Danny Wallace on cracking down on thieving estate agents

2

We have put our house on the market, but today is a Saturday and there are no viewings booked. So I’m surprised, when I’m standing in the living room in my underwear, to notice someone from the estate agent’s office outside my house, tugging at our For Sale sign.
“That’s weird,” I think. “They must be replacing it with a newer one.”
I can’t quite make out the person through the blinds, so I walk to the front door and fling it open, to see someone in a suit with a light red ponytail disappearing behind a hedge. The For Sale sign cruises and bobs above it, like a shark fin.
“Excuse me?” I shout, but the person starts to jog.
I turn to my wife.
“Did they say they were giving us a new sign?” I say, before realising something with horror. “Oh my God, I’ve read about this. That woman has nicked our sign!”
This is something that happens! Rival estate agents try to sabotage each other!
“She must be trying to sell a different house and doesn’t want whoever’s coming to see it to see our house is up for sale as well!”
“She?” says my wife. “That was a man!”
“That was not a man,” I say, but my wife is adamant that who she saw from upstairs was a man.
“Why didn’t you run out?” she demands. I just point at my pants.
“Whoever that was, they’re not getting away with it!” I yell, outraged, bounding upstairs. I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry about anything before. I am incandescent. But I am going to get them. I am going to make them rue the day!
Less than a minute later, hair all over the place, sleep still in my eyes, I’m wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and I’m starting my car.
“Right!” I think, as I roar off down my road. “Where would she/he have gone?”
I tear around a corner to where I think she/he was headed.
Within 30 seconds I have found my For Sale sign. It’s next to a bin! And there are other signs, from other estate agents. Oh, so this woman/man has been at it all morning? Cleansing the area of rivals? Well, not on my watch.
I jump out of the car and reclaim my sign, shoving it through the boot so when I sit there is a sharp wooden stake by my cheek. This only heightens my excitement.
“So I’m looking for a man or woman with a light red ponytail,” I think, seething. “I’m going to jump out and stride right up to them and give them what for! Or maybe I’ll sidle up to them, ask them whether they’re the estate agent I’m supposed to meet, and find out where they’re from… because who would do something like this?”
Wait! Foxtons! You hear all sorts about Foxtons! I need to look out for Foxtons Minis! Or… I could go to Foxtons! I spin the car around again and head for the closest one. Oh, they think they’re clever, don’t they, with their ‘suits’ and their ‘ties’? I park up outside and case the joint. Everyone inside looks pleasant. They seem to be doing their jobs. But I know what they’re really doing. Plotting! I give it five minutes and then grow impatient. This man or woman is still out there committing their horrific crimes – I must leave the honest folk of Foxtons alone and capture him or her red-handed!
I head back to the streets around my own, trying to spot anyone sitting in a car, or staring suspiciously at houses that still have For Sale signs. I begin to draw up a shortlist of likely suspects based on nothing more than they haven’t yet been the victim of sign theft. But as I crawl along, I realise I look like a man intent on committing a crime myself, so I head to the high street. There are tons of estate agents there. I park up. I go to phone my wife, but I’ve left my phone at home. Then I scratch my face on the wooden stake next to my cheek. But this pain is nothing compared to the pain of having your For Sale sign stolen by a strange woman/man. I get out of my car and stare at a whole row of estate agents.
“Which one of you was it?” I wonder, and I decide to intimidate them with my presence. I stroll up the street, frowning and peering through windows, holding my car keys to show I have just been in a car and therefore mean business.
I see a woman sitting at a desk. She has light red hair, but no ponytail. Maybe it was fake? I go in.
“Just to let you know,” I say, nodding at her in a way that could be taken either as friendly or as an I KNOW WHAT YOU DID, “there is a man or woman walking around stealing For Sale signs.”
“Oh,” she says, looking surprised, or faking it. I nod and leave. I catch sight of myself in the glass of the door. My hair is all over the place. My T-shirt is on backwards. My face is scratched. I’m walking into places saying “Just to let you know there is a man or woman walking around stealing For Sale signs”.
I look absolutely insane.
When I get home, I see my wife has already called our estate agent and the sign has been replaced.
Great. Now I have two signs.
I have to drive the first one back to the bins where I found it.
But mark my words, this case is not closed…