50% … 50% … and 50%

suburban council houses

"tower block" type council house

A British friend of mine forwarded an article to me recently recording complaints by tenants of “UK Council Houses”. Not being a Brit myself I had no idea what “Council Houses” means. A quick Wikipedia search indicates that it is a term used primarily in the UK and the Republic of Ireland for public or social housing. They were “built and operated by local councils” to provide spacious, well-built homes for reasonable rent primarily for working class people. The article goes on to say that the experiment hasn't lived up to hopes and expectations—great or otherwise—and, like many “projects” in the US have led to urban blight in some cases. Apparently things need “fixing” from time to time and tenants submit written complaints to their local “council”. 

 The whole point of this post is that some of these complaints are funny in the fractured English that they are written in. One wonders if some of them are deliberate double entendres. At any rate, following is a modest sampling of the more printable ones:

Extracts from letters written by council tenants:

1. It's the dogs mess that I find hard to swallow.
 
4. Next dors 18 year old son is continually banging his balls against the fence.

5. I wish to report that tiles are missing from the outside toilet roof. I think it was bad wind the other day that blew them off.

6.. My lavatory seat is cracked, where do I stand?

8. Will you please send someone to mend the garden path. My wife tripped and fell on it yesterday and now she is pregnant.

9. I request permission to remove my drawers in the kitchen...

10. 50% of the walls are damp, 50% have crumbling plaster, and 50% are just plain filthy.

11. The next door neighbour has got this huge tool that vibrates the whole house and I just can't take it anymore.

12. The toilet is blocked and we cannot bathe the children until it is cleared.

14. Our lavatory seat is broken in half and now is in three pieces.

16. The man next door has a large erection in the back garden, which is unsightly and dangerous.

18. I am a single woman living in a downstairs flat and would you please do something about the noise made by the man on top of me every night.

19. Please send a man with the right tool to finish the job and satisfy my wife..