Category: House

I should have remembered to turn the heating off yesterday, but I got home too late to think about it and just fell into bed. Doh.

Edit to add: Reasons for feeling ranty also are perhaps related to the fact my assoc mentor yesterday told me *not* to bring in stuff to go through with her, but to go through it with my main mentor. Then today had a go at me for not bringing it in when it was quiet ‘cos she could have gone through some of it. AARRGH.

Anyway, auctions are less fun than expected. Well, to be honest, I didn’t think it’d be much fun; but having some pillock bid only 6k from his upper limit as the first bid (and distressingly only 3k from mine). Well, that was frustrating.

I’m not so much pissed off that I didn’t get the house, in the sense of pure unadulterated pissed off. Because it went for so much more than I could afford, and so much more than it was worth (even by the surveyor’s reckoning. I didn’t even think it’d be worth that much*) I more feel like the person who bought it paid over the odds and will end up regretting it when they get there and find it’s a big damp box with no roof, electrics, plumbing or heating.

Anyway.

Bitter much?

No, what really bugs me is now I have to go through now:

– Probably: Finding a house to rent (after Lauren moves)
– Finding another house I actually want to buy that’s in my price range (the two on the next auction aren’t great. There’s one listed which might be a ‘possible’. I’m suddenly tempted to move where property is much cheaper).
– Getting the bankers draft converted back into money in my account, which, I’m told, is not simply a matter of destroying it (indeed, entirely the opposite); nor taking it back to the bank and having them destroy it. Oh no, it’s a pay-to-solicitor-get-them-to-pay-me-back game.

And then the *whole* process of checking out the house and blah, and blah, and *BLAH*.

Meh.

* But there were some spectacularly stupid people there going ‘oh, this one looks nice’ and pointing at it – and some of them were involved in the bidding. Yes, it *looks* nice on the outside. So’d a cardboard fascade if I was quick enough to take the picture *rolls eyes*. If I’m ever selling a house by auction I’ll nip round with some poster paint the day before they do the auction catalogue and make it look way nicer than it is.

So, back to work today. Much fun of the “oh my god you cut off all your hair… it looks really cool” variety. I like looking good. I don’t often feel that great about myself. Well, moreso these days, but today was like “commentathon”, which was fun. And my hair? It needs trimming anyway.

Also lots of talk about the potential house. Someone at work was:

“Oh my god I can’t believe you’d even consider living there”.

But she drives me nuts anyway. Everyone else was really startled and doing the whole ‘what the fuck?!’ when she did that. But anyway, completely ignoring her after work I left and headed into Bath. I had the choice of driving to my branch in Brizzy, driving nearer to Bath city centre or walking, from work, into Bath. Walking seemed like a great idea.

The traffic is always lousy in Bath, and then I’d have to find somewhere to park… Not driving at all saves on fuel. Ignoring, obviously that I slept appaulingly last night and was completely wrecked after work I set off. In the rain. 2.5 miles doesn’t seem a lot normally, in fact, it’s a teeny distance. But after a day stood up at work? Maybe not so great on the plan front.

I did however get my Bankers Draft. It’d disappointingly like a normal cheque; and I discovered that to get my money back into my account having had the draft written I actually have to get it paid into the account it’s written for and then have them pay me back. What the fuck?! *sigh*. Hopefully I’ll win the auction and then that won’t be an issue!

Anyway, by the time I got back to the car (5 and a bit miles later, as my navigation in Bath was of it’s usual standard) my shins were aching; by the time I got home both my legs were sending daggers of ‘please stop driving’ all over the place. So. Yes. We learned something today. We don’t do that again.

They are not accepting offers on the property before the auction. Bollocks.

I am preparing myself for being pissed off, on the other hand if they had accepted my offer now then the chances of me getting any work done in the next few weeks would have been tiny. On the minus side the reason they aren’t accepting offers is that they’ve had offers and the owners have just gone ‘nah, wait for the auction’. They’ve had offers. Offers plural. Bugger.

…I’m thinking about buying a house. I am thinking… of spending… more money that I’ve ever spent before… on a house… with no roof, with damp, with no heating, no worthwhile electrics, no kitchen… barely any ceilings…

*pause*

No I am fucking terrified. Scared witless. Holy crap, holy crap, oh holy crap, oh holy crap.

Seriously scary.

Okay. Ring. Ask if they’ll accept an offer now.

