Results of our ‘meeting’

We had a meeting with our builder – not on Friday when I had insisted that he get himself on-site forthwith, but instead on Sunday at 11am when, at his bequest, we made a special trip to get to the house to meet him.

I made several points clear

• Our current predicament is completely unreasonable.
• Several items of work in the house have been installed incorrectly or not to expected standard or to engineers plans.
• Our life has been ruined beyond recognition by the failure to complete the work within a reasonable time-frame.
• The lack of communication is unacceptable.
• Passing the blame to us is not appropriate or acceptable.
• The fact that the windows are wrong is a consumer rights issue and I will continue to persue it after the build is completed: whether with K himself or with the window manufacturer.
• Damage of our personal property is not on.
• Opening our mail is illegal, not to mention a full and complete invasion of our privacy.

I was very straightforward and honest – I was, and am, very angry and I put this across well and without violence or screaming (which I think is an achievement in its self)

I let it be known, once more that I will not stand for being out of my house for any longer than one more week. Giving, what I believed, to be a reasonable target and deadline.

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K conceded on all issues – I don’t recall no if there was an actual apology but he seemed sorry for the current situation. He agreed to fix the incorrectly installed beam (though apparently this was the plan all along) He also agreed that his work internally will be finished by the weekend – thus allowing us to move back in to our home.

‘Y’ is now off of the job.

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And wasn’t I pleased with myself, I followed all the rules given to me in my customer service training (stating the legal boundaries, saying what I am willing to do, giving a reasonable solution and time frame, and remaining civil at all times) I used eye-contact and positive body-language. I left the house feeling great, we were going to have our home back by the following week, we were not going to be suffering at the hands of ‘Y’ any more and things were looking up.

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and now…

Well, he wouldn’t come yesterday as I was unable to be at the house (there is plenty of work to be done outside the house, and I could have left a key with a neighbour if requested) but he insited that material would be arriving Tuesday (today) and so he would be back this morning…

We woke to a text message at 6.30am, K’s wife had an accident and was in hospital… no-one would be coming to the house today… nor would any materials be arriving… [EDIT: Materials did arrive, but only for external work anyway]

I am reminded of the boy who cried wolf.

Why no-one would be at the house, I do not know.

So now… who knows… I have been told that the electrician will be here this afternoon – I won’t hold my breath.

Thanks for reading ;0)

Legal Advice

Ah well, I should have known it would come to this…

I have reached the end of yet another week at the building site and very little work has taken place this week.

This morning I sent our builder the following email

‘X’,

I will be at the house all day today.

‘Y’ was here first thing, he had told me yesterday that he was going to put in the loft hatch and finish plaster boarding today. He has left now, I don’t know when or where too.

‘Y’ opened my mail this morning! It was a package clearly addressed to me and he opened it with a stanley knife! It was a new book which now has a gash down the front. – I am very angry about it. It is the umpeenth thing that has been damaged in our home for no good reason.

We would like an update on the windows and we need a schedule for next weeks work. I see no reason that the completion of the build would take any longer than one week (besides snagging and rectifying the issue with the windows)

If you are unable to give us a proper and correct schedule for completion next week we will have no option but to seek professional advice.

Ann

I have removed the names to protect the not-so-innocent.

So, where to from here? Well on Wednesday I took it upon myself to begin the clearing up of the garden, I continued that yesterday. This morning I began tearing down the remnants of a wall that should have been done weeks ago.

I am no longer content to wait for the work to get done (all too often wrongly, then needs redone) I have decided that doing it myself will be quicker.

We have now been out of our house for 6 weeks, we expected it to be 2 weeks. Today is day 144 of the build, at the beginning we were given a 10 week schedule.

As you can tell I am enraged by the current situation I find myself in. So I have begun to look for a lawyer.

Any advice gratefully received….

Thanks for reading ;0)

A bonfire

A bonfire, originally uploaded by Snowdrops and Daisies.

Over the past few days I have been having a major clear up and organising the garden.

I have moved and stacked loads of the bricks and stone that came out of the house – I will use these for walls and paths in the garden.

Yesterday I had the mother of all bonfires… mostly to clear 3 hawthorn bushes… Hawthorn in a mixed hedge is lovely for the wild life and pretty when it blossoms but it is an evil and sadistic plant – I seriously have no idea why anyone feels the need to use barbed wire fences, this hawthorn is lethal…. so I burnt it.

Also burned loads of hedge prunings and last years pea-sticks… so the garden looks a lot tidier and I am able to get more veg beds in and planted and start coppicing the hedge for this years pea-sticks and supports.

Thanks for reading ;o)

Old Boghead

Boghead

I don’t know when this photo was taken… could have been turn of the century, but it could have been the 30′s.

Anyway our house can be seen as 2 seperate houses, but it really is amazing how little this section of the village has changed in the last hundred years or so.

thanks for reading ;0)

P.S – I am pretty sure the photo is out of copyright – if anyone knows differently I will happily remove it or accredit it correctly.

The Kingspark Diaries

I write today not from my mini-holding and building site in sunny Clydesdale, but instead from my temporary abode on the South-side of Glasgow. We have been sleeping here every night for over a month (on an airbed - not to be recommended for any longer than a few nights) and this morning my inlaws left on holiday leaving us with no childcare and no reason to tidy-up, act civil to each other or keep the noise down.

Staying here for a full month (meals and childcare rolled into the package) has made me realise one or 2 things about our chosen lifestyle in contrast with the lifestyle of average city dwellers, or perhaps just average Scots/Brits/Westerners.

