House fun
2007-01-22

This is what was left of my fence from last week’s big storm.

Sure the winds were strong, but I couldn't help but wonder why my fence was toppled when everyone else's fences in the neighbourhood were fine.

It was when we were putting the panels back up that it became clear. The panels were being held in place with tiny nails that wouldn't hold a postcard on a bulletin board. "But look at the paint on the cinder blocks!", I hear you cry. "Surely, if the wind was strong enough to blow paint off, then it must've been strong enough to blow ANY fence down."

I would agree with you except for the fact that the paint peeled off almost the second after we moved in 8 months ago. It is peeling off EVERYWHERE. There is something I haven't discussed in this blog yet, and that is the previous owner of my house was a fucking tool.

The cheap fence and the crap paint are just the tip of the iceberg in the problems we have found since we moved in. The previous owner (let's call her "Hilda") was the anti-Midas. Everything she touched turned to shit (literally).

When we first looked at the house, we thought the DIY was done well. The house looked good. The walls had been painted (in nice colours), the place was clean, it smelled good, all the interior doors were new, the lawn well maintained. Tacky brass fittings and bad tile choices aside, it looked like she took care of the place. This was quite a feat considering she had a large dog and about 8 million cats.

There was about three months between when we had our offer accepted and when we moved in and it became immediately obvious when we moved in that in those three months, Hilda did not lift a finger. I'd like to lift one at her, guess which one.

When we moved in, the place was disgusting. There was not a square inch of it that wasn't covered in animal hair of some description and the spare room smelled like the dog had shit in the cat's vomit. There was even dog hair in the ice that lined the freezer. In the fucking ICE. I can only think of two reasons for this: ONE, that she had a brilliant circus dog that she had trained to open the freezer to retrieve pudding pops, or TWO, Hilda ate dogsicles. I don’t really care, frankly, if she was a dog eater, that’s her business. But what kind of sick bitch doesn’t defrost the freezer when they move out?

We also noticed that the door handles on the bedroom doors were mismatched. Now, I don’t mean one is bright steel and one is brushed steel; I mean one is white plastic, one is black plastic, one is brass and they are all attached to the doors at different heights. If that is not bad enough, NONE of them work. If you close the door in either spare room, there is a good chance you will not get out without the help of the fire department. A cross-eyed mental patient could have done a better job.

The shit fence, the hairy freezer, the fucked up doors, the backyard peppered with turds, even the shit/vomit stink I can deal with, but the piece d'resistance wasn’t discovered until just after Christmas when our sewage drain collapsed.

We came home after our week in Brighton to find our front lawn covered in our own foulness. (God, it was not my intention to make this entry all about poo!) We called the plumber to fix it and after fiddling around with it for awhile, he told us that the drain had collapsed and we should get the insurance company to sort it. Fine, I say, these things happen.

Called Nationwide, our insurance company and they had some guys come out and sort it in a couple days. The service was so good, it almost made me forget my Lloyds TSB experience, almost. I’d write about how good Nationwide was some more, but it is not as much fun as slagging stuff off, so I’ll just say that if you are looking for house insurance, Nationwide is AWESOME.

Anyway, as they dig up the drain they discover that this was not the first time it had collapsed. They said that it had collapsed recently and that Hilda had probably decided to fix it herself by digging it up and tying it together with a plastic bag. Using a plastic bag to tie pipes together is like using Mercurochrome to cure Malaria.

What. a. dipshit.

I can only guess at what other Hilda delights I have yet to come upon. Watch this space.