Owning your own home

I'm not bothering with a fee charging broker as I'm a pretty straightforward case. Earnings all through PAYE, consistent year on year, only borrowing about 2.5x my salary, no other loans/commitments and I'm comfortable with numbers/financial terms.

If I was self-employed, looking to stretch what I could borrow, etc then I'd think about getting someone to sit down with and wouldn't begrudge a fee.

One other area where the brokers try to make money is selling life insurance, redundancy cover, etc. When I dealt with Countrywide previously they tried the hard sell with that type of stuff.

Don't hesitate. Buy as many of these http://www.amazon.co.uk/Clothes-Moth-Killer-Smoke-Bombs/dp/B0127QD8B2/ as you need to fumigate the whole house. Cover or disable the smoke alarms and kill every last one of the fuckers, and all their eggs and larvae in one hit.
You'll want to be out of the house for several hours afterwards to give the poison time to do its job, and then when you come back, open every window and get some fresh air in.

Proving that you don't have something that the lender suspects that you do is quite challenging!
Fortunately, I'm guessing you were able to get a credit card statement to correspond with the payment?

Exactly. Quite simple to do although if it wasn't for our broker having a daily catch up with the underwriter through the process the lender would have declined on the spot without giving us a chance to prove it.

Our broker spoke to the underwriter daily because the lender was known to do this sort of thing and the broker knew from experience to speak to them that regularly.

Using our broker got us an interest rate of 1.49%. I'm not sure how easy that would have been if we had gone solo direct to high street lenders.

Yup this ^

I also banged all my merino clothes in the deep freeze (figured that would kill the larvae?)

You can also get professional fumigators in through the council

Cheers - I might get back to you.

I've covered the place in peppermint oil soaked cotton balls and ordered some sonic repeller jobbies. Next steps would be traps + Cat.

Perhaps one for AQA, but figured this was a good place for it also...

Londoners, what's a good wage to pay a cleaner who comes for a few hours every fortnight?

Am thinking in region of £11 p/hour

Offers?

We don't want to use insecticides with a new born baby in the house.

Yep, anything above £10ph is good.

Any recommendations for a decent professional cleaner? Want to leave our last place in the best condition possible.

Then you will never get rid of your Moth problem.

Believe me, 4 or 5 years of trying all the less invasive methods and failing.
Fumigation is the only way to be sure.

I know. Just going to have to cohabit with the feckers.

Those sticky sheets are good for 'controlling' (not eliminating) the moths, and you get the satisfaction of seeing them dead. Keep what you can in the freezer and otherwise in vacuum storage bags over the summer. Check no moths inside bags, or if unsure freeze the bags for a few weeks (the vacuum ones are pretty good at keeping insides dry).

"the satisfaction of seeing them dead"

This sounds... ohhh....

This reminds me my grandad used to use sticky sheets to trap rats and he would burn them alive aftewards.... For my sin, I used to enjoy watch it... I was about 4 then...

Do it when you next go on holiday, that way you have some time for the fumes to disperse for baby Viking.

Freeholders are being cunts. They initially said the license to alter for works on my leasehold flat would be about £2500 plus reasonable costs (surveyor, lawyers fees etc), then they declined to grant the licence at all.
I thought a solicitors letter would sort it out, but no.
Now they are demanding £50k, plus fees, plus 20% of the gross if I ever sell my flat.
Fuck ever having anything to do with a leasehold again.

I should seal the windows up and fill the whole flat with readymix on the last day of the lease.

That's terrible. Buy the freehold?

I offered to buy my share, at the market rate, plus reasonable costs, but they didn't want to sell it to me.
If my neighbour had the money, we could gang up on the freeholder and force them to sell us our share. But he's just set up a business and hasn't got the readies.
Freehold of the whole building would be nice, but its about to go on the market for £750k.

When are you next on Holiday? I'll come round, set those fuckers off and kill dem moths then open up the windows so it's all clear when you're back.

Moth Balls and Lavender are also good deterrents.

You can microwave clothes as well.

A moth egg or larva can stay dormant for two years, then come back and eat your clothes. When you see a moth it's already too late, and for each one you see a whole heap of eggs have been laid.
Years of throwing away clothes I really liked was depressing.
The good news is the foggers I linked to aren't really harmful to humans. You can even use them near food and it's fine. I'm sure you can find a weekend when you're away. Just set them off before you go.

I had moths a while back, eventually tracked them down to my kitchen cupboards. As well as fine tweed, they also thrive on stuff like porridge oats and flour.
I now have all starchy ingredients in tupperware or screw top jars.

Is there anything that causes them in the first place? Sounds like a fucking nightmare.

magnets.

Bad luck to get them in the first place. Abundance of food makes them thrive.

The moths you get on clothes tend to like clothes that aren't washed regularly.

The moths you get in flour etc, like flour funnily enough.

Once you've got them they're a bitch to get rid.

We've had clothes moths for years. Well, I say we but for some reason they only seem to nibble on Mrs Hedge's clothes. Mine are completely untouched.