HALLOWEEN HORRORS... OF PROPERTY!

I love Halloween! 🎃 👻

So as it’s October 31st, I will share with you some Halloween Horrors... of Property!

There are many scary things about property that keep us terrified and awake at night... and some are just downright horrors!

First one: mysterious happenings in the middle of the night! 😱

During a property’s refurbishment, sometimes spooky things happen when you’re not there... 🤔

Here’s some examples of things I’ve experienced - and how to avoid them rising from the dead again on future projects! ⚰️

👻 Curse: a magic apparition of a load of old junk added to my scrap pile 😤
✝️ To break the spell: avoid this by collating all your junk materials, old bathrooms etc, INSIDE until the day the skip arrives. Then whang all the junk in at once and get them to lift the skip the same day, to avoid demon neighbours inflicting their curses and junk on you! 👍

🎃 Curse: paranormal activity, in the form of your rubbish bins magically disappearing overnight! 😤
✝️ break the spell by fetching your bins inside the property, or they will go missing. Why? Because often some impish neighbours will fancy an extra bin - and many councils now charge for replacement bins. 🤨

👹 Curse: on one project, some utter evil devil had dumped a monster-sized bag of, erm, stinking doggy ectoplasm in my garden, for me to kindly dispose of 💩😱😤
✝️ BEGONE SATAN!!! Sometimes in property - and life - very shitty things happen - quite literally.
No cure for this curse, sometimes people are just fiends and wretches out to inflict hurt and suffering on you.
To deal with this though, you have to adopt a strong PMA (positive mental attitude) for bad things, to keep those demonic vibes at bay.
So think positively about such demonic acts - use your strength and will to tell them: “the power of Christ compels you... to not be so powerful so that your horrible nonsense won’t get to me!!!”

Remember, things can only upset you if you allow them to!
💪😁✝️

Next Tale from the Crypt…

Sometimes when you get the keys to a property, you will find that the house is possessed - by all sorts of creatures, dead or alive!

Bugs, woodlice, silverfish, mice, birds, and our old Halloween favourite, those beastly spiders! 🕷🕷🕷

However, all those fail in comparison when I remember the Longroyd project, with the Bugs of Doom...

This particular house was the deceased estate of a little old lady.

All the carpets had been stripped out - but little did we know, that lurking in the floorboards, ready to pounce, was THE CURSE OF THE INDESTRUCTIBLE KILLER FLEAS!!
😩☠️👾☠️👾

We all got bit by these fleabag masses; itchy, horrid biting creatures; urrrgh, I shudder just remembering them.

And then worst of all, because they get in your clothes, I inadvertently brought them home with me - and despite never before being infected, in all her years... I ended up giving my own Pusscat fleas...
😱😱😱

I WAS THE SPREADER OF EVIL!
👺👾🙀😿😾

That house took me four flea bombs and a mass amount of cleaning to rid that satanic scourge, and then the same again in my own house.

So I’m not a fan of house possessions, by horrible creepy crawly poltergeists!

If you have similar ‘unwanted tenant’ squatters - purge your property thoroughly with an exorcism: with hard cleaning graft, prayers and strong chemicals.
It’s the only way to rid yourself of such demons!!

🕷🦗🦟🐜🐝🦇👾☠️



Moving on, another cautionary tale that strikes immense fear into my being...

The very thought of it brings me out in a cold sweat, and undertaking the necessary evil of it is like a dagger to my heart... 🔪🥶🥵🤯🤮

What I am talking about?

If you’re from Yorkshire, I know you’ll already know what I’m about to say...

... the biggest horror in property is THE CURSE OF THE BURNING PURSE!!! 😩😫😭😭😭💷🔥

 

Property costs money, in all sorts of fiendish ways:
❌ purchase ❌ stamp duty ❌ insurance ❌ legal fees ❌ gas safety ❌ refurbishment ❌ operating expenses ❌ maintenance ❌ utilities ❌ voids ❌ repairs ❌ naughty tenants ❌ 🆘

The scariest thing in the world for a Yorkshireman is having money extracted from our weary paws.

We hate the evil, bloodsucking flesh-eating bogeyman known as the Grim Reaper Taxman!

And as for the eerie cackling call of the House Repairs Goblin, he terrifies us with his creepy visits way too often!

Still when you have families living in your property - many of them angels, and not werewolves - you’ve got to do what’s right to protect them from evil.

So you unnervingly summons your petrified purse / wallet from beneath the grave, dust off the cobwebs, and see what decomposing funds lurk within.

Then zombie-like and crying, you perform a spell, which mostly involves setting fire to your money.

After this chilling sorcery, magic apparitions then appear - more recently in my case, in the form of a new light fitting, a new door handle, and a new electric cooker 😩💷🔥

So beware all ye wannabe property investors - have ye got the stomach to cope with such grizzly, ghastly and horrifying money-sucking phantoms?!? 😭🤮

And Yorkshire folk: normally your purse has to be prised from your corpse’s cold, dead fingers... can you perform some supernatural hocus pocus and... ACTUALLY SPEND SOME MONEY?!?

Terrifying stuff, I know, it scares me too...

Be afraid... be very afraid... 😱😱😱



Finally, this last topic is the scariest yet.