Lord am I tired… It was the burial of my dad’s urn / casket today; and the service at Amaravati. ‘cos my mum was stressing I drove over to hers last night – enabling us to set off at 6:30 this morning. Unfortunately it also meant I slept terribly; I think I got about 3 hours. Then we got in my mum’s car and I drove us to Amartavati in Hemel; It was only about an hour and a half, and the traffic was pretty good really. The service was really nice; the dahna offering went well too; the little nephews behaved themselves really well :-)

I got to try more Thai and assorted other asian foods – and apart from accidentally eating a chilli (and the accompanying period of me *looking* like I’d just eaten a chilli) and the experience as a whole was a good one. Driving back though, what with drinking only decaf, and the minute amount of sleep, I really really struggled. Anyway, got my mum back, fixed her waterfall, drank coffee, picked up my birthyday presents,m hopped in the car, drove back here and found… the subject of the title.

The damp survey is back on the house; it’s got *no* damp proof course at all. It is all but a swimming pool (Moisture content as high as 28%) and 2 walls in two rooms need to be replastered floor to ceiling ; but the quote for this is actually what I was expecting as the quote for *just* damp proofing to be, but actually they’ll do floor to ceiling plastering and 1 m high in the other rooms. So it’s really all *rar*.

It’s not really any worse than I expected; and actually better in some ways… so we await wednesday with baited breath.

Okay. How about the bad news first?

I got a quote, just on the off chance like, of how much it’d cost to re-roof an entire victorian butterfly roof’d terrace with knackered joists and all. The ‘rotten as a pear’ assumption.

The bad news is that my rough guestimate for a new roof was *wildly* inaccurate. Laughably so.

The other bad news is that it was wildly inaccurate in the wrong direction; I was assuming it’d cost *way* more than the roofers think it’d cost. Arse. This now means that if the survey throws up the roof as being nadgered that I then actually will think ‘hrm, best get a quote from a couple of roofers’.

Oh balls. Oi! Universe! Stop tempting me!

So, back to doing more… I’m going to have to get a different keyboard I think. I keep moving this one around but I am suddenly seeing the point of Ergonomic keyboards. Bollocks.

Yeah, back to doing more Uni work today. Still got EU Maternity to do, but I’m mostly through it. Once I’ve answered all the bits I can I’ll start on the EU Mental Health; this is because there may be things I need to get from Uni for the EU Mental health, and I’d rather do them as one trip. I did spend 10 enjoyable minutes trying to find a paper for the Maternity pack, which I couldn’t find because… they’d got the bloody reference wrong. All that bollocks about marking us down for getting references wrong and they do it their-bloody-selves. They’d missed out a space, making ‘birth plans’ ‘birthplans’, eventually I thought “hang on, maybe they’ve made a typo” and found it. Bastards.

In other news, I’m still running after the NHS / the Government with a big stick saying do your fucking job. You know, given that they’ve made me wait 2 sodding months because they failed to send a letter, and the people in the NHS at the other end failed to actually check that they’d received a letter (both assuming that it had gone / arrived (*rolls eyes*)) you’d think they might be a little teeny bit pro-active about actually checking that things are now moving. But no. No. Apparently not.

“Hi, this is Kate, did you get a fax from X on Friday?”
“No….no, definately not. They did ring to ask for a fax number though.”
[Thinks… and you didn’t think it was odd that you then didn’t get a fax at all? *HEADS DESK*]
“Oh, ah, okay, I’ll go chase them.”

…

“We sent the fax on Friday”
“Right, well, they didn’t receive it”
“Oh. Well, I’ve got a sent recipt here”
“Yes, but they didn’t get it. I don’t know why. Could you send it again? Please?” [… before I’m forced to come up there, kill every last living one of you bastards, and take the form down to Bristol by hand myself]
“Okay. I’ll send it again.”

I will be ringing again in a couple of hours to check that it has, this time, been recieved. Before I’m forced to beat them with sticks. Beat. With. Sticks.

In other news, my wrist is hurting and I’ve not even started working today. Bloody thing. Also, I’m still completely stuck on this house, I know exactly how I want to layout the bathroom now. And the bedroom, I have some *really fucking ace* ideas for the bedroom, if the roof doesn’t need doing. God yes. Although they might cost too much. They might cost more than it’s worth to do it. But I have a concept. It would actually require builders though, and hence might well not be worth it. But hey. We can but think about concepts. If it’s too expensive, it’s too expensive. I don’t have the house yet. I alternate between dreams of no-one bidding on the house and me getting it for less than the guide price, and bidding wars where it rapidly disappears out of my price range; and of going with the surveyor and him saying “it’s knackered, fit only for demolition” and equally, going with the surveyor and him going “this roof’s just been replaced…” :-)

At any rate. I should be working now, so I’ll go prod my EU pack with sticks.

I’ve done it again. It’s another Rebecca. It is. I’m a big sensible adult now, and I can see when my insanity is trying to take me places where I really shouldn’t go. That’s why I’m getting a free timber and damp treatment survey done. And then I’m going down there with a surveyor who’ll do me a shiny shiny survey.

But I love the house. God damn it, I love every mouse ridden damp rotting corner of it.

[lots of pictures]

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