Unfiltered Story #341943

We rent out Social Houses. Tenants are responsible for keeping their yards in decent shape. Because most of our tenants have a small budget, they can often borrow tools with us.

Most of our tenants are also either lower income, or have Dutch as a second language.

E-mail: “I wish to clean my garden, because there is lot of grass and lot of noise. May I borrow your sewing machine for a day?”

A sewing machine in Dutch is ‘naaimachine’.
A mowing machine in Dutch is ‘maaimachine’ (or ‘grasmaaier’).

Considering most e-mails we get are complaints or big problems, this little typo gave us enough energy to face the rest of the day. And of course the tenant could borrow our ‘sewing machine’. We have no idea what he meant with ‘noise’, though…