Being run out of town by estate agents

[cumulus.james]

Yeh I’m drunk and near suicidal now. But the state of Britain is such that for someone like me to get their life back on track is impossible. You are blocked at every possible turn.

As a former retail manager and with a qualification in business planning it is possible for me to start my own business. This is a good solution for me as I have found a growing market with no presence in my home town of Chelmsford. I wanted to start a health and beauty store specializing in natural products as there is mounting evidence for the serious harm synthetic crap is doing to people. Almost all bath and beuty products contain one or more of a group of chemicals called Parabens. Recently scientist analyzed cancer tumours and found very high levels of Parabens in the biopsy. Coincidence?

Anyway that’s just a bit about the new passion and possible business idea I have had. I currently live with my parents. This is not good, I am 30 years old next month and have no space of my own, in addition to this we don’t get along and I am gay, my father is VERY homophobic, if gays come on TV or something he says out loud that they should be killed or hung or something, there was a news story about a gay man who was stoned to death or something and he said “too right‘.

I am ugly so I will never get a partner. I am gay so I will never have children. The only possible things I could get in my life are a home to live in. I have my sister and my baby nice here. They are all I have. But the arrogance of the agents and cruelty and greed of landlords means that I have basically been turned away from any possibility of having an apartment in this town. Where in other towns they are begging for and will do anything for tenants, here you have to beg and then be humiliated with the arrogance of @your not in proven employment so I cant be bothered to deal with you’. This extends to my ambition of a retail store. The lease for a retail store in this town works out at £2500 per WEEK on average. With business rates your looking are £3000 a week just for the roof over you hear, to pay staff and bills you have to make £5000 a week just to break even. There are many empty retail units in this town and they tend to remain empty for very long periods (I’m talking years). They would rather make no money than have a good tenant at a reasonable and sustainable rate.

So I am being forces out of my home town. The next nearest place with reasonable apartments who would accept me as a tenant are 30 miles away. Neither I or my sister drive. So my fete is to sit in a town where I know no one and not see the baby again.

The upside is that retail premises in this town are less than half that of my home town. But why ******* bother when I have nothing to go home to, nothing to look forward to. Why should I be pushed out of my home town and go to a town I know nothing about.

Why bother in the UK today. I’m near suicidal. I cant believe the suicide rate is not going through the roof because with the best will in the world if your in a bad situation your **** well stuck in it. There’s no way out not for me not for anyone like me.

 

[Reggie Jected]

Have you considered squatting? Its not nearly as bad as it sounds if you know how to keep a low profile.

 

[cumulus.james]

Have you considered squatting? Its not nearly as bad as it sounds if you know how to keep a low profile.

You couldn’t squat in Chelmsford! The only thing the developers and landlords are not desperately trying to grab is the roundabouts! Trust me there are no empty homes here. And as I once found out landlords in Chelmsford do not exactly follow the law. Last time I had a place my door was smashed in and 2 heavies threw me out because I missed one payment!

My biggest problem is that I am not going to see my niece and she is all I have got. Why should you be forced out of the town you were born in?

 

[Reggie Jected]

Sorry, Im american so I got maybe, half of that. Yea, that sounds like a sticky wickett alright. You may be forced to compromise and commute to visit the family on weekends once you're a little more established.

 

[cumulus.james]

Sorry, Im american so I got maybe, half of that. Yea, that sounds like a sticky wickett alright. You may be forced to compromise and commute to visit the family on weekends once you're a little more established.

We are not a close family. Once I’m gone that will be it I wont see them again. You say your American and hats a different story - I can afford to buy a house twice the size of any apartment I’ve seen in parts of the tri state area. To put it into perspective to rent an apartment over here that is quarter the size of one over there works out at $1,212.71 to $1700 dollars a month. In addition to every apartment being tiny by American standards EVERY singe apartment is painted beige in every single room and you are not allowed to decorate. So for that money I get a tiny beige box. And I am not even allowed that in this town.

Once I am there I will never see my family again. They might feel an obligation to invite me to Christmas dinner but by then i will be so resentful that they did not bother with me the rest of the year that I wont go. So being forced out of Chelmsford is losing my family.

I have to do it or I can not have any future. But I suspect it will kill me to lose my niece. I already started drinking again because of it all. I had given up now I have to get very drunk to get through the night. I had also given up smoking and I suspect I will be smoking again within 48 hrs. So this situation is not just affecting my mental health but my physical health.

Agents and landlords make a **** good living so why should they be able to treat people like this?

 

[Reggie Jected]

Greed. Sales people are money motivated so they are no longer people And Realtors are xenophobic sales people. It got so bad that over here we have to have a third party to intermediate just so one realtor could show another realtors property to a potential buye because they are afraid that the other realtor will try and steal the listing. Their greed shoots them in the foot and they don't seem to care.

I'm not completely down on them. For the most part, a lot of them live off of one sale a year because its so hard to work around each other.

I'm not terribly familiar with rental realtors though, so this may have been no help at all.

