I don't know why I'm afraid of our landlady. She's a lovely lady. She is. I told her that Katy'd found a job at the Sanger and that we weren't going to renew our contract because we'd found the perfect flat that reduced our commute from 25 minutes to 5, and it also let us have a cat, and that it was also a 3-bedroom semi. She said that she understood and was sad to see us go. I also said that the perfect property we saw was available now, so I kindly asked her if it would be possible to get out of our contract early.
She said that she had no problem with that provided she could get a tenant, so basically, she's going to start announcing the property now (I told her that we'd make certain to keep the place in a fit state to visit to give a good impression) and if she finds somebody, we can leave early, otherwise we pay the rent until april. It's a fair deal. I also told her that we planned to get a firm to come give the place a good scrub after we'd gotten all our stuff out. She said that we should coordinate on that as there are good places and bad ones, but I think she's happy about that.
I also mentioned the noise from the neighbours. I kinda feel bad about that because they are lovely people in person but bad neighbours. I told her about the conversations late at night, the frame-rattling walking and the fact that we had to make our TV louder so that we didn't have to listen to theirs. She was a bit surprised about that. I was really uncomfortable about that bit, to be honest, and I did mention that we spoke to them repeatedly about it and they made an effort for a little while, but quickly reverted to their old ways. I feel bad about getting them into trouble, I do.
Now, we're waiting from feedback from 3 letting agencies. Hope we get some good news.