In March I talked about crap. A lot of the stuff in my flat is gradually getting worn down, and needs replacing. But should I be spending dosh replacing stuff if I was about to try and buy a house? I was holding off somewhat, and living somewhat reluctantly with my crap.
The situation there has changed a little. A very rundown house I looked at about a month ago sold for a whopping $455K. That’s just stupid. It wasn’t just very rundown, it was also located on prime land, sandwiched between a busy road and a railway line. Seriously, standing in the back yard looking at the house, it was like that scene in the Blues Brothers in Elwood’s flat, with all the trains rumbling by, and causing minor temors as they did so. The kids would have loved it, at least for the first half an hour. Or until they wanted to do anything requiring a minimum of noise. Such as sleep.
So I’m rethinking my strategy. If house prices in the area I want to live in are that stupid right now (and I don’t suppose all of them are, but some certainly are), it’s not going to happen any time soon. I’m going to keep saving my money, and look in a year or two.
Meanwhile, I’m getting sick of my crap. So the Daniel Living Environment Infrastructure Investment Scheme has commenced. New curtains for the livingroom and my bedroom. A grand spanking new bed arrived over the weekend (at the less-than-desirable time of 8:50 on Saturday morning). And I’ve stocked up on new bedlinen because… well, most of the old stuff is too small. I’ll tell you, it’s something of a pleasure to be able to finally stretch out and not have your feet come out of the end of the bed.
The table is of course still wobbly, and if I have my way, is not long for this world.
The power issue continues to haunt me. Of the three appliances misbehaving, only the monitor has been verified to be fault free (by running them at Josh’s place). And tragically, this is the one of the three which is under warranty! I’ll probably get the amplifier serviced and the DVD player replaced, but only once the power has been fixed.
And that depends on the landlady (who I just hassled again on the phone) getting an electrician in who… well, knows what he (or she) is doing. Which it turns out she doesn’t want to do. For some unfathomable reason, she trusts him when he says it must be my equipment at fault. Even though the monitor works at Josh’s place. Uh huh. So, I’m going to chase up my own electrician. Preferably one who, when requested to monitor the power at the power points doesn’t reply that he can’t do it because he doesn’t have the equipment. I get the feeling he works in his spare time as a rodent at Disneyland.
