Week 42: Expecting Softness Can Lead To Foolishness

An experiment in trust and responsibility goes awry

Corner of Peel and Little Oxford streets, Collingwood

Over the past couple of years while I’ve have been splitting my time between Melbourne and Kristianstad in Sweden I have also been conducting something of a social experiment. I’ve been renting out my flat, but as I am incredibly protective of it, and wanted to leave my belongings inside it, I’ve been wanting to find people whom I can trust.

Being nervous about other people in my flat I devised an approach that I hoped would ensure the place was looked after. The idea was cheap rent for high responsibility. The rent I charged was a third below the market rate, but just enough to cover my monthly costs for the flat. The hope was that this would build trust between the renters and myself – with them understanding I was providing accommodation (fully furnished) in an excellent location for a discounted rate and they would in return take good care of the place. I wanted to give people a sense of personal investment in the relationship, from which respect and responsibility would flow.

Being a fully furnished place and only available for a limited time frame this meant the renters would be a niche demographic – one which would skew younger (which was risk). I thought people on a Working Holidaymaker visa or students would fit, and felt it would be a nice symmetry if they were Swedes. So advertised on a Swedes in Melbourne Facebook group.

Last year I found a pair of Swedish girls who were in Melbourne to study for a semester. Both were lovely, bright and well-mannered, and they immediately understood what the arrangement required. I felt confident with them.

This confidence was not misplaced. They always paid rent and bills on time and maintained excellent and friendly communication between us. When I returned to Melbourne the flat was spotless, my plants were thriving, my towels and linen had been Marie Kondo’d into a far better order, and they had left me a lovely note and some gifts. I was incredibly impressed, and felt that my experiment had worked exactly how I had envisaged.

Earlier this year when one of the girls asked for a reference for a flat she was seeking to rent in Stockholm I didn’t hesitate to provide a glowing one. A few months later when I was in Stockholm I met up with both of them for a cup of tea. We maintain a chat group of the three of us and have formed a really good bond.

Unfortunately, the experience with these young women was so good that I became over-confident. Looking for renters while I was away these past five months – again on the Swedes in Melbourne group – this time I found two young men around the same age as the young women. Although they presented well upon meeting them, and they claimed to have understood the arrangement, they clearly did not – or just completely ignored my requirements, and any sense of basic respect.

Rent and bills were almost never paid on time. Whenever I followed up there was always less than convincing excuses. This I could handle – as it was only a minor inconvenience as they eventually paid (although it demonstrated their lack of responsibility). Yet when I returned home the flat was in an appalling condition.

Most of my plants were dead. Some of which I had been nurturing for 7 years, and which formed the central aesthetic element of the flat. This was deeply upsetting. Alongside this, the bathroom and kitchen were absolutely filthy, with the bathroom especially looking like it hadn’t been cleaned once in the entire five months.

Yet the most astonishing problem was that they had been smoking inside the flat. When I contacted them to inform them that this was completely unacceptable, they shrugged that they thought the smoke would just disappear. Yet anyone familiar with how smoking inside works (or cared about it) would know that the dank murk seeps into everything – into the walls and ceiling, the couch, the blinds, carpet and bedding. I could smell it in the cupboards and floorboards. It takes days of deep cleaning everything to get the smell and the soot out.

I’ve spent the past few days completely deconstructing the flat, washing everything, scrubbing the walls and ceiling with vinegar, doing the same with the floors, running fans constantly and trying to get as much fresh air inside as possible. Having arrived home at midnight on Wednesday this process began Thursday and remains on-going as of writing (Sunday afternoon). Once the flat is reconstructed I can then set about repopulating it with plants – although it will take years to grow them back to the sizes my former plants were (RIP).

While I’ve been cleaning I’ve been thinking about what I’ve learnt from this experiment. It is clear that the maturity gap between young women and young men is a chasm. Young women have a natural sense of responsibility that I don’t think even crosses young men’s minds. This is something I knew, but, I foolishly took the risk anyway in the hope that these young men could rise to the very low bar of basic household chores (and to not smoke inside).

However, this is not just about young men’s lack of respect for others, it’s clearly also a lack of respect for themselves. The flat was in such a putrid state that it said something about the dire lives of young men – swimming in their own muck, unable to perform – or unconcerned with – the most rudimentary forms of self-organisation and care. It was really sad as well as appalling. Although I’m not ready to give them any sympathy.

The Right To Violence

The first article I wrote about the behaviour of family courts used a man called Leonard Warwick – aka the Family Court Bomber – as the central theme. Warwick believed that the state had no right to intervene in men’s household authority, and after losing custody of a child due to his domestic violence turned to terrorism –shooting dead one judge, bombing the houses of two other judges (killing a judge’s wife), bombed a (fortunately empty) family court building, as well as a church hall – killing one man and injuring 70 others (the congregation were helping his ex-wife and child hide from him).

In Maryland this week a man shot dead a family court judge after losing a custody case. The motivation was exactly the same as Warwick’s – a staunch belief that men have the right to violence inside the household and that the state does not have the legitimacy to intervene. Far too often family courts do agree that men do have the right to domestic violence, yet when these courts actually do the right thing the backlash from men is intense. I suspect subconsciously many family court judges do fear what happened to this judge in Maryland – what will men do if we don’t give them what they want? This murder will add to that intimidation.

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Due to the three days it took to get from Kristianstad to Melbourne, plus being preoccupied with restoring my flat to a liveable state, I haven’t had the chance to do much reading this week. So I apologise, but there won’t be any recommendations.

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There’s been no time to make a playlist this week either, so instead I’ll leave you with this absolute classic Swedish pop song from 1980. A song that is still ubiquitous in Sweden – from midsommar celebrations, to pubs and shopping malls, and I was even on a train recently where a group of teenagers were singing it in unison. All of this is completely justified as it is an amazing song worthy of its permanence.