Category: Useful Things I did Today

There’s far too much to do.

This Friday, the 3rd of August, (that’s the day after tomorrow folks!), we should settle on the house, and possibly even get the keys. I’m thinking a bottle of sparkling apple juice, a few of Granville’s best felafel rolls, a few candles, and my sweetie – the perfect picnic for our first hours in our new home.

On Saturday, my wonderful sister in law Sarah is coming over to help pack. My brother, our friend Richard, and Mark are going to the new house to build bedroom furniture, install computers, stereo and TV, and build a house of the chickens in the backyard. Hopefully, we can also move the bunnies and the crazy bird so that they can avoid the stress of being here while we’re packing up. Now with added Andrew!

Sunday, more of the same. With added Mandy!

Monday, the professional packer comes in to finish what hasn’t been already done.

Tuesday, the movers come.

Wednesday, Optus connects the phone and internet at Abbott St, and the cleaners come in to do the final clean up in Denistone.

Friday at 10am, we have to hand in the keys for the old house.

Between now and then, I also need to find a garden person to do a huge blitz on the yard, and find carpet cleaners.

I also need to decide which plants are coming with us from Denistone to Merrylands, put them in post if they are in the ground.

There are probably a number of other things I have forgotten about, but that is enough of a list for me to be a wee bit freaked out.

If you’ve previously offered to help out – and I haven’t been in touch, let me know now 🙂 Once all the packing is done, there will be unpacking and furniture building to do (and decorating the nursery – no-one wants to miss out on that!), then organising the housewarming 🙂

Phew….

Back in the mists of time, when Mark and I made the trek over to Granville to sign our lives away on a contract to buy a house that we didn’t have the money to pay for, I held a long conversation with David. David claims to have a law degree. He also claims to have written (and published) a book or two about astronomy. Apparently he knows all about marine aquariums, deep sea diving, and is a chess master. Which is all well and good – but he backs up these claims with actual knowledge of the subjects, so I am inclined to believe him.

And when he said “don’t agree to clause 36”, I thought it sounded all grown up and lawyery, so I said it, the clause was crossed off the contract, and we signed.

Wonderful.

Fast forward to yesterday. Monday. The monday before the friday that is the settlement date. I am in the car, driving on a windy road on my way to drop the power supply for the laptop to the husband so that he can earn the not bacon to pay for the house that we are buying on friday. The shiny pink phone rings, and the solicitor acting for the vendor calls to ask that we write a letter to the real estate agent asking them to release the $35,000 that they are holding as a deposit for the house. Today. Urgently. Or it may delay settlement.

Well, I rang David. Who (thank FSM) wasn’t in class at the time. He directed my attention to clause 36. Which by omission, says that they can’t get their mitts on our money until we get our mitts on a title deed. Fair enough, right?

Well, the weasels decided, that since I am acting for myself, and I am not a solicitor, they might as well try one on, and try to get the money from me because, clearly, I had no idea what I was doing.

But I had David (and FSM) on my side.

I rang back, directed their attention to the the absence of clause 36, and told them that they would not be getting my money until they were entitled to it.

And then it got interesting…

Evil Solicitor Bitch (ESB) got exasperated with me and asked me to get my solicitor to call her, as it was clear that neither of us were smart enough to understand the finer points of her argument.

So David called ESB, who declined to take the call, and after two hours, when she still hadn’t called back, I rang her.

Apparently, she had decided in the interim that they could get the money elsewhere, and that I need not worry about the letter.

Of course.

So basically, they thought they would try it on, and then I got difficult. They asked to speak to my lawyer, because they thought I was lying to them, but when they figured out that I do actually have backup, they backed down and decided to stick to the contract that their client had agreed to, and had signed. I have a copy of it if they need to check.

After this was resolved, I swore a lot. Ampersand is getting used to the sound of his mothers voice as a shrieking harridan, with the vocabulary of a sailor. Great. Anyway, I told the whole story to my mother last night, and she wants to send a letter of complaint to the Law Society. Take that ESB!

Now, if you don’t know my mother, this may seem like an idle threat. But bear in mind that this is a woman who managed to get a cheque for $5,000 and a letter of apology from the Department of Social Security (on my behalf), when Amanda Vanstone was minister. Truly, the woman is a legend.

…recalcitrant brat.

Bloody umbilical cord wrapped as snug as a bug around the pink bits, despite over three hours of being poked with an ultrasound wand (not as bad as a pap smear, but still not very fun), with a full bladder (they need that to help see the baby).

So I had a wee hissy fit yesterday afternoon, until I heard from the vendors solicitor that they would like the documents from me asap. I decided that buying a house was more important than feeling sorry for myself, so drove to Strathfield to meet with young David.

I gave him the amended sewer diagram that the lovely Bex had procured for me, and also the “Standard Requisitions” (a list of questions about the property that the vendor has to answer, like “has the property ever been used as a meth lab” etc). Apparently they have already moved out, so I asked if they might consider an early settlement – and it looks like they might!

I then drove to Chatswood to return the new mobile phone I had picked up the day before (the Nokia 6300 doesn’t play nice with the mac, and lord knows when the iPhone will hit our shores). I’ve decied to swap it for the Sony Ericsson Z610i, which will play nicely with Blue Phone Elite (the software I use to avoid typing out long text messages on the tiny keypad, and manage other phone stuff).