It can either be a trick or a treat, depending on how you prepare yourself.

The most terrifying thing in property are... bloodsucking vampires.

What do I mean by this?

I mean that there are some horrible people in this industry that are out to bleed you dry for all they can get.

Examples of these demons include:
☠️ beastly cowboy builders
☠️ bungling scarecrow solicitors
☠️ bloodsucking bridging firms
☠️ vampires who want to extract all your time, knowledge and education for free
☠️ horrible trolls out to hurt and criticise you
☠️ incompetent zombie workmen
☠️ repulsive RIP-off merchants
☠️ petrifying Ponzi schemes
☠️ shady sharks out to strip you of your money
☠️ outrageous ogres who make all sorts of unbelievable claims about ROI
☠️ untrustworthy shyster wolves who don’t return your investment funds.

I’m not pulling any punches here.
It’s a spine-chilling warning.
The most terrifying part about this post is that it’s all true.

These nasty people do exist, and they walk amongst us - often smiling and beguiling us with their witchcraft.

I myself have experienced several of the above, and I know that many of my investor friends have too.

So what can we do to ensure we get a little less trick, and a lot more treat?

Here are some tips, to renounce the evil:

✝️ Don’t work with people you don’t know, like or trust 🥰
✝️ Do your due diligence on people - are they who they say they are? How do you know? Can they show you evidence and proof? 🧐
✝️ Google them! Reviews, testimonials, online presence, Companies House, images, news... EVERYTHING!
Sometimes it’s in your own interest to be a bit stalker-ish... 🤔🧟‍♀️
✝️ You are a grown adult of your own free will. If someone is putting you under pressure to part with cash, your internal alarm bells should be ringing 🚫
✝️ Trust your gut instinct. If anything feels wrong, for any reason - don’t do it 👊👌👍

Phew!
Terrifying stuff!

But forewarned is forearmed.
Use these tips above as your vampire-slaying kit.
Add in some garlic if you like!
Avenge these property monsters!

Although I’d leave the knives and weapons at home... or at least until the Halloween moonlight hits... 😏🔪

Have a spooky and safe Halloween everyone! x x x

😁🎃

Kellyann Martin is a Property Investment Strategist based in Leeds.

For more details on working with Kellyann, visit the website

www.kellyannmartin.co.uk

Tantrum Time: What to do when things go wrong

Just now, something went badly wrong, and so I am writing today’s blog as an attempt to self-soothe.

Twenty minutes ago I was INFURIATED, but already I feel better as I relay into print this hapless tale of disappointment.

All week I had been looking forward to my coaching session at 1pm near Birmingham with a business coach.

I had prepped my materials, thought about my vision, planned the journey with handwritten directions (I’m old-school), and even ironed a shirt! (ironing is the work of the devil, so not common in mein haus)

I knew it would take me 2 hours 4 minutes to drive the 120.6 miles, so I left my house at 10:17am, with 2 hours and 43 minutes to do it in, you know, just in case things went wrong.

And then I got in my car... and the piece of sh!t wouldn’t start.

I don’t give up that easily though, so tried many dozen times to get it going, encouraged it with various colourful names, and rang two manly men for advice and assistance - to no avail. Then I thought I would try and push it backwards down my drive to try and bumpstart it - only to smash the hanging basket planter off the wall with my car door.

Then I got really desperate and went and asked my elderly pensioner neighbour if he could help. He tried, bless him, but couldn’t, mainly because my drive is uphill, tight and narrow, with no chance of using another car to jump start it.

I am, in the words of Colonel Abrams, Trapped, like a fool, I’m in a cage, I can’t get out…

Now I’m sure you’ve been there yourself, and experienced that overwhelming frustration and downright infuriation about things you’ve planned going wrong because of external causes.

What I hate most of all in situations like this is the utter sense of hopelessness. You’ve exhausted all other options, and it is exasperating that still you can’t do anything to make it right in the timeframe.

So as I sit here and wait for Green Flag to come and do some manly mechanical magic, I contemplate how to cheer myself up from my bitter disappointment.

I read a top tip yesterday in Jen Sincero’s book ‘You Are A Badass’ that said when bad things happen, you should turn it around by starting with ‘I’m glad this happened because…’

So here goes:

I’m glad my car broke down because…

 - gosh this is hard, I’m not glad at all… no, keep going…

- it’s a warning that something is not quite right with my car, which could have led to something more dangerous.

 - it’s a lesson that life occasionally gets in the way of plans.

 - it’s shown to me that I at least try to be reactive and resourceful in times of need.

 - it proves that bad things happen to everyone at times, through no fault of their own.

- it’s made me grateful of every single other time that the car didn’t let me down.

- it’s made me realise that I can’t have my own way all the time

- it’s shown me that having a shouting, swearing tantrum has absolutely no effect, other than putting myself in a bad mood. So therefore it’s pointless wasting energy doing it in future.

- it helps me put problems into perspective.

Nobody died, and only death is unfixable. So get a grip of yourself.

Feel a bit better now, after I’ve had a word with myself.

I’m glad I read that top tip yesterday… because it’s helped today when things went wrong.

And thus I hope passing on this tip helps you avoid a tantrum when things go wrong.



Take care, and have a lovely day,

Kellyann x x x