On Top of the World

We’re still on the hunt for some tenants for M’s house, but in other house news that I wanted to talk about last week but didn’t because I was worried I’d jinx things - M sold his house! Not the one we’re trying to get tenants for, a different one. The cooling-off period ended at midnight last Thursday, so it is officially sold.

M was worried for a while, because the agent (which is the same guy I bought my house from) was using some ‘agenty’ tactics with one of the potential buyers, and we were hoping that he wouldn’t end up scaring the guy off, but he kept assuring us that he knew what he was doing and it turned out he did. We signed a contract for one amount, then ended up getting even more in the end.

The current tenant at the house agreed to renew her lease until the settlement date (60 days), but when she didn’t return the form and M rang her to ask about it, he was told that she hadn’t sent it back yet because she was looking at a place with the view to moving out. Grrr. So if she moves without giving proper notice, we might be able to get some rent from her but otherwise we’ll lose 2 months worth of rent. We have landlords’ insurance, though, so maybe that would cover some of it. Tenants can be such a pain.

We wanted to go to our favourite restaurant last weekend to celebrate but they were booked out. We haven’t rescheduled yet, but were thinking of trying a restaurant near us that we haven’t been to before. I’ve been dying to go for years, and the only reason we haven’t been there yet is because it’s pretty expensive; it’s the most expensive restaurant I know of in Adelaide. So we might go there because we have a few reasons to celebrate - selling the house, both our half-birthdays*, and our wedding anniversary which is next week - but on the other hand it’s good to go to places you know you like when you’re celebrating something. It would be pretty disappointing to blow a few hundred dollars on food we didn’t like very much (but I can’t imagine not liking it - the menu sounds pretty good!).

* I know that half-birthdays aren’t really a reason to celebrate, but since his birthday is so close to Christmas and after that he has to wait another 363 days before he has another gift-receiving occasion, I started giving him a present halfway through the year. I’ve been doing this for a few years, so now I’ve got him into the (bad) habit of expecting to do something for his half-birthday.

The carpet is done! The carpet guy showed up when he was meant to this time, so it all went according to plan. I haven’t seen it in person yet because I was working late when it was being done, but M took a few photos. I’m looking forward to going down there so I can oooh and ahhh in the room. Now we just have to find someone who wants to rent the house.

First, another reminder of the original room:

And now the completed room!

Yay that the room is finally done. There are a couple more things that need to be done around the house but it’s pretty much ready now. M saw one of the neighbours recently, who told him that the ginger cat was there before our previous tenants moved in, so it seems that he wasn’t abandoned by them after all. I guess that’s a good thing as it means that he can obviously look after himself, but I still feel bad that it seems he doesn’t have anywhere to go. Unless it’s all a big trick and he’s been playing us… cunning little bastard.

We left work early yesterday because we were dropping M’s nephew off to pick up a new car he bought, and I thought I’d leave as well since I’d worked late 3 nights that week and just felt like leaving early. We stopped off at the shops to ‘buy some milk’ and ended up spending $170. One of the things we got was a packet mix for some Crunchie cupcakes (in case you don’t know, a Crunchie is a Cadbury chocolate bar - chocolate covered honeycomb). M went out to a renunion dinner last night, and while he was gone I thought I’d make the cupcakes. They’re honeycomb-flavoured cakes with chocolate icing and choc-covered honeycomb pieces on top. I thought they turned out ok, but they weren’t brilliant. Although, they were good enough that they’re all gone now (there were 12! But in our defence, they were quite small…).

Since they were made from a packet, I thought it would be nice to find a recipe that I could make from scratch since I had some patty pans left over and we wouldn’t want them to go to waste. So I looked for some on allrecipes.com and found a whole lot of yummy-sounding recipes that I’d like to try. The only problem is that I’m not a good cook so I’m not very optimistic about them working out.

