How do people manage .....

[The Medway Handyman]

'Worked' for a very nice lady last week.

She wanted a curtain pole put up, but the curtains had the large sewn in rings & she had bought a cord operated track - which was the wrong size anyway.

Next job, roller blind, but she had lost the end fittings - but had bought some spares - the wrong type.

Plastic curtain track was next on the list, but she couldn't find the brackets.

Her friend had given her a flat pack dressing table, disassembled -but no trace of the fittings.

I did manage to get a few other jobs done!

[Another John]

A tragic story! I suppose your Subject meant: how do some people manage without servants any more?!

I agree: I have some neighbours, both in their 40s/50s (i.e. not decrepit or "losing it"), both in good well paid jobs. Yet their property is in a continuous state of slow collapse around them, like a glacier crumbling as it meets warmer air (or something). I think they could manage to change a light bulb, but the rest (including picking litter out of the garden!) is done by people doing favours, or by paying expensive tradesmen (or indeed handymen, TMH :-)

Is it because their own Dads (and Mums) never ever did anything for themselves, thus failing to impart any sense of self-help?

John

[Mr Pounder]

We moved house over four years ago. The old house was not posh but I made it stand up if you see what I mean. Now the drive is overgrown with weeds and the fence is just lying there in little pieces. It would seem that the curtains that we left are still up. They are young and they do not care.

[Tim Streater]

Some people are just incompetent. A long time ago I visited a relly. Their radio had, battery door lath and hinges off/broken. Ferrite rod broken. Tuning dial string off the big wheel. Possibly other small faults, too.

I spent some considerable time fixing all this, but when I visited again six months or so later - it was again in a similar broken state. I dunno how people manage to break stuff in that way.

[Theo Markettos]

One reason is that, given the state of the housing market, many young people rent. Getting landlords to fix anything can... try one's patience, shall we say. Plus the contract often says you can't do lots of DIY-type things (repaint, put holes in the walls, do anything to the garden etc). And the landlord could kick you out at two months notice[1], so there's no incentive to invest your energies.

Also people are busy (work, family) and 'house-proud-ness' is not so high up the agenda as it perhaps was in earlier times.

Theo

[1] And they do - I know someone who lived in a different house each year for about 8 years due to being given notice, annual rentals with no renewal available, and shared households breaking up so staying wasn't an option.

[Bill Wright]

We frequently have to replace TV wall sockets in rented property. How the tenants smash then I don't know.

Bill

[Peter Johnson]

When I bought my house in 1997 it was nine years old. It had received no maintenance during that time apart from the installation of cheap double glazing. Outside, the paint had been burnt off the bargeboards by the sun. Inside, it was still builder's magnolia emulsion and very scruffy. I don't think it occurred to them that they could do things, never mind that they should. I reckon the house would have been worth £10,000 more had it ben looked after but then I couldn't have afforded it. (And I bet that the house they bought then, for £241,000, is now in the same condition that mine was when I bought it.)

[Brian Gaff]

Yes its funny how bits go missing. that could be a thread all of its own. Is there an alternate universe where all the accessories live and no main parts?

Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Vaccuum cleaners and moving the tv without unplugging anything I'd assume. I had a cleaning lady once who only had to look at a plug and it fell to bits or broke. I asked her once if she was related to Uri Geller.

Brian

[Owain]

I have a keyring with essential keys on it.

Among them are 4 keys for padlocks which are somewhere, but I haven't seen them since 1987.

Owain

[Huge]

You need something like the jamjar in my garage marked "unknown keys".

[Owain]

I know what they're for - they're even engraved with a number which matches the number on each padlock.

I just don't know where the locks are or what I locked with them, which comes down to the similar but not quite the same thing. One of them was used for my bulkhead at uni, but that probably isn't still locked ...

Owain

[Mark]

Or even at one month's notice.

This is why I bought a house instead of renting since, after the 6 months initial contract, you can be thrown out at any time. The maximum I managed to stay in a propertly was less than a year (and I was never thrown out for breaking the terms of the lease).

[Jules Richardson]

But then he'd have to come round to your house to deposit or retrieve keys. That doesn't seem very practical.

[Jules Richardson]

At one rented place years ago we survived for quite a while with a significant upstairs plumbing leak before the landlord got around to fixing it - the water made its way downstairs into the kitchen via the wall, where we diverted it into a bucket and used a car windscreen washer pump and improvised float switch to send it outside via the back door. (I can't remember if we ran the pump from a car battery charger or a PC power supply, but it was one or the other)

BTDT, I think I managed nine places in eight years. It's a good way of getting a large house without having to pay large house money.

cheers

Jules

[Huge]

I lived in places like that, once.

[Tim Watts]

On Tuesday 09 April 2013 22:01 Huge wrote in uk.d-i-y:

In 1987 I lived in a house with 5 polish people (owner and family), lots of chinese and one old english bloke. There was one bog.

Was cheap though. Except for the coin meter - I was in the attic room and there was no insulation in the roof... But work was warm and available 24 hours :_)

[Huge]

I lived in a garret in Herne Bay for a while. I "double glazed" the sash window with heavy duty plastic sheet and ran a paraffin heater 24/7 in the winter.

[tony sayer]

Must have had some ventilation else how would you have had a sense of smell after that;?..

[Bob Eager]

The problem with Herne Bay garrets is that they get the north wind. The worst one I saw was in Charles Street, high enough to clear the one row of houses between it and the sea. Was never warm, apparently. At least yours was further inland.