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Thursday, March 31, 2005

The most useless landlord in Australia... surely


some time last night : - I noticed water on the floor of the laundry, but thought nothing of it - in a room where there are often dripping clothes/other items being carried about, it's not really a shocking sight.

Today:
10.30am:- I poked my head under the house to see if Bartholomew was under there (he was, and came running when he saw me, cute kitty) and heard a drip drip drip. hmmm, that's a bit unusual - things aren't supposed to go drip drip under the house. I went further in and instead of the leaky pipe I was expecting, found a wet patch of rocky ground with water dripping onto it from the floorboards above. I went inside, and after searching about for wet floor, seeing the large puddle of water that had amassed around the bottom of the hot water system - grabbed the wee torch and headed back under the house. Where I found that there are at least two large sheets of chipboard absolutely saturated and sagging. It is very much like the Waitomo Caves under there (without the glow worms)! There is also some lichen hanging about so I imagine the hot water system has been seeping for quite some time and has all of a sudden burst forth with a Big Leak.

11.15am:- Finally get through to the real estate and inform them of the Very Serious Problem. The maintenance lady tells me to shut off water supply and electricity to the system and she will get someone to come and look at it. The hot water system is Very Old and has no turning-water-off function, but the electricity bit I take care of.

2pm:- I call the real estate again to find out what is going on as I have not heard from them. The maintenance lady informs me that she has phoned and emailed the owner and is waiting to hear back from them. I reiterate the seriousness of the issue and she says she will call me back.

4pm:- I call the real estate again to find out what is going on as I have not heard from them. I leave a message on Maintenance Lady's voicemail and she calls me back in a few minutes. Maintenance Lady says that she rang the owner of the house this morning and Owner Lady said that she would have to talk to her husband and Maintenance Lady had been calling and emailing and had not heard a thing. I state that it is an issue that needs to be dealt with quite urgently, and they should have had the prescence of mind to take matters into their own hands and send a plumber out instead of waiting for the owner, who runs by a completely different clock to the rest of the world. She says to stay put and someone from the office will be around to assess the situation.

4.45pm:- The real estate b1tch who initiated court proceedings against me when I left my last place of residence ( I really must tell that story sometime, it was a pathetic/hilarious case which I won easily) turned up to inspect the damage. She took a quick look at the hot water system and asked if it was possible to see under the floor, so I grabbed the torch and headed outside. On arriving at the Wee Door to Under The House, she poked her head in a little bit and I shoved the torch at her and told her she had to go right under. Her reply: "oh yay, there's probably spiders under there." hee!

End Result:- Tomorrow I get a brand new hot water system - in the meantime I have no hot water. Also the floor will have to be replaced, won't that be fun.


Edited to add:- oh I forgot to mention that I did get through to the real estate a fortnight ago to tell them about the termites and was told that the owner said he had to come back "shortly" to do some other work (top railing on side deck, bathroom drain, hallway ceiling...) and would take care of it then. I am expecting him some time in November.








Monday, March 28, 2005

R.I.P Paul Hester


08/01/1959 - 26/03/2005

Such a sad and shocking loss :(







Friday, March 18, 2005

The newest member of our family...

... is a chicken, she came home from preschool with us today.
The preschool had 10 eggs which they incubated and watched hatch and then the chickies needed homes - this wee hen didn't have one and how could we resist?







Thursday, March 17, 2005

Dreaming Oddities


I always have very bizarre dreams and thought I would post a couple from recent nights.

Monday night: My older Polish neighbour suddenly went into labour despite having shown no signs of pregnancy and being a mother of several adults. I delivered the baby with the help of the boyfriend and unfortunately it was all very graphic, but I did all the right things, even taking the cord from around the baby's neck before delivering the rest of it. It was a very cute baby boy and it turned out the baby's father was Alan Dale - the former kiwi actor who played Jim on Neighbours years ago.

Tuesday night: I was in a very strange city with the boyfriend - we were walking what appeared to be streets but there were boats suspended in the "air" at different levels and it became apparent that we were under water but had no difficulty breathing. I was wating for someone to bring me my whale which was going to come swimming along shortly to see me when I suddenly had severe toothache. I told the boyfriend I had to go to the dentist, but on the way the tooth started to come loose. I exclaimed to the boyfriend about the tooth being loose and then it came out. I found myself in front of a mirror and while inspecting the gap was horrified to find that my two top front teeth had also come out - there was another two teeth making an appearance in their place, but I also had an extra two rows of teeth starting to come through behind my normal teeth - like shark's teeth. I freaked out a little and then said to myself "hang on, this is just too bizarre, I'm always having dreams about freaky shit happening to my teeth so that bit has to be a dream - fair enough one tooth coming out, but not the other two and these extra rows, that's just not happening" - it didn't occur to me that it didn't make sense having only part of it being a dream but anyway, I made my mouth go back to normal except for the gap where the first tooth came out and then I went to look for my boyfriend and my whale.







Here are my termites

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Amarina happened upon a termite nest in the front garden the other morning, so I dug it out and disposed of it along with much of a shrub that had been eaten away. I had wondered why the trees in the front yard were dying, now it appears we have the answer.
Yesterday afternoon we inspected the other trees in the vicinity of the nest and discovered that one tree was pretty much hollow so the boyfriend gave it a tug and the whole tree came down revealing the picture above. They had eaten the base of the tree, killing it and making it very dangerous, if it hadn't come down yesterday it could have ended up on top of a person or car. We are hoping that the termites haven't invaded the bottle brush, as it provides us with all of our privacy and also is host to a variety of beatiful native birds of a morning. It is doubtful that it will be able to be saved, with the termites being on either side of it, and two thirds of the tree is dead - which has only happened in the last few months.

I have tried calling the real estate agent to notify them, but they were engaged for the 10 minutes I tried - there is not much point rushing it anyway, they will write a letter about it to Roberto, the owner, who will call the real estate and tell them he will be down next week to fix it and then 8 months later I will receive an entry notice stating that he is actually coming, in which time the house will have fallen down around us having been eaten by mutated termites and we will have moved into the shed.

I am still waiting for the bathroom drains to be dealt with, along with the painting of the hallway celing, which he said he would take care of "the week after next" - which should have been two months ago.

I can't wait to be in a position to be able to move.