As I mentioned a few days ago, the carpet was meant to go in yesterday, but it didn’t end up getting done. They were due to arrive at 3:30, and were going to call M half an hour before they got there so he’d have time to head down, but M got a call at 2:30 from the guy saying he was there already. So M went down there, but the guy had left! M called him, and the guy said that he was going out that night and couldn’t hang around any longer. Thanks for nothing, jerk. There wasn’t much M could do there by himself, so he did a couple of things and then went home. So, the carpet is going to be done tomorrow. He’d better turn up at the right time.

At the moment we’re trying to find a hotel for when we go to NYC at the end of November. The initial plan was to arrive so that the conference was in the first week, and the second week was leisure time, but given that accommodation is so expensive (and hard to find as everything seems to be booked out) in those two weeks because of ‘conference season’, we’ve decided to arrange the trip so that the conference is in the second week. I don’t really mind which way we do it, it’s all leisure time for me! The only bummer will be that I’ll be travelling in economy class while M is being spoilt in business class. D’oh. I’ve told him that he has to steal some cool stuff for me.

…Cabbage Patch Kids? I had two when I was growing up, which I got when I was 10 years old. It just so happens that one of them was ‘born’ on the 15th of July 1986, which makes her 20 years old today. I can’t believe I’m old enough to say that something happened 20 years ago and I wasn’t an infant.

Today we finished painting! I think that maybe one more coat on that huge plastered bit might be good, but it’s not a big deal. Even if we don’t put that extra coat on, it looks so much better now. As a reminder, here is what it looked like before:

And here is how it looks now!

(This is where you make all the ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ noises)

So now all there is to do is fix up the skirting board a little, and have the carpet put in.

A post in this painting series wouldn’t be complete without a cat picture, and so I have a couple more. The first one is when he thought I was going to be giving him some food, but alas it was only a cloth I’d been using to wipe up paint. Still it was worth a try.

M made him a little house, which he started using straight away. I put a carpet square inside it to make it a bit better to lie in. I’m still working on M to let us bring him home, but I don’t think it will work (M, I know you’re reading this!)

I wonder if he’s lying in it as I type this…

…because the pictures would probably look virtually the same as yesterday’s photos, but today we went back and put the top coat on. It’s coming together very nicely, and all we have to do now is sand the rest of the wall, paint it and do a few touchups. Then it’s another house clean, wait for the carpet people to come, and that’s it!

The poor little cat was there again today. I’m starting to feel bad for feeding him every time just in case he becomes too dependent on us, but as M says, some food is better than no food. I’m trying to convince M that Frisky and Jack would like another sibling, but I don’t think it’s having any effect. In reality, I doubt we’ll bring it home, but it feels so awful to leave it there in the cold, so I’ll keep trying. The only other potential candidates we have are M’s sister and my sister. If neither of them want it I don’t know what to do.

This is my 500th post!

On Sunday we did the undercoat and the ceiling.

This is the ceiling in progress. If it looks a little pink, it’s because it is - the paint goes on pink, so you can see where you’ve painted, but dries white. It’s a great idea and very handy indeed.

The ceiling all done. The good thing about doing the ceiling first was that we could paint right to the edge and not worry about the walls too much because we were going to paint them as well. And the fact that we’re carpeting the floor meant that we didn’t have to be too pedantic about getting paint on the floor either.

After M did the ceiling we both did the undercoat. M used the roller while I did the edges. I actually got a bruise on my shin from leaning against the ladder trying to steady myself. The floor’s not very level, so the ladder was a bit wobbly in places, which gave me the willies a bit. A sign of getting older, I suppose - when I was a child I used to do all sorts of crazy stuff on the playground equipment at school and it never bothered me a bit.

Anyway, a good tip we learnt when we first started doing DIY was to tint the undercoat with some of the final paint colour. You might be able to get away with fewer coats, and it has the added bonus of giving you a little idea of what it’s going to look like when it’s finished, so it’s not quite so depressing doing the undercoat and not having the room look much better than before you started.

The undercoat finished! Well, almost finished - we haven’t done the bit under the window yet that needed the major patching because the plaster wasn’t quite dry and we had to sand it first. It looks a little better in the photo than it does in person, but it still worlds better than it was, and once the final coat is done, it’s going to look great.