(I deliberately refrain from commenting on your relationship with your family. It sounds bad but I don't know any of the people involved so I wouldn't know what I was talking about)

 

[cumulus.james]

Greed. Sales people are money motivated so they are no longer people And Realtors are xenophobic sales people. It got so bad that over here we have to have a third party to intermediate just so one realtor could show another realtors property to a potential buye because they are afraid that the other realtor will try and steal the listing. Their greed shoots them in the foot and they don't seem to care.

I'm not completely down on them. For the most part, a lot of them live off of one sale a year because its so hard to work around each other.

I'm not terribly familiar with rental realtors though, so this may have been no help at all.

(I deliberately refrain from commenting on your relationship with your family. It sounds bad but I don't know any of the people involved so I wouldn't know what I was talking about)

I don’t know how true this is but before the baby was born I used to dream of moving to the states. From what we see over here even poor people have decent sized homes. 3 examples being Rosanne and Medium and Malcolm in the Middle. In all those cases they are supposed to be poor family’s but their houses compared to ours are massive. I also get the impression that people interact much more in America than they do over here. If you say hello to someone you pass on the streets over here they would find it offensive.

As for my family it is not good. But the Baby started to bring us more together. I tried VERY hard to not bond with the baby as I expected to be exclude from the family somehow. But I could not resist. Now I wont see here anymore. I had a chance to be a part of a child’s life and that is now taken away from me.

 

[Reggie Jected]

ROFLMAO no dude, just no. There are a handful of places where people acknowledge one another, and those are mostly the rural areas like the south and the midwest. Around the cities people sneer if you try to say hi at the gas pump.

I'd like to say that those sitcoms are unrealistic and that the sets are just like that because it makes the show easier to do with more room, but I've been an unemployed laborer for 6 months and I have my own 3 bedroom house so... yea. Before the housing market collapsed though it was possible for people to live in homes they couldn't afford provided that they didn't mind passing the debt on to their grandkids or getting evicted on christmas.

How old is the niece? Is the father still around, or were you hoping to be a male role model or father figure? I've never really gotten the whole "family closeness" thing, so I'm not 100% on why you feel close to the child. For a long time, they aren't even people, you just get attached to possibilty of them becoming people.

 

[cumulus.james]

ROFLMAO no dude, just no. There are a handful of places where people acknowledge one another, and those are mostly the rural areas like the south and the midwest. Around the cities people sneer if you try to say hi at the gas pump.

I'd like to say that those sitcoms are unrealistic and that the sets are just like that because it makes the show easier to do with more room, but I've been an unemployed laborer for 6 months and I have my own 3 bedroom house so... yea. Before the housing market collapsed though it was possible for people to live in homes they couldn't afford provided that they didn't mind passing the debt on to their grandkids or getting evicted on christmas.

How old is the niece? Is the father still around, or were you hoping to be a male role model or father figure? I've never really gotten the whole "family closeness" thing, so I'm not 100% on why you feel close to the child. For a long time, they aren't even people, you just get attached to possibilty of them becoming people.

She is 6 months old and the father is not around, he’s never even seen her. Like I say I tried not to bond with here but even for an emotionally retarded loser like me it is impossible not to get emotionally attached to a baby. They can do so little yet somehow they are so addictive to be around. When I am holding here and she smiles (or more recently she has started laughing) it just gets you. I mean it makes no sense, essentially all they do is take but still they get you hooked.

My sister was the least likely person to have a child in the world. Before she fell pregnant people would have thought I was more lily to become pregnant and I’m a gay man! So it was never something anyone expected. That’s why I was thinking about ways to move to the US, failing that I decided to move to Portsmouth which is the other side of the country. But she got pregnant and as hard as I tried not to I bonded with the child. I have nothing, and the child is not mine so arguably I don’t have that, but I love to spend time with her and that will be taken away from me.

See one thing I don’t get is that I have hundreds of cousins and aunties and uncles and that, but I don’t know any of them. I would not know any of my cousins if I was sitting next to them. This was the only chance of a family experience I had.

Once I am away from here not only will I have no friends and no partner but no family also. Murderers get a lesser sentence than me.

 

[Reggie Jected]

Sad. But that's kinda how babies survive. They MAKE you want to take care of them. Personally, I resent being manipulated like that. If people saw them for the obnoxious parasites they are, our species wouldn't have lasted. I can't speak for your emotional state, but you have no idea what kind of person she is going to turn into, she may even become homophobic herself, and then you will have stayed in a losing situation with no solace.

Why haven't you moved here yet? I've found that if you sell all your possessions, not only do you have more money, but you have less stuff to travel with, making big moves that much easier.

 

[cumulus.james]

Sad. But that's kinda how babies survive. They MAKE you want to take care of them. Personally, I resent being manipulated like that. If people saw them for the obnoxious parasites they are, our species wouldn't have lasted. I can't speak for your emotional state, but you have no idea what kind of person she is going to turn into, she may even become homophobic herself, and then you will have stayed in a losing situation with no solace.

Why haven't you moved here yet? I've found that if you sell all your possessions, not only do you have more money, but you have less stuff to travel with, making big moves that much easier.

