Some stories are best told after the statute of limitations on embarrassment has well and truly expired. This one comes from a valuer – a friend of REBAA who shall remain nameless, for reasons that will become abundantly clear.
Cast your mind back to the early 1990s. No iPhones, no remote working, no wi-fi. Just a professional with a clipboard, a paper-based inspection sheet, and the kind of old-fashioned work ethic that had him booking Saturday-morning runs to clear the desk.
His patch was the western suburbs of a major capital city, which, back then, was a landscape of fibro homes, blue-collar families, and share houses populated by recalcitrant youth. A fine place to do a valuation, if you had your wits about you.
During his work week, he rang the number on the inspection sheet and was put through to the property manager for a home on Smith Street. She’d call the tenants and arrange access. She rang back shortly after: they’d be there, but an early start was best. Would 7:30 am work?
Reluctant but accommodating, our man said yes.
Saturday arrived with dew still on the ground. He found the address, walked up to the door and knocked. Nothing. Knocked again. Still nothing. By the third or fourth attempt, he was starting to feel the particular irritation of someone who gave up a sleep-in for this.
Eventually, the door creaked open to reveal a bleary-eyed 20-something blinking at the morning light.
Our valuer explained he was there for the inspection – property manager, landlord, all arranged. The young man blinked again, shrugged, and said “yeah, come in.”
What greeted him was lifted straight from a frat-house film. Roughly twenty people were scattered across every surface, passed out in various states of horizontal. They were on couches, on floors, on what appeared to be a bean bag that had seen better days. Empty bottles. Overflowing ashtrays. And on the kitchen bench, a couple of imaginatively engineered contraptions involving garden hoses and plastic juice bottles, the purpose of which our valuer chose not to document.
He did the full inspection. Stepped over bodies. Took his photos. Measured his walls. Twenty-five minutes later, he was back in the car with everything he needed.
All fine… until Monday morning, when the property manager rang.
“I’ve just had a call from the tenants at Smith Street. Why didn’t you show?”
“I did show,” he said.
“The folks at 54 say there was no sign of you.”
“54? …Don’t you mean 45?”
Silence.
Turns out the valuer’s administrator had incorrectly transposed the street numbers onto his inspection page. He’d inspected an entirely different house, occupied by entirely different people, none of whom had any idea who he was or why he’d been wandering through their lounge room with a clipboard at 7:30 on a Saturday morning.
He never found out what the residents of number 45 thought had happened that day. He never asked. Some mysteries are best left unsolved.
Lessons Learned
(or: what analogue living teaches you the hard way)
Double-check the address. Then check it again. Then maybe get someone else to check it.
A transposed digit can take you somewhere very unexpected – in this case, straight into what appeared to be the aftermath of Schoolies Week.
When 20 strangers are asleep on someone’s floor and nobody questions your clipboard, it’s either a testament to your professional bearing or a sign that the occupants were in no condition to question anything.
And finally: the paperless office eventually arrived… but not soon enough.
Do you have an interesting, funny, educational, scary, or all-around rollicking tale from your day-to-day work life that you’d like to share with other members? Contact our eMag editor, Kieran, on kieran@bricksandmortarmedia.com.au and help us share your Door Knock Diaries story with others.
