The housing chair had a habit of always falling asleep during council meetings. His political colleagues decided that at the next council meeting they would take a vote to exclude any member committing this sin. As the meeting began our housing chair dosed off. The mayor immediately called for a special vote to evict from the chamber any councillor who fell asleep during the proceedings. As the vote was being taken by a show of hands our councillor awoke, noticed the hands of his colleagues in the air and joined in the vote!
The Chair of Housing of a London Borough was incensed, “I want that young woman evicted”. The woman was living in a block with elderly neighbours who were convinced she was ‘on drugs’. Relations of the elderly neighbours were friends of the Chair of social services, and had informed him that the woman’s flat had been raided by the police who had taken away samples of a ‘white substance’. The housing manager explained the legal difficulty of attempting to evict anyone at this stage with the evidence yet to be identified. The politician was not convinced. Some weeks later the substance was identified as garlic salt! Do you think the politician thanked the officer for his professional advice?!
Name dropping – The tenant chair of an ALMO was explaining to a group of tenants how he was enjoying meeting new and famous people in his new role. He was later overheard to complain that at a recent breakfast meeting with the Prime Minister he “didn’t even get any bloody breakfast”!
Money down the toilet – During a conversation between a Councillor and the Chief Executive (CE) of a Housing Association, the Councillor mentioned that he needed some minor repairs done to his toilet. “Leave it with me,” said the CE, who went on to instruct his DLO to attend to the repair. The DLO manager was a little uncertain about this but, as it was a direct instruction from the CE, he issued the order for the work. It turned out that the state of the toilet was worse than expected and required a full replacement. Sadly, for the CE, the property had been sold under right to buy 3 months earlier and the CE, for audit purposes, found himself liable for the full costs of the repair!
Housing Stories 