Owning your own home

Possibly (if you mean sewer mains). It's not the smell that's added to natural gas, it's much much worse 🤢

Yep. Since I posted yesterday neighbours have smelt it slightly further away (e.g. Low Hall Lane/down Coppermill near the waterworks).

It was strong when I woke up at 3am but you can only smell it a bit now, but it's windy. I think Thames need to send some people out with sewer gas sensors who actually know what they're doing, not some blokes in a van who lift a manhole then say it's fine!

Googling/lack of responses on here suggests to me it's a pretty rare thing in the UK.

Just wishful thinking on their part?

Seems to be a common response by flippers, at least the ones that I looked at recently whilst house searching. They tended to be initially listed at a higher premium than they deserve then dropped their price over time.

The best one I saw that had been 'improved' was what would have been a nicely spaced 4 bed, converted into a six bed (plus another studio at the bottom of the garden), all en-suite. I think there were nine bathrooms in the house all together. Guess they wanted to airbnb it first but tried to sell it for the price of a six bedroom West London house instead.

Have you checked for defrosted sausages? 🫘

Hah. Definitely rotten eggs, not meat! Gas is weird, yesterday it was really still so you'd smell it in some places but not others. It was noticeably worse from our loft than at ground level...

@duncs it seems that your advice and a couple of calls sorted it (fingers crossed!)

10pts to Howard.

After speaking to a drive cleaning specialist who was really knowledgeable and kindly spent loads of time talking and searching for helpful analogies to explain processes in layman's terms. It sounds like there is a 50:50 chance of getting the stains out without causing additional damage or staining.

Helpfully it turns out our neighbours are uninsured having forgotten to renew their policy. So now even the solution of replacing the paving stones no longer feels as accessible given asking a family to cough up £ks doesn't sit the same as asking an insurer.

They obviously want to give cheap cleaning a shot. They've also raised the point that we have let some weeds grow in the cracks and that the drive is weathered. I'm not sure anything rests on that opinion.

Writing lists of scenarios and analysing options wasn't how I wanted to spend the last few days of holiday.

If we end up claiming on our own insurance policy is there anything we should be aware of that will fuck us?

Genius level posting

Can we have photos of the extent of the damage?

The only thing I can think of is “betterment”. Where your insurance company will do the cheapest thing they can….as doing more will cost them money and in their eyes might make it better than it was before the paint spill.

a drive cleaning specialist

I got a letter today from Direct Line saying I've been overcharged for my house insurance, so I'm getting a refund of the sum overcharged. With interest!

It comes to a grand total of 54p. I shall try not to spend it all at once.

Could it not just be the big sewage works nearby? I thought that must give off some farts on hot days.

If we end up claiming on our own insurance policy is there anything we should be aware of that will fuck us?

You will have to declare it when you buy insurance in future years (not sure for how long) and it's likely to put the cost of your insurance up because insurance companies like taking your money but they really don't like paying out. Ask me how I know...

Be grateful for small mercies!

Our contents insurer (Getsafe) wrote to me to tell me they no longer wish to insure me. I was paying £45 a year, cheapest I've been able to get is £135.

Ironically not because I claimed, but because we live in an area that's at medium risk of flooding and the insurers are all busy 'adjusting their risks'. One of our neighbours was quoted £1700 after previously paying £273.

I'm with Aviva for our car and buildings because they were the cheapest but they wanted £500 for contents, lol.

It's not a sewage works it's a water treatment plant! No way I'd buy a house next to a sewage works, there is one not too far from us and the streets near it regularly smell of shit.

Water treatment plants can also smell pretty bad.

What causes odors at wastewater treatment plants?
Common odors lingering in and around treatment plants smell like rotten eggs, ammonia, or garlic, among other things. Sometimes the odor is described as earthy or organic.

Earthy and organic usually means more expensive and possibly curated so look at it as a win.

We've lived here three and half years and never really smell it. Very occasionally a kind of seasidey smell but wouldn't even say that's unpleasant really.

Thames Water were out again yesterday poking around in the sewers and the eggy noxious smell has gone so I guess they fixed it.

It switched from chlorine to oxygen to treat the water not long before we moved here so that's significantly more organic.

There used to be an old air raid siren they'd test every Saturday morning in case there was a chlorine gas leak. You were then meant to close your windows and bunker down!

This Aviva flooding thing is bollocks, couldn’t reinsure with pedalsafe/aviva “because we are in a flood risk area”
How so when we are over 100m above sea level in one of the highest points in London on the 6th floor with no water course nearby and no historical flooding?

Same for the whole postcode area and those surrounding us.

That's weird. We're ~80m from the Lea flood relief channel which was built in the 70s before people started thinking about climate change etc. So it's definitely a thing despite the denial of some of my neighbours!

Also weird that they're happy to insure my building and car (clearly also at risk of flooding) but are clearly trying to price me away for contents.

Getsafe never asked if we were at risk of flooding so we had a cheap few years before they bothered to check which of their clients were at risk.

You could try contacting your council, who have statutory responsibilities as Lead Local Flood Authority. The Environment Agency have recently released revised flood risk maps. Mistakes are sometimes made with the revisions. Your council can intercede on residents' behalfs to correct errors.

We are starting to plan some changes to the new house and I’m canvassing opinions on whether we ditch our en suite and convert it to a walk in wardrobe type thing or keep it.
I don’t really don’t like en suites and our bedroom is right next door to the main bathroom, so I would like to get rid. It means the bedroom would be clear of wardrobes making it feel more spacious too. But my wife thinks we should keep the en suite and have built in wardrobes in the two alcoves either side of the fireplace.
What would you do?

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Are the alcoves on an external wall?
If so, that's not a good place to be putting your clothes.