For the last 3 1/2 years, my boyfriend and I have been sharing our lives with a dead man, or Mr Jackson as I'm sure he'd have preferred we called him.
It's not quite as gruesome as it sounds, but it is something that's been on my mind a lot recently. We bought our first house in South Manchester in November 2007. It was an ex-council house and was built in the 1930's. The previous owner was Mr Jackson. He lived here with his family, and after the death of his parents lived alone till his own his death. He had no close family in the area, and the estate was dealt with by a relative who lived in Spain after his death.
Whomever prepared the property for sale removed all personal items, but left everything else behind. When we bought it we got everything that came with the house. Good and bad.
The housing market crashed just after we bought our home and the house still languishes in negative equity (mind you, this doesn't matter as we aren't going anywhere!), and for the last few years we've mainly concentrated on paying the mortgage and bills, and haven't had the cash around to buy new things and decorate.
We've been clearing things out this week, as we've had some generous donations of furniture from friends and family, and as a result I've been spending a lot of time looking at Mr Jacksons things.
For the last 3 years, we have sat on his sofa, hoovered his carpets - with his vacuum, hung our clothes in his wardrobe, written at his desk, rested our (newly dontated) telly on his sideboard, ate every meal at his dining table, cooked pasta in his pans, gardened with his tools, recycled his gambling newsletters and some slightly more dubious post (blush), been surrounded by every possible texture of 'superfresco' wall paper, found some odd damp smells, and some ridiculously crap attempts at DIY and decoration.
Today - after a long and loving relationship with Mr Jacksons Dyson hoover - my favourite inheritance, I realised that I hadn't noticed that I can take apart several addtional bits of the hoover and rebuild them a la Transformers, to make the hoover do EVEN MORE things. I guess if I'd bought it and had the manual I'd have known from day one, but I've had to wait to work it out for myself.
The point is, we may have ugly furniture and carpets, and some really horrible wall coverings, but I feel a strong sense of gratitude to the previous owner of our house. He was a lonely man who we have found out was unkind to children and not a fan of animals, and was a regular performer at local karaoke nights (Sinatra was his speciality).
He has helped us live here, and hopefully will for a long time to come. I'm not sad to see the back of his pink sofa (it's going to a furniture charity), and as soon as I have some money to spare I'm buying a kick ass wardrobe, but his Dyson and I will be close friends until the day it's cyclone sucks no more.
I'm thankful for the kindness of strangers and friends. I'm incredibly lucky and have much more than other people in the world. My house may look weird and mismatched, but it's mine.
And Mr Jackson's.
It's not quite as gruesome as it sounds, but it is something that's been on my mind a lot recently. We bought our first house in South Manchester in November 2007. It was an ex-council house and was built in the 1930's. The previous owner was Mr Jackson. He lived here with his family, and after the death of his parents lived alone till his own his death. He had no close family in the area, and the estate was dealt with by a relative who lived in Spain after his death.
Whomever prepared the property for sale removed all personal items, but left everything else behind. When we bought it we got everything that came with the house. Good and bad.
The housing market crashed just after we bought our home and the house still languishes in negative equity (mind you, this doesn't matter as we aren't going anywhere!), and for the last few years we've mainly concentrated on paying the mortgage and bills, and haven't had the cash around to buy new things and decorate.
We've been clearing things out this week, as we've had some generous donations of furniture from friends and family, and as a result I've been spending a lot of time looking at Mr Jacksons things.
For the last 3 years, we have sat on his sofa, hoovered his carpets - with his vacuum, hung our clothes in his wardrobe, written at his desk, rested our (newly dontated) telly on his sideboard, ate every meal at his dining table, cooked pasta in his pans, gardened with his tools, recycled his gambling newsletters and some slightly more dubious post (blush), been surrounded by every possible texture of 'superfresco' wall paper, found some odd damp smells, and some ridiculously crap attempts at DIY and decoration.
Today - after a long and loving relationship with Mr Jacksons Dyson hoover - my favourite inheritance, I realised that I hadn't noticed that I can take apart several addtional bits of the hoover and rebuild them a la Transformers, to make the hoover do EVEN MORE things. I guess if I'd bought it and had the manual I'd have known from day one, but I've had to wait to work it out for myself.
The point is, we may have ugly furniture and carpets, and some really horrible wall coverings, but I feel a strong sense of gratitude to the previous owner of our house. He was a lonely man who we have found out was unkind to children and not a fan of animals, and was a regular performer at local karaoke nights (Sinatra was his speciality).
He has helped us live here, and hopefully will for a long time to come. I'm not sad to see the back of his pink sofa (it's going to a furniture charity), and as soon as I have some money to spare I'm buying a kick ass wardrobe, but his Dyson and I will be close friends until the day it's cyclone sucks no more.
I'm thankful for the kindness of strangers and friends. I'm incredibly lucky and have much more than other people in the world. My house may look weird and mismatched, but it's mine.
And Mr Jackson's.
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