1) That having no TV is considered ‘pretty weird’

2) That cooking all our meals from scratch is considered ‘pretty weird’

3) That growing stuff is considered ‘pretty weird’

4) That make do and mend is considered ‘pretty weird’

And pretty much that we are, in fact ’pretty weird’

Today, a gloriously sunny day here in Glasgow,  has been my first day alone (with E) for over a month and my first day alone with E in the city, since she was 5 months old, and tonight will be the first time I have cooked a meal for over a month too…. and I am thankful that there is an Asda 10 mins walk away where I could pick up a huge amount of salad, some courgettes, pasta, olive oil, yeast and a basil plant  – tonight we shall feast on fresh homemade food (albeit from supermarket purchases rather than home grown) I plan Spaghetti in a tomato sauce with salad and fresh focaccia - now, there are still only 3 of us and this meal will probably be enough to feed hungry hoards… but it will be much appreciated.

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Meanwhile back at the build, where my faithful companion is today..

The windows have gone in – yay! – sadly they are around 2/3 the size that I was expecting… so my idea of huge windows has been somewhat scuppered…and breathe…. and relax….

The electrics, telephone and TVarial wiring is all getting done today and the flooring starts going in today or tomorrow.

We had 2 weeks of very little happening; the main builder had taken another job down in Bristol, and neglected to tell us… and breathe… and relax…

I sent him an email, basically demanding that our house gets completed and that he is more considerate of our situation and of our property until the work is done.

He is back now and work has been really fast pace since Thursday.

Current complete date is Friday… I don’t believe it to be perfectly honest but that is the target, and at least he is now working to a target rather than just letting it happen whenever.

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…and in other news…

We now have 8 chickens. 3 of them are visiting from West Lothian for a while and since they take no more looking after than the other 5 do anyway we are glad to have them.

Our 5 have been moved back into the henhouse from the polytunnel because Spring is upon us and I now need the polytunnel for essential growing space.

4 out of 6 potato beds have been planted up and there is some garlic and onions in too. unfortunately we have a single big fat rabbit hoping around our veg plot. It has had the cabbages and broccolis already and has munched the bark from the fruit trees - but I will need to get rid of it before my beans, peas, carrots, squashes and salad crops go in or we will have no veg come autumn. My neighbour favours the ‘shovel over the head’ approach and, if we can catch it, I think that will be the conclusion…. not sure if I want to think about skinning or gutting it though so it might be buried under the cherry tree.

Anyway I have a sunny patio to sit on and very few household chores to keep me from it

Thanks for reading ;o)

Day 119

Stairs

The stairs went in on Friday.

They are lovely stairs…. then, I did design them so I guess I should think so.

Now comes the job of fitting the floor upstairs around them. We have a small team here today doing just that. Unfortunately we have problems with our septic tank and our drainage hasn’t been put in around the extension so we have a considerable amount of water building up around the foundations and spreading to inside the house all under the joists…. but still… not good….

And… guess what… It was snowing here again today…

Thanks for reading ;o)

The final push

Oh… How I have missed you little blog… I haven’t been able to post for a while… and this is why

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Well, this is it… this should be it…

The temporary bathroom came out on Monday. The wall between the living room and dining room were removed on Monday and Tuesday the stairs came out on Wednesday. The plumber has been in to do the ‘first-fit’. The slaters have nearly finished slating the roof. We have wires sticking out of walls and dangling from ceilings. The new stairs are going up as I type, and by the time I am finished this post the stairs should be in and walls upstairs may have come down to accomodate it.

So we moved out of the house last Friday and we are now sleeping at my J’s parents house, some 25 miles away. We knew that everything was happening this week, and that it would be too difficult to try to sleep here at all. I am returning here each day and J is continuing to work full-time throughout.

Sadly E is now very home sick, not just pining for her toys but wanting just to play on the living-room floor. Much as her grandparents house is very familiar and comfortable for her, and she is very happy there, it just isn’t home and she misses her normal way of life… poor wee thing.

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I like to think of myself as an optimist (most of the time) and I have been making the best of a bad situation here. I have to be here to let builders in and out and to make decisions and to over see work being done. But I cannot stay in the house, there is no safe or clean room for me to sit in (our bedroom is untouched but, what with there being no stairs, I don’t feel entirely secure hiding in an upstairs room)

Soooo………

I have made the garden my full-time work for this past week…. and it has been in desperate need of TLC…. as I have been in desperate need f fresh air and day light.

Many items on my ”to do’ list have now been done, all the niggling jobs that never reach priority status and so are left undone – I am now feeling like this week hasn’t been as wasted as it could have otherwise been.

I have

• Cleaned and tidied the Polytunnel, preparing the beds for the growing season.
• Put an old feed trough in the PT and filled it with flowering bulbs (so we should get an early flush of flowers each spring for the house)
• Put shelving up in the PT for my seed trays to live on (so that I am not constantly tripping over them/ moving them around)
• Completed the PTs raised beds and filled them with fresh compost
• Put down mulch around the fruit trees
• Attached guttering to the shed

But perhaps, the thing I am most proud of is… I eventually… after 2 years of deliberating… built my self a compost toilet – I think I’ll need to leave explaining the physics of a compost toilet for another post… but basically we have something more suitable than a bucket to ‘go in’ at the top of the garden.

I have also erected our wee 2-man tent at the top of the garden and I am using that as my ‘base’ where I can drink coffee, eat lunch, use the computer and read books – I have a stack of gardening and self-sufficiency books here waiting to be consulted on my next project. So really I have made my time in the garden rather comfortable… and I am glad of it.

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I’m missing my regular life terribly and I am desperate to start cleaning up the God-awful mess that my house is in….. but…. as has become my catchphrase of late “It will all be worth it in the end”

Thanks for reading ;o)