We also organised for the floor to be carpeted, so the plan is for that to happen on Monday. We decided on a charcoal carpet, so it will tie in with the floor in the kitchen. I can’t wait to see the end result!

Of course, the cat was there and this time I was prepared with some food and water for him. He was so happy, purring all the time he was eating. Then he decided that he got what he wanted out of us and went to lie down in the sun. I suppose I can’t blame him - it was a nice day for it.

Yesterday we had a couple have a look through. It’s a shame that the house wasn’t completely ready for inspection, because it meant they had to use their imagination a little when we said what we were doing to it, but at least they could see that we were actually getting things done and not just saying it to try to win them over. I don’t really know whether they were interested; they were really polite, but we both know that that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.

Hooray! It’s the weekend! The working week is over, so now I can finally… have my weekend sucked up by some boring house-related stuff. Sigh. The way I should be viewing this is that if it’s done now, then it doesn’t have to be done later, but I remember all the weekends we lost when we were painting and sanding and cleaning, and it’s more than a little depressing. Most of it is unavoidable, though, due either to damage caused by the previous tenants, or improvements that really need to be made before someone else moves in. Tenants suck. If you’re a tenant and you don’t suck, then good on you. And would you like to rent our house?

After going to bed at 2:30 this morning, and getting up at 11, productivity levels for today weren’t going to be at a maximum. Nevertheless, we bought the necessary items, had lunch in a nearby cafe and finally started work at 2:00. This didn’t give us much time, given that the sun sets at around 5:30, but it was still enough to get some things out of the way.

The first job was to replace a broken tap in the bathroom. Since we couldn’t get hold of exactly the same type (and it was too expensive to replace for a tenant anyway), we bought a new tap set (click the images for larger version).

The most daunting job, but the one that will yield the most benefit, is one of the bedrooms. It’s the one room in the house you really don’t want people to look in because unfortunately it lets the house down, and could possibly be a deal breaker. But no more! We’re going to patch it and paint it and put in some carpet and I think that at the end it’s going to look great. It would be nice to have the floors polished like most of the rest of the house, but I don’t think the condition of them is good enough for that, hence the carpet. M patched the wall today, and we’ll do the painting tomorrow. You can see from the photos what condition the room is in, but that is all about to change.

We’re painting it the same colour we did the lounge room:

When I was there on Tuesday, a ginger cat came to say hello, and he visited us again today. The poor thing seemed starved for attention (and food - he wolfed down the little biscuits I gave him), and I felt bad for leaving him there. I’m assuming he lives nearby and wasn’t actually abandoned by the tenants; I like to think he has a home to go to. He wouldn’t stay still long enough for me to get a decent photo, but here are a couple.

…M was cleaning this up:

That was all the junk left behind by the previous tenants. You’d think with all that stuff, there might be something that we could keep or sell or somehow benefit from, but there was really nothing. It was all absolute junk, except for the mobile phone charger that will work with my Samsung phone. I was pretty pleased with that find. Take that, miserable tenants!

At least the quantity of useless possesions was somewhat consistent with their lack of rent payment. If you’ve got no money, why are you living in a place where you can’t afford the rent? And if you’re having trouble making payments, why can’t you tell us up front so we can work something out, rather than say nothing and hope we won’t notice?

So, M’s day was spent piling all the junk into a mini skip. He got everything in, but he had to dismantle the furniture to make it all fit. When he got there he saw that some people had helped themselves to some of it, so at least that made fitting everything a bit easier. I remember the first time I saw someone helping themselves to my hard rubbish (specifically, an old barbeque) I was somewhat offended, but after all it is rubbish, so what does it matter if someone else wants it. It makes the life of whoever has to cart it away that bit easier, and pilfering someone’s hard rubbish from the side of the road is a rung or two higher on the ladder of dignity than snooping through a rubbish bin.

Of the two inspections due to take place on Wednesday, one person didn’t turn up and the other wasn’t interested, so it’s back to the drawing board. We’re probably going to paint one of the rooms this weekend, so that will make a big improvement, as the room is in serious need of attention. We’re also going to get it carpeted. I’ll be interested to see how it turns out. Before and after photos will definitely be taken.