No, I don’t need a new mobile phone, and yes, I am getting the pink one. Mark’s work was paying for his phone, so he had it switched over to their account. Now the new company is taking over, they won’t pay for the phone, so he’s had to switch the billing back to us. While doing so, he decided to switch my bill onto a cap plan, which entitles me to a new phone. Having only got a new phone about a year ago, I feel that this is needlessly indulgent, but at my heart I am a gadget freak, and it is beyond my powers to say no.

With half an hour to go till the open for inspection, we signed the contract. There are a few anomalies, but hopefully nothing we can’t overcome.

We then went to the open, where quite a few people had shown up, and were very disappointed to hear that the house was off the market. In retrospect, we were thrilled that we had taken the risk of paying the deposit – we’re pretty sure that if we hadn’t paid the deposit then we would have been gazumped.

As Lien pointed out, there are no guarantees that the vendor and the agent will behave in an ethical manner, but after having a long chat with Theresa (the vendor), we were much calmer and happier about the whole situation.

The valuation was done early this morning, so we should have an answer back from the credit union by wednesday at the latest. So please keep everything crossed for us.

In the meantime, I think it’s safe to show you the house.

PS. Yesterday, we booked in to Hornsby Hospital. We chose to see the student midwife team, and I’m booked in for a doctors visit next wed, then friday I will have the 18-20 week ultrasound (I’ll be 19 weeks next friday). So by this time next week, we will hopefully know whether Ampersand is a boy or a girl, and where we’ll be living when he/she is born. Exciting times.

PPS. A huge thank you to David for all the advice and hand holding. We definitely felt a lot better about this after speaking to him!

Yesterday, Mark and I offered someone a couple of hundred thousand dollars (that we don’t have) for a house that we have only seen once.

We’ve been looking for weeks, and have mainly seen “fixer uppers” in our price bracket (which is well below the average Sydney house price) because we need both a large-ish house (for the impending spawn) and a good sized yard (for the Disco Divas of Denistone, AKA the chooks). So the house we saw on saturday afternoon was somewhat of a revelation.

It is one street away from another property we have looked at, but technically in a different suburb that we hadn’t considered before. It has a manicured garden, new cladding, a security alarm system, “sparkling” floorboards (I kid you not, the real estate brochure described them that way), a new-ish kitchen, a huge living area, three big bedrooms, a spa bath, a second bathroom in the rather large laundry, a ducted air conditioning system, a lock up storage shed, and a stained glass panel with kookaburras on the front door.

And a price tag in the ballpark of what we can afford.

Unbelievable.

We wondered why it was so cheap – apparently it’s because the area is zoned as flood prone. Except that a storm water drain was put in a few years ago just behind the property, and the house is on the high side of the drain. Even with the heavy rains we’ve been having lately, the water was still many meters away from the height of the back door. We won’t be able to get flood insurance, but that is a risk I am prepared to take.

We haven’t offered the asking price, but we have offered only $10k less. We saw the house at 1pm Saturday, and by 11am Sunday when I rang the agent, there were already two other offers on the place. Saturday was it’s first showing, so we know that others are as impressed with this house as we are.

So chances are our offer won’t be accepted, but what the hell. We lose nothing by trying, right?

Custard had a very long surgery, and it took him a long while to recover his appetite afterwards. He’s now doing really well – eating like a voracious wildebeest, and acting like he isn’t missing half his face. He had his first antibiotic shot yesterday, and I honestly think it was harder for me than it was for him. I have never been good with needles, the fact that I am able to do it at all is testament to my love for this little guy.

Tuesday night wasn’t a good one for me. More explosive spewing, but thankfully it was all over within half an hour, and I didn’t need to go to hospital. I wasn’t able to take the anti nausea medication though, and yesterday was horrible. I was wondering whether the Restavit was actually working, as I still feel nauseous after taking it, but yesterday proved that it does work – I could barely get out of bed yesterday after skipping a dose. Horrible.

I have received a few packages in the post in the last week – and I haven’t even opened two of them! One because the smell of the plastic absolutely kills me (I also have a magazine I can’t read because of the smell!), and the other mainly because I am a crappy secret pal.

I joined the knitters treat exchange as a test to see if I could handle a “light” version of the secret pal idea. I quickly gathered a variety of treats for my pal, and was pretty happy that I had a parcel of stuff she would love. Then I started to see other packages on blogs, and started to worry that my package was a bit lame. So I didn’t send it, thinking that I should add a few more things.

And then I got sick.

And then, I got my package from my spoiler, and felt too guilty to open it until I had at least posted the package to my spoilee.

So, to both my pals, a HUGE sorry. My mission for today is to have a shower, and drag myself off to the post office. I’ll wrap everything properly and write some little notes, AND GET THE DAMN THING POSTED. It may not be the best package ever, but each item was chosen with care and the very best of intentions. And I think I know my new pal well enough to know that she will appreciate the sentiment behind it. And I’m going to have to learn that perfection isn’t possible – being a parent will surely teach me that!