From now on, I'll stick to one home

The buy-to-let craze was in full swing and Sarah Beeny was the darling of Channel 4. Every week Property Ladder made for essential viewing. The bottom line was this: buy the worst house in the best street, do it up and laugh all the way to the bank. So I did.

I bought a house that hadn't been improved since the 1960s in a desirable Black Country neighbourhood. It was valued by a number of estate agents and stood to make a tidy 20 per cent return.

Little did I know what was in store.

I budgeted half the amount needed to do it up and allocated only half the time. Some months and several unexpectedly large credit card bills later, the house was in immaculate shape. An estate agent found me a buyer who offered £2,000 more than I'd spent. Foolishly, I declined. And so began a terse, 10-year-relationship with The House of Doom.

An estate agent advised me to rent the property. And so I did. Except the tenants I found had a different understanding of 'renting' to me. They viewed 'rent' as being optional – like washing up in a student house or replacing the milk in a communal fridge.

They viewed their contractual obligation to keep the place in good condition as a challenge. On one memorable occasion, a tenant telephoned late on a Sunday night. He'd exploded the cooker, managing to blow its door clean off in a blaze of smoke and glass.

Another tenant from a large, extended, international family regaled me with stories of relatives – including the one serving life for murder somewhere in the USA. I Googled the information, to make sure she wasn't engaging in spin: sadly, it was true.

I'd like to say things got better. But they didn't. Try as I might to find good tenants, worse and worse followed. Well-meaning neighbours living nearby phoned occasionally to report on the latest shenanigans. Each time, I'd make a 100-mile round-trip to clean up the mess.

At one stage, I managed to find an industrious, hard-working sort who exhibited considerable entrepreneurial qualities. The only trouble was, his energies were channelled into nefarious activities. He managed to sub-let the property to a gang of drug dealers who turned the house into a cannabis factory – a fact I discovered while making an unannounced visit.

When I peered through the letterbox, I saw a coffee table with with a fruit bowl. It was filled with cannabis. An Alsatian was chained to the kitchen door; presumably to stop it from getting high. I reported it to the police, though they decided not to investigate after assessing that the drugs were probably for personal use. That's community policing for you.

The word 'trashed' is over-used. But on three separate occasions and by three different tenants, that's what happened to The House of Doom.

On one spectacular occasion, a bulldog managed to eat one of the door frames – a sentence I didn't ever expect to write.

I'd like to tell you that I've in some way exaggerated; that I've over-egged the pudding like an incompetent cook. But I haven't. I'd like to tell you that I've told you the worst of it. But I haven't. I'd like to tell you there was a happy ending. But there wasn't.

And now it's gone. I've finally sold the House of Doom. After 10 years, three makeovers and countless wasted hours, I lost 20 per cent rather than gained.

So RIP, Buy-To-Let. One house is enough for me.

From now on, I'll just stick to my own home sweet home.