I was going to call this post “My cat hates me” but decided with the above title for consistency. More about the runner-up title later.

Today was the final day of cleanup before the inspection tomorrow. The person who wanted the 3 month lease found somewhere else, but there are two other people interested. The day started well with a sleep in. M was going to work, so he got up at around 7. Hee hee. I got up at around 9:15 and started getting ready.

I started work at around the same time as yesterday, and it took me a while to get into a groove - there were lots of things I had to do but I wasn’t very methodical about it. I eventually got some sort of routine worked out, and so began the cleaning of the whole house. I cleaned the bedroom that had all that weird sticky stuff all over the walls and it looks so much better now. I still have no idea what that stuff was. I also cleaned the bathroom, mopped and vacuumed the floors, cleaned the carpet that had several stains on it and finished cleaning the kitchen. I left at 6:15, and by that time I think I got the house looking pretty good (if I do say so myself!).

*****

Now to the reason of why Jack hates me. I just can’t give him those tablets any more. It’s been 10 days, which is the normal course length for those tablets, but I’m expected to do it for 28 days, twice a day. Yesterday when I tried to give it to him he made a weird noise like a baby sucking on a dummy, then he started drooling. My guess was that he was trying to make it difficult for the tablet to go down. It was just awful. I eventually got him to take it, but there’s no way I can put him through it any more. I’m going to call the vet tomorrow and see if there’s something else we can do. Even if I take him in for an injection, at least that will be once and that’s it.

He recognises when I’m going to give him the tablet, and starts the dummy sucking noise straight away, and backs off. He’s not affectionate and purry with me any more, and doesn’t lick my hand like he has always done until recently. So enough is enough. I don’t want my baby thinking that whenever I pat him I’m going to try to force a tablet down his throat. He barely wants to sit next to me

I decided to get some yoghurt and try crushing the tablet and giving it to him in that. He’s not meant to be eating anything else, but since the diet hasn’t helped so far, I thought it was worth a try. I stopped off on the way home tonight and got some. After dinner it was time to try it out. I showed him the yoghurt and he seemed keen, so I put some out and crushed up the tablet. I wasn’t too optimistic, since I could smell the tablet and it made me feel sick, so I thought there wasn’t much chance that Jack would eat it. Sure enough, he backed away. I tried a couple of times with no success, then gave up.

I then put out some yoghurt on its own and gave it to him, to try to say sorry for being so mean. He ate it, but hardly with the usual enthusiasm he shows for yoghurt. I’m so horrible I’ve even made his favourite food depressing for him Now that Operation Cleanup is over, I think it’s time to start Operation Win Back Jack’s Love.

As I mentioned yesterday, today was spent cleaning. By the time we got ready, bought the rest of the stuff we needed and had breakfast, it was after 11:30. I got straight to work on the kitchen, and worked solidly until 4:00. It really was gross, and even after all that time it’s still not completely finished. I still have to do the benchtops and clean the floor. That cloth I bought yesterday (the one where you only need water to clean) was quite good, but the bad thing about it is that you don’t get that nice just-cleaned smell that you do when you use cleaning products. I used it a bit, but then switched back to the old, familiar method.

While I was in the kitchen, M was cleaning up outside. While we were cleaning, one of the tenants turned up. The purpose of his visit was that he needed access to the property later in the week when the electricity was disconnected. I didn’t think there was much chance of access being granted, and we told him we’d had the locks changed. Anyway, there were a few arguments, resulting in him threatening us with his lawyers. Pfft - if they were the same ones who told him that he had a right to his bond, then I think he needs to change lawyers. He also spun some ‘poor me’ tale of being in on work cover and having no money. There was some more arguing and then I figured that there was no point discussing it any more, so I asked M if we were done and we just walked off. Stupid trash.

Although the kitchen looks a lot better, there’s still a lot to do on the rest of the house, so I’ll go back again tomorrow to try to make it look as nice as I can before the inspection on Wednesday.