July 2014

I think I should never forget this month

1. New house

We finally moved in on June 23rd and obviously had to spend the night there once the beds were moved over. It was a crazy nightmare having to move and look after 3 kids. When we moved from Papillon to Montebleu I don't remember having any major issues, so I assumed it would be the same this time.

It was bad!

We were firstly under prepared. I was recommended Helping Hands as a moving company. They employ ex-convicts to do the job and are reasonably priced as they are partly a social enterprise. The boxes they sent us were too small and even though we paid for more (20 more) boxes they were insufficient. We had stuff still unpacked when the movers came. Fortunately they brought a huge empty box for us to use.

We had so much stuff! They needed 2 trips to bring all our things over, and when they got to the new house the first thing they said " there are stairs!" They were NOT happy. Fortunately they were nice enough to oblige ( at an additional cost ) and I brought drinks and my banana cake for them.

It took the rest of the day just to vaguely unpack and get the bedrooms reasonably ready for the night. There were still workers trying to finish up the details in the house so it was terribly dusty and noisy.

2. Chris leaving for Germany

He left on the 29th of June, on the same day that Anthony arrived (fortunately!) His flight was at midnight, so we had time to have dinner with the extended family. I drove him to the airport with Anthony and his mum.

3. Endless house repairs

When we got the new house, it wasn't completely finished so the workers were still working everyday. Floors had to be finished, painting wasn't completed and the timber screen on the staircase had to be finished.

Then at the end of the first week the heavy rain started. The attic roof started to leak!

The first time round the roofers blamed the neighbour's tarpaulin on their roof flooding our roof with their water.Anthony and I sorted that out by getting their roofers fold the tarp onto itself.

Then it rained again and our roof STILL leaked. The second time the roofers came back, took out some part of the gutter and then replaced it. I was seriously doubtful that it would work.. but we had to give it a try.

Of course when it rained it leaked AGAIN. The third time I think they replaced something else and we are still waiting for another heavy downpour.

Next came the toilets. The first floor WC seat was chipped when they handed over to us, and 3 weeks later we are still waiting for it to be replaced.

The second floor guest WC started leaking soon after. The first time the plumber came back they said it was the inlet water gasket that moved, so they manipulated it and said it was fixed. Obviously it leaked again the very night. So they had to come back again another day to do a better job.

Once they finished that , the master bedroom WC started leaking. Just unbelievable. I'm still waiting for that to be rectified.

Finally the wood floors. There were patches of unfinished floor that they had missed, so they had to come back and re do them. They wound up redoing most of the floor and that took close to a week to complete. When they finally finished the 3rd floor, the plumber went and walked on the wet varnish! So now there are foot prints on a few steps and staircase landing which is still due for a redo!

What next!

4. Primary one registration

It was like a day of doom! I've been so anxious over this with the competition to get into school these days.

I thought I'd got all the documents ready so I drove over to register first thing after dropping the girls off at school. Only after I sat down to fill out the form I realized I'd forgotten the most important document: Madison's birth certificate!

It was a miracle I managed to drive home safely and get the rest of the process completed.

Turns out there were 100 spots and 50 applicants so technically we should be safe. I'm still waiting for the final confirmation slip to be mailed out to us.

5. Getting Montebleu rented out

We decided we're probably keeping Montebleu for the forseeable future for now, but obviously need to rent it out. After we moved out, I paid another contractor close to $6000 to do minor repair and cleaning work in the apartment. It was quite dirty and messy. I had to go back and do a scrub down of the stove and oven as well.

We had a few viewings by potential tenants, and now they want ALL the built in furniture removed! This means more work on the apartment and touch up paint and floor work. But I guess we don't really have a choice; it's either this or no tenant.

Hopefully that'll be all for now....