She works hard for the money: yes, landlords do work to earn their rent. Here's how

So, it's easy to make money as a landlord, is it? Money just falls down on you while you sleep, does it?

Er, no, not always — and I will tell you why.

Take the other weekend, just as an example. While it seemed to me that everyone else was enjoying themselves, I was working my way through a long list of property maintenance jobs and showing the flat.

Late on Friday evening I was at Ikea buying furniture for a new tenant’s room. On Saturday, my husband and I assembled the chest of drawers I’d bought, then unassembled it when we got to Step 29 and realised we’d forgotten Step three.

Once the furniture was installed, I hoofed it to another, recently vacated flat to let in a cleaner and carry out repairs. I glued together a cracked drawer — sticking my fingers together in the process — then descaled the bathroom; replaced several blown light bulbs; ran to the locksmith to get a new front door key cut, and scrubbed all the scuff marks off the hall walls.

I was just leaving the flat when I remembered to test the doorbell, which, of course, wasn’t working, so I jogged to the shops in the pouring rain for a replacement battery.

On Sunday, I was driving to the flat for two appointments when one cancelled. Then a woman arrived with her husband, a toddler, her five-year-old son and his little friend, who she said she’d brought along “for fun”.

“This isn’t a b****y crèche,” I wanted to say when both boys ran up to the living room and started leaping off the sofa.

The woman told me she’d thought she was coming to view a house and, ideally, she wanted to live on the ground floor. I wondered what it was about my advert for a “cosy first-floor flat” that made her think it was a family-size bungalow.