Owning your own home

@Bainbridge @tommmmmmm @andyp

Thanks guys. I feel like this and the DIY thread will be my soundboard for sometime now!

Tomorrow I'm heading there tomorrow to rip up all the carpets and take down some doors and gut the kitchen. I took the whole thing well enough but in truth it was a bit of a struggle. Work is particularly busy for me right now and I'm off to the states for 10 days with client meetings at the start of March. All of which made her indoors a little worried.

The vendor pre-warned us it was a mess and that he would pay for a cleaner. I've spoken with my solicitor and she told me to get onto Theydons and have their cleaners deal with it - so I've messaged them outlining that currently the vendor has breached a few clauses in the contract and that if suitable cleaning can be arranged then we'll consider the matter closed.

I've put together the spreadsheet currently only 48 rows but I'm sure after tomorrow it will be longer. I've got a few ideas regards to flooring that should keep the cost down and make it habitable a little quicker.

Used colostomy bag - the highlight of the mountain of filth left behind.

Jesus wept.

I think you will need loads of dettol sprays... loads of it... I am feeling a little sick...

Removing the carpets and any other soft furnishings will change things almost overnight - the ability that these have for retaining noxious whiffs is unbelieveable...

As @ExTra says, Dettol will be your friend for a while as you seek to deep clean the place.

schoolboy error #1 tho really - never move in until back to bare surfaces
(oh I've been forced to make that mistake numerous times, but as liquidity improved have learned..)

I think there's an overlap between completion and his rental ending.

well get some builders in with a skip to gut the place, wop the plumbing and electrics and work down ceilings, windows, walls, floors - could have that done in 3 months, then it's just finish and furnish

Wow. Nuke from orbit. To be sure etc.

What's under the carpets etc @Tenderloin?

If it's floorboards in decent condition and you want to keep them I would recommend the people who did ours. For us that worked out even cheaper than cheap laminate I think.

What's under the carpets etc

formerly owned by fred west's cousin, best not to speculate..

When Fred came home from a hard day at work, all he wanted to do was sink a couple of tennants...

gets coat

I hear he would often get home an bury a few stiff ones.

Granted, but I don't think 'Loin's into all that business.

We've got 9 weeks until we are supposed to move in. Thankfully!

Yeah, there are floorboards underneath. In pretty good nick but I think I'm going to lay birch ply over them. But if they could do that and fit skirting boards, I'm interested.

Garden is now largely finished.

Got to stain the new sleepers around the beds at the back and move a few pots around. Will trim back some of the bushes in March.

Are they not plastic?

Top lels.

I'm thinking of a floor sanding and oiling company.

Never heard of birch ply flooring, what's it going to look like? Strips, slabs, tiles? Why that and not the floorboards?

Last couple of pages of the DIY thread have got a few examples. The boards are ok but the chimney breasts have been removed and I like the look of birch ply used as flooring. Large tiles of it, alternating the pattern of the grain probably.

Looking for someone ourselves. Do you have a link/number?

We used these guys:

http://www.floorsandingexperts.co.uk

I think they're just bookers for local tradesmen but we were well pleased with them, in two separate visits to do upstairs and later downstairs they were great.

That's just not normal though is it. Unless you were trying to shaft someone or you forgot to bin it when you moved. Assuming neither of those scenarios are in play here I can only presume the offender here is mentally unwell. It would be like dumping a soiled nappy, or used toilet paper on the floor, looking it, shrugging and walking off.

Hope it didn't ruin the day too much. I can honestly say that my neighbours in Chichester road are the best we have ever had. A real mix of people. We love it round here and I hope your stay is a long and happy one.

Also I sometimes land on this thread on page one and reflect on hobo's astonishment at the market all those years ago, when values in London (in particular) have doubled since he started this thread. If he didn't like it then, I'm sure he won't like it now.

No, it's pretty fucked up.
The wife is apparently unwell and they had lived there for 20 years. It shows. Somehow they had managed to disguise this when we viewed the property.
I didn't go back today as I couldn't really handle it. Sent agents an email and hopefully cleaners etc will come tomorrow/Tuesday. Already posted an ad on mybuilder.com for the bathroom. And roughly finished and costed the works planning document.