Tuesday, November 04, 2003
Just when you think things are finally going halfway decently, another blow comes around. For the past few days both my buyer's and my Briefs have been "aiming for" the 14th November as a completion date. A week after I'd been aiming for, but what the hey - it would mean that I'd be living in a house rather than in a suitcase from the weekend after next. To confirm this I've been nagging my Briefs, and they've been trying to get hold of the Brief (Constantinou) of the sellers of the house I'm buying (Tracey and Richard T, nice folk) who's been incommunicado.
So I figure I'll ring Tracey directly to find out what the score is, see if she and Richard are ok with the 14th, and arrange to go around their house to sort out practicalities, learn how the central heating works, when the binmen come, and a 1001 little things that you need to know when you move into the place. When I ring Tracey, though, she tells me that she's been told that the seller of the house she and Richard are moving into won't budge until the end of November, on account of his 4 fucking cars he needs to shift. Apparently he's some car nerd and thinks of them as his little babies (uterus envy, anyone?) and can't bear to be without them. Tracey and Richard have said he can leave them behind until he finds a home for them, but he's not having it.
Which all means that I've got 4 more bloody weeks to live in fucking B&B; accommodation, costing at least a century a week, and that's just for 3 days accommodation with me 'working at home' in Hull for the other two days of the week. If I had a stricter boss who wanted me physically at work 5 days a week then I'd be stumping up 150+ a week. Even 100/week is doing me in, as I also have to pay for meals (not having the facilities to cook for myself), and pay all this on top of the monthly bills for the Hull house: mortgage, gas, electric, Poll Tax, etc. I may be picking up 1400 net a month but it's disappearing fast.
Frankly, if I had the choice, I'd drop the whole bloody thing and start over, or just get a Nottingham pied a terre and keep the Hull house on. Trouble is, I've racked up so much debt through living out of a suitcase that I have to sell the house simply to pay off my credit card balance and overdraft - in fact, I've banked on sale proceeds to do this otherwise I'd not have taken on the debt. So unless I have it off bigtime on the Fixed Odds or the Lottery I've not choice but to keep on paying for temporary accommodation whilst some twit and his cars hold up the whole bloody chain.
Oh, isn't this house-moving thing great, eh? Just grand. Apparently it's the new rock 'n' roll, with shedloads of TV programmes on it showing mouth-watering houses being flogged for mouth-watering prices, and all of it just plain easy money. Anyone can do it, so these Property Porn programmes make out. Yeah, right. If I could move straight into a council house now and forget the whole property sale bit I'd do so.
So much for labour mobility too. If you have to go through 4 months of aggro and heavy-duty expense just to move to another job then it doesn't encourage you to 'get on your bike', as the Chingford Skinhead once famously said. Whatever happens with this job, the next job I take will be the last, and it won't be in England. My next move will be across the sea or across the border, and then I'll be staying put.
So I figure I'll ring Tracey directly to find out what the score is, see if she and Richard are ok with the 14th, and arrange to go around their house to sort out practicalities, learn how the central heating works, when the binmen come, and a 1001 little things that you need to know when you move into the place. When I ring Tracey, though, she tells me that she's been told that the seller of the house she and Richard are moving into won't budge until the end of November, on account of his 4 fucking cars he needs to shift. Apparently he's some car nerd and thinks of them as his little babies (uterus envy, anyone?) and can't bear to be without them. Tracey and Richard have said he can leave them behind until he finds a home for them, but he's not having it.
Which all means that I've got 4 more bloody weeks to live in fucking B&B; accommodation, costing at least a century a week, and that's just for 3 days accommodation with me 'working at home' in Hull for the other two days of the week. If I had a stricter boss who wanted me physically at work 5 days a week then I'd be stumping up 150+ a week. Even 100/week is doing me in, as I also have to pay for meals (not having the facilities to cook for myself), and pay all this on top of the monthly bills for the Hull house: mortgage, gas, electric, Poll Tax, etc. I may be picking up 1400 net a month but it's disappearing fast.
Frankly, if I had the choice, I'd drop the whole bloody thing and start over, or just get a Nottingham pied a terre and keep the Hull house on. Trouble is, I've racked up so much debt through living out of a suitcase that I have to sell the house simply to pay off my credit card balance and overdraft - in fact, I've banked on sale proceeds to do this otherwise I'd not have taken on the debt. So unless I have it off bigtime on the Fixed Odds or the Lottery I've not choice but to keep on paying for temporary accommodation whilst some twit and his cars hold up the whole bloody chain.
Oh, isn't this house-moving thing great, eh? Just grand. Apparently it's the new rock 'n' roll, with shedloads of TV programmes on it showing mouth-watering houses being flogged for mouth-watering prices, and all of it just plain easy money. Anyone can do it, so these Property Porn programmes make out. Yeah, right. If I could move straight into a council house now and forget the whole property sale bit I'd do so.
So much for labour mobility too. If you have to go through 4 months of aggro and heavy-duty expense just to move to another job then it doesn't encourage you to 'get on your bike', as the Chingford Skinhead once famously said. Whatever happens with this job, the next job I take will be the last, and it won't be in England. My next move will be across the sea or across the border, and then I'll be staying put.
