually, a plumber came round and told us that everything underneath the bath, including the joists, was rotten. Having removed the side of our bath, the plumber never returned. For months on end, we had no side to our bath in addition to a very leaky toilet. (Unfortunately, it wasn’t the inflow that was leaking.)
One plumber told us to shower and not bath whereas the next told us to bath and not shower. Sat in the bath one night, I remembered that a cubic metre of water weighs a tonne - and that the joists underneath me were rotten. But at least if I fell through the floor - wet, naked and screaming - I could have procured some clothes from the dry cleaners.
Having ignored countless calls and emails, as some form of ironic joke, Not Property World Sydenham arranged a flat inspection. It was a bit like being given a pile of rubbish to look after and then being quizzed on why it didn’t meet their standards. I asked the woman about the communal area which we were told would be redecorated before we moved in. The salesman “could have just said it”, she told us. The same day, an electrician had a poo in our leaky toilet then got stuck due to the dodgy door. I had to coach him out of the bathroom.
The landlady had the same name as me which should have endeared us to one another. Instead, she too was unbelievably difficult. When I referenced a similar plumbing situation I’d had in a previous flat, she stated: “I don’t know why you chose to put yourself in this situation again.” She never explained what she meant, but I honestly think she was suggesting I just buy my own house and get out of hers.
To add further weight to the argument that Penge is home to the gates of hell, a huge crater opened up in the high street. However, this was par for the course. While the flat itself came with a raft of issues the area was equally exciting and all sorts of strange things happened on our doorstep.
I had almost got home when a screaming woman chased her boyfriend past me, throwing up on a woman next to me as she ran. The screaming woman followed the man onto the bridge over the tracks before he shouted “I don’t love you anymore” in front of about 100 commuters. She got the message and started making her way back towards where I was standing. “I threw up on the lady,” the girl stated to a doting friend, oblivious to the fact that she was walking straight past the lady she’d thrown up on.
“Every town has a wall where people come to drink,” said a man on a Channel 5 documentary. Looking outside, it was clear that Penge’s wall was directly outside our flat. This led to all sorts of interesting occurrences and I once heard one man say hello to another man before the other man accused him of having stolen his phone.
However, I did try to create a positive impact. Having counted more than 30 offerings of dog poo on just one side of my road, I saw fit to challenge a dog owner when I caught him red-handed. When he turned to look at me, I realised he had a Mike Tyson-style face tattoo. He was angry and he threatened to break my nose. In an instant, my days of vigilante justice were over. My flatmate, who clearly knew better, simply said hello to a man who was urinating on our bin.
Moving out was no easier. On top of the £100 final inspection fee, one of the items on the invoice came with the justification “you were living there just over a year”. The blotchy carpets, the marked walls and the dodgy door… We were being charged for the damage the flat came with and had to pay to replace all of the things which had given us the subtle but persistent sense that it was awful.
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