My week

Oct. 30th, 2009 12:51 pm
andrewducker: (Default)
[personal profile] andrewducker
Well, after the insurers told me I was covered and that they'd talk to the builders (last Friday) I heard nothing until Tuesday, at which point I phoned then to ask what was going on.  "Oh," they said, "we told the builders.  Did they not contact you?  Here's their phone number."

So I spoke to the builders direct who said "We sent you an invoice for the £100 excess.  Have you not got it yet?" so I waited until I got home to check.  Which was stupid, as I should have just paid it on the phone right there.  Instead I ended up paying it the next day, at which point I got an appointment for work to start.  On the 12th.  In two weeks time.

Cue one quick phone call to the loss adjusters.  "You are aware that there is a leak in my ceiling, right?  And that with every day the damage spreads?  And that you will have to pay for said damage?"

So I got a phone call back today from the builders, offering to be round on Monday afternoon instead.  Much better.

There's also debate as to whether the damage to the outside wall is covered, but the loss adjuster's going to pop round and take a look, and didn't seem averse to the idea.

In other news, the people who handle ducker.org.uk (the domain name, not the hosting company themselves) managed to not send me an invoice for the renewal.  Which meant I got cut off at some point this morning.  I phoned them, was as polite as I could be, and got it paid, but goodness knows if any email has been lost in the last couple of hours.  Let's hope not (although it may take a while to arrive).

All of this has also added up to a fair chunk of stress, which meant that I finally passed out at 1am and then woke up at 7am, to sneak into the living room and leave Julie snoring.  Today is thus full of tiredness.  We did get a bunch of tidying doen last night though, which was good.  Although we also failed to find any of the stuff necessary for Dreams of Steam, so we'll be skipping this one (Sorry Roy!) and going to the next one instead.  Frankly, my stress levels are putting me off going to new events right now anyway. 

Apologies to people that haven't seen me for a bit, I've mostly been feeling like hiding under the duvet and pretending the world doesn't exist...  This should life over the next couple of weeks as we get the various problems around the flat sorted, and I eventually hope to be back to my normal self.  Julie has, thankfully, been terribly supportive of my stress (while I've also been supportive of her PhD stress), and we've been emotionally equivalent to a pair of tired drunkards, propped up against each other in a rather unlikely structure that fails to collapse through sheer comedy value.  God I hope this is over soon...

Date: 2009-10-30 01:26 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] chuma.livejournal.com
Are you sure a night away from it all to chat to friends and have drinks wouldn't help get rid of stress? Personally, I find heading to the pub to destress is a great plus. I am treating tonight with the same outlook.

Date: 2009-10-30 02:14 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] channelpenguin.livejournal.com
I am curious - why exactly do you find this all so stressful? In fact - what is 'stress' anyway .... how would you define it? An emotional cocktail of fear and powerlessness? Both of those succumb to action - which you are taking, and as a result of your actions, Stuff is getting Done. So no worries, right?

Clearly not, but why not?

IMO, things are always breaking or needing improvement or needing to be done to a time limit - that's just life. Not a great deal of point being stressed. Very rarely will the 'defects' or failure to meet time limits kill or injure you - but cumulative stress just might!

Date: 2009-10-30 04:50 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] channelpenguin.livejournal.com
The alternative to other people is you. Find it yourself, fix it yourself. I know this is a choice that you did not make (and for reasons which no doubt make sense) - but it was a choice and that choice was yours. So now, Stuff is Getting Done at the pace of the option you chose - which is slower than you expected. Maybe the best you can hope for at this point is to use that data for use in future decisions.

hmm, strikes me as a system whereby you just pay to get it fixed and claim back might have some merit in terms of getting the job done faster - but open to taking even longer to get the money back.

Clutter, yeh, I don't much like it myself in not-amenable-to-logic ways. My flat is ridiculously crowed but that's because I fix things and build/make things in it. I see that as a choice I made when I decided I'd rather not have a huge mortgage. I still have my moments of shed-envy! Sympathy.

I can't/won't comment on the cash uncertainty as I have no idea what the bill might run to, or on your finances (nor would I want to, in the latter case). I find personally, that I have always seemed to manage, somehow, so I suppose that's just not a stress factor I have ever really had, even when I had next to no money (thankfully not the case at present). I suppose I think/feel/was brought up to fit my life well within my budget - no matter how small that budget was/is. You, also, have (as far as I can tell) always managed to manage, so I don't suspect there is any need to actually worry all that much. But what do I know. You could be 50K in debt for drugs and loose women with nasty men calling round at all hours :-)

Perhaps there is some element of you not liking the results of your choices (moves in the game) and your brain trying, in the background, to analyse/optimise - and all that activity makes you jumpy/wakeful/twitchy/whatever.

Date: 2009-10-30 10:58 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] xquiq.livejournal.com
Can't comment on Andy's specific situation, but I work full time in a similar role and have an old house which has been full of nasty surprises, so I have some sympathy.

Fact is, there are some things that you can't do yourself (rot, damp, woodworm), because when you come to sell it, you won't have the relevant certificates to prove you've dealt with it, but the evidence that it has occurred may still be there.

Date: 2009-10-31 07:12 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] khbrown.livejournal.com
Is this a kind of protection racket? What happens if you are someone who is officially sanctioned/qualified to deal with these things - are you allowed to DIY and self-certificate, or do you have to employ a third party?

Date: 2009-10-31 07:23 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] xquiq.livejournal.com
I'm not sure.

For some things it does feel a bit like a protection racket.

While I understand the need for things like chimney certificates, electrical certificates etc., when I've had to have work done recently, the amount of labour that went into getting these documents was totally out of proportion to the amount paid to get them.

Particularly galling were the electrical certificates for the kitchen, since T's an electronics engineer, which is how we discovered that the 'qualified electrician' was next to useless...

Date: 2009-10-30 02:51 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com
Fancy staring at goats sometime this weekend?

Date: 2009-10-30 05:11 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com
I may well have a weekend of setting up the mac.
Let's keep a goat-based trip pencilled in for some vague point in the future, such as next week or next weeked? Week after I'm away.

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