Fixer Uppers Go Under the Hammer
Series 23, episode 7.
First broadcast 07/09/17.
MALCOLM stands in a gloomy living room in Tollcross with PETE. PETE (late teens/early twenties), his teeth covered in metal braces, is wearing a white shirt and navy blazer. A mahogany dresser is behind him, the walls are painted brown. Sunlight sneaks in through burgundy frilly curtains.
MALCOLM
So what are your long-term plans, Pete? I know this isn’t your first property. Will there be more once this is renovated and on the market?
PETE
Definitely. I want to keep growing my empire until I’m in a position where I can earn a passive income from it and live a digital nomad lifestyle.
MALCOLM
An admirable ambition.
OFF SCREEN: JEMMA shouts,‘Shut the fuck up.’
17
As pleased as I am to have my next target, it has somewhat dampened my plans. Where before I thought I had two days of decision-making ahead of me, now I have nothing. The intense research and plotting to do for Pete is best left to working hours, using an IP address and device that is not my own. A new pit has been excavated; there’s fresh emptiness to fill.
After trying to bank as many sexy shots of my feet for Dave as possible – in the shower, with a pair of pants pooled around them as if caught in the act of removing them, the soles glistening with baby oil – I’m left with nothing better to do than continue watchingFixer Uppers Go Under the Hammer. Each arsehole who buys a property and lives further south than Durham should count their lucky stars they’re being spared my wrath due to the prohibitive cost of travel to their location.
It turns out to be a helpful exercise in examining the thinking behind my crusade. What it reveals might surprise you, but it turns out, if given the chance, I would punish each and every one of them. From the woman who bought her son a flat to stay in for uni, in turn making her eighteen-year-old a live-in landlord to other eighteen-year-olds, to the two brothers who used the same cheap carpet throughout, I truly believe they have all committed murder-able offences. I will admit, though, that other people may think these are minor infringements, which leads me to decide that the rules of the game need to be better defined.
In a fresh page of my notebook, I write on the top line:RULES. TheFixer Uppersjazzy theme tune starts, and I mute the television, giving myself silence to consider who really – out of a collection of exceptionally terrible people – deserves to have their comeuppance. I stare out the window, watch the branches of the trees shoogle in the wind, until the golden rules for this endeavour come to me.
Their actions must show a disregard for making the home they have bought a nice place to live. Things like, but not limited to: aesthetics chosen for cheapness over all else; communal space being removed from shared housing; rooms divided to be smaller and cramped to squeeze out more profit.
They prioritise their own wealth over everything else. This includes: owning more than three properties, thereby displaying a clear pattern of behaviour – limiting housing stock available to people who actually want to live in houses rather than let them out; asking for rent higher than the market dictates; when Malcolm asks them about the place they’ve bought, if they talk about financials more than about providing good housing; and if they mention a property empire.
No women are victimised. In a world where we often already suffer for our gender, women landlords are trying to find their power in a misogynistic capitalist system. This is the wrong way to go about things, but my sense of sisterhood means I will not punish them further.
Any landlord will have to be found guilty on rule one or rule two and not break rule three. Unluckily for Pete, he’s guilty on all three counts.
18
Monday morning, and I’ve a whole week ahead of me where I can be anything, do anything. As I get ready, I delve to the back of my wardrobe for a fitted dress I’ve never been brave enough to wear outside of my bedroom. It is office appropriate but also clings to my form, lets the world know I have breasts in a way that what I wear usually does not. This is a sign of how I am changing. I am no longer a person who is concerned that people may be repulsed by her body, and I would not be upset if other people – well, Gavin – noticed this meat suit my brain inhabits. I’m not the slimmest, not the fittest, but I’m strong and in as good a shape as I’ll ever be. If Gavin’s not into me, then that’s their problem. Here I can acknowledge the wonders of having structure in my life, regular exercise, clear goals, a desire to make a difference, a sense of power. Annoyingly, this is a lot of what the internet recommended I do to cheer myself up when I was sad and pathetic in those first days without Nicol or Amara, when I didn’t believe anything could save me. What an idiot I was then.
The bright start to the day diminishes somewhat when I get into the office to find Brian and Gavin deep in conversation, both of them dressed formally in black. Gavin is in a suit, their curls uncharacteristically stiff with gel, their nails free of polish, their odour having swayed from the Impulse side of the chart to the Lynx. They still look hot but personally I prefer their normal aesthetic. Brian also has on a black suit which is cut well, but he’s ruined the whole thing by buying it a size too small so the bulge of his biceps shines through it.
‘Looking lovely today, Jemma. Wild weekend, was it?’ he pauses his chat with Gavin to ask.
