Last night I had, well not exactly a sleepless night, but a disturbed one all the same. I woke at 3.00am to the sound of the wind howling in off the sea and attacking our roof with some gusto.

Things go through your mind at 3.00am.

Of course I began to worry. Last week, we had our first leak of the season. Fortunately it was in our own house and not in one of the rental properties. Fortunately?? Well, that depends on your perspective. Half an hour of crawling around joists and uprights in a one-metre attic space is not what I call fortunate, but I suppose it could have been worse.

Recent events such as the flash flooding in Pendine village a couple of weeks ago, shown below, have got me thinking. We’ve had a wet summer and a wet autumn, so can we expect more of the same?

The landlord’s perspective

From the perspective of a landlord, the more properties you own, the more potential there is for this sort of seasonal problem. I’m obviously not the only one who thinks so, as I noted in a post on winter preparation on PropertyBookshop.com earlier today.

Planning ahead, hunting out potential problems while they are molehills before they become mountains and taking preventative measures are key issues when working with property. A problem ignored is usually an expensive problem later on.

I am happy to report that our roof survived the night (and all of today) intact, and last week’s leak has not recurred. Yet. Perhaps the phone call to the builder was sufficiently preventative … even though he hasn’t been out yet.