You cant just move to the states lol! You have to either have family there or have a job there or prove you can start a business there to even stand a possibility of being considered. America is the hardest country to gain entry to on the planet. Now I know if you speak to the right people you can get in through the back door, but the things I want from life are not in line with being an illegal immigrant.

Essentially I would have to BUY my way into the states. I have some money. But not that kind of money.

 

[IgnoredOne]

As a former retail manager and with a qualification in business planning it is possible for me to start my own business. This is a good solution for me as I have found a growing market with no presence in my home town of Chelmsford. I wanted to start a health and beauty store specializing in natural products as there is mounting evidence for the serious harm synthetic crap is doing to people. Almost all bath and beuty products contain one or more of a group of chemicals called Parabens. Recently scientist analyzed cancer tumours and found very high levels of Parabens in the biopsy. Coincidence?

If it is a very good idea and you can show enough qualification and experience for it to be profitable, why don't you try to get a business loan from a bank or a venture capitalist and work from there?

To be honest, personally, from my own years of corporate experience, it doesn't sound like you have enough of a bottom line to convincingly present your idea.

You cant just move to the states lol! You have to either have family there or have a job there or prove you can start a business there to even stand a possibility of being considered. America is the hardest country to gain entry to on the planet. Now I know if you speak to the right people you can get in through the back door, but the things I want from life are not in line with being an illegal immigrant.

An H1B visa isn't that hard if you have the right education; we have a number of foreigners who live and work in the US with it.

 

[Reggie Jected]

Yea, if you do things on the up and up, but baby steps is what you should be aiming for here. You can always come here on "vacation" and just never go back, or become a canadian and just walk over. But if you wanna be a "law-abiding citizen" and crap, have you at least applied to jobs over here so you can get the ball rolling?

 

[IgnoredOne]

Yea, if you do things on the up and up, but baby steps is what you should be aiming for here. You can always come here on "vacation" and just never go back, or become a canadian and just walk over. But if you wanna be a "law-abiding citizen" and crap, have you at least applied to jobs over here so you can get the ball rolling?

A Canadian cannot just walk over anymore; this was discontinued after September 11. A Canadian needs a passport like any other visitor into the United States, however, Canadians have a six month visa wavier allowing them to visit the US.

However, he will not be allowed to work during that time and by the end of the six months, must return to Canada or be considered as an illegal immigrant of the US. Furthermore, without showing evidence of a return ticket or substantial savings, the presumption of the US Department of Homeland Security is that the individual seeks to immigrate without valid permit.

Note that this presumption is the /default/. All visitors to the US are immediately assumed, legally, to be seeking illegal immigration into the US; this presumption is then overcome by the having evidence of a return ticket, or other intent to return. Most of this will be determined by the American customs official at the point of departure from the host country.

 

[Reggie Jected]

and there ya go.

 

[jjam]

Sad. But that's kinda how babies survive. They MAKE you want to take care of them. Personally, I resent being manipulated like that. If people saw them for the obnoxious parasites they are, our species wouldn't have lasted. I can't speak for your emotional state, but you have no idea what kind of person she is going to turn into, she may even become homophobic herself, and then you will have stayed in a losing situation with no solace.

Why haven't you moved here yet? I've found that if you sell all your possessions, not only do you have more money, but you have less stuff to travel with, making big moves that much easier.

When I say WoW, I'm not talking about World of Warcraft...

 

[Reggie Jected]

I know, I'm just full of negativity and bad advice

 

[cumulus.james]

[/quote]

To be honest, personally, from my own years of corporate experience, it doesn't sound like you have enough of a bottom line to convincingly present your idea.

I don’t think that statement applies to me. I am talking about an independent specialist store selling retail products but offering beauty treatments ect also. I wasn’t thinking of a corporation! I already have the money to fund the venture I don’t need a bank. If I can pay the bills, pay the staff, pay me something and still have enough working capitol I will be happy. I have no intention of being a corporation or floating on the stock market or whatever. Just a nice little shop that give me a living and more importantly something to do will suit me just fine. I’m not greedy. If I have a roof over my head and a little shop to call my own I will feel like a king. I have no desire for a mansion in the country, or a portfolio, or a porche or to be one the board or all that greed driven crap. Money is worthless without people. And when you have money the people around you tend to be fake. Id rather "get by" and be part of real life than live in a fantasy world in Beverly Hills.

 

[Reggie Jected]

Most successful small business dont turn a profit for the first 2 years, which means going without income during that time. Do you have the savings to keep yourself alive during that period?

 

[Sci-Fi]

First 2 years? Wow, not to discourage anyone but it's more than that, and it depends on the type of business too. Business I work for we've been here going on 6 years and still haven't started to turn a profit, especially since the economy went down the toilet a few years ago. If you want to do it in 2 years you really have to keep your overhead down.

James, it seems like you need a change of venue, the only thing that is keeping you around where you are miserable is a 6 month old baby. You can still keep in touch with your sister and the progress of you niece, even if it's by snail mail. Who knows, you could land somewhere good and turn things around for yourself.