Ebay woes

And in the midst of all this stress, I've been ebaying everything we can possibly sell in our downsizing/decluttering period. We listed some old computer games, and had a bidding war going on. As they were heavy I specified that they were for UK bidders only. Then a bloke from Italy won. Idiot. It cost £28 to post them. He said "that's very high" and refused to pay. I said "that's why I said only UK bidders!" and had to cancel his bid. Idiot!!

House buying - lessons I have learned...

So we are almost ALMOST within sight of moving house. We found a house that we all liked and that wasn't too far away from our current house, and it all seemed rosy. Then proceedings got started. These are the lessons I have learnt thus far:

1) When you make an offer on a house, don't worry about asking rude questions like "are you bankrupt and being made to sell the house?" Otherwise you'll find out when you're too far down the line to turn back. We didn't ask being silly like that. Turns out the lovely lady and her 2 kids who live in the house are being thrown out by her ex-husband who has been made bankrupt. They aren't very happy about it.

2) When the estate agent says "it's a perfect house, needs absolutely nothing doing to it" don't be surprised when the survey comes back and says otherwise.

3) Expect stress for weeks and weeks and weeks, until you start to appreciate your current house and wonder if you're doing the wrong thing. Get used to living with the stress that it could all fall apart any day. We started this journey back in September and it's still going...

4) If you want a nice peaceful afternoon, don't check your emails.

5) The one good thing about it is that you will finally get rid of all the junk you have kept in cupboards and never looked at for years. If it does all go tits up, at least you've minimised a bit!

Stop with the detail...

Inappropriate relative was here again this weekend. Within 10 minutes she had let slip that she was ill the week before. Without even being asked why, she told us that she had a cough and a stomach bug: "So everytime I coughed it was coming out of both ends".

Lovely. Really lovely. And then I heard her recounting the story to another relative 2 hours later. Have some pride woman, we don't want to hear about your nether regions every single time we see you!!!

More houses...

Tell me if I'm boring you yet! This house malarkey is taking over my entire life. Hours on the net searching for my perfect house, only to go and view them and find out they are half the size of my current house, are built on a fly tip, or are 10 miles from the station. Photos are very deceiving, estate agents have the use of the wide angle lens down to a fine art. And I learnt after last week to read the room dimensions, so many 3 bed houses have less floor space than ours, it isn't worth it for an extra bedroom.

But in positive news, even if we don't sell, we'll hopefully be getting an extension so I can have my lovely kitchen diner that I dream about. Even if I have to build it myself!

Kids

Sometimes my kids surprise me in a good way. At Christmas we got my eldest a Nintendo DS, got it off Ebay as they are really hard to get hold of these days, and 10 days after Christmas it stopped working. Then it turned out it was fake, Ebay were shit, and the seller had done a bunk. The boy was upset, but came up to me and said "don't worry mummy, I can get another one next Christmas". It broke my heart bless him! Luckily we managed to get a replacement, and everything is rosy, but I never expected him to be so grown up about it.

Houses

So 4 months on and LOTS of viewers on, WE SOLD OUR HOUSE!!! Well, this is all subject to the survey so I'm holding my breath and preparing a big bung for the chap who comes and does the survey to ignore our dodgy wiring. Selling a house is SO stressful, you spend weeks constantly tidying and cleaning, for strangers to tramp through your home and then turn it down over some stupid thing like the roof tiles being the wrong colour. And it was only when I shouted at our estate agents, told them they were rubbish, and we were instructing someone else that they actually got their arses in gear and sold it a week before we were changing! Ha! The threat of losing 3 grand in fees works wonders I find.

Now we have to find somewhere. And I am finding it quite stressful too. I quite enjoyed the weeks of surfing the net looking at people's kitchens and scoffing at their green bathrooms. Now we have to actually narrow them down and go and look at them I've hit a brick wall. You would think the option of tramping round other people's houses and moaning about the colour of their kettle would be fun, we could look at all the houses around and have some fun. I don't know why I'm worrying!

And the thing I am really worrying about?! Moving day. How do I make the house nice and clean for the new owners while moving out all our stuff, moving it to another house which will probably also need cleaning, and then find the kettle?! The stupid things we worry about, honestly.

Viewer #8

Seemed to like the house, but then I heard myself telling him about the ghosts. Haven't heard anything since...

Very spooky goings on...

So I have been selling things on ebay that belonged to a relative that passed away recently. It's weird, but the stuff needs to go and the family told me to do it. And a few items finished at the weekend, and when I went to get the buyer's details they had the exact same name as my relative, and came from the place where she was cremated. That is a very strange coincidence isn't it?! I would have told the buyer how strange it was, but I didn't want them to think they were buying a dead person's stuff!

House still for sale...

Oh, and no we haven't sold the bloomin' house yet. All that's happened this week is that a different estate agent at the firm of monkeys we hired insisted we redo all the photos. They do look better minus the toys everywhere but it annoyed me as originally the girl who took the photos said I didn't need to move them after I offered. And we paid for a fancy brochure that now has old shitty photos in. We were broke for 2 months after that, and it was only after I paid it I realised it wasn't compulsory! Damn them all.

Pft!

A relative asked for a list of what the boys wanted for Christmas and birthday presents, as they are very close together. So I spent a lot of time considering it, asked the boys what they would like, and sent a list of 2 items. One for birthday, one for Christmas. Job done. You would have thought.

Then I get a phone call telling me they got something completely different. At half the price. Not that the original present idea was expensive. And Littl'un thinks he is getting what he asked for! I give up.

Trick or treat...

I took the boys trick or treating for the first time this year. It wasn't altogether successful. First of all it was bloody freezing and the youngest spent all his time shivering and saying he wanted to go home. But we went to the neighbours we knew, and most of them were lovely, pretending to be scared of the monsters at the door, and giving them sweets. One old lady we knew had lovely prepared bags of sweets that looked really posh. Until we got home. They were chocolates from at LEAST last Christmas, and some were caramels and nuts which I had to take away, and then when they opened the ones they had left they had gone all white and manky and had to be thrown away too! But she did give them 50p with it too so it wasn't all bad! Then I decided to help the boys with the sweets they could eat and ended up at the dentist the next day! That was an expensive Halloween for sure...

Rhino hide

We had yet another visit from our thick-skinned relative last week, man it was hard work. Still, after all these years. I will now present you with the reasons why I turn to alcohol while they are here:

• They drive a good 4/5 hours at least to get here. Then spend the majority of the time on the sofa with a cob on as "something" unspecified is wrong with them. Every single time.
• They ignore the kids apart from to tell them off or force feed them sweets (then later they will announce that they have had too many, hence their excitable behaviour).
• They fall asleep on the sofa.
• They force everyone else to watch rubbish tv they like, despite the fact that they are taping it at home.
• They help themselves to drinks, without offering one to anyone else, including their partner.
• They announce when they arrive that they are spending an extra night, without warning. 
• They only come to life after a drink, which they like A LOT. 
• They spend a lot of time complaining that they are on a diet and that they can't eat fat. They poo poo every meal suggestion I make as it "upsets them", so we have very bland meals. When we go out for a meal they pick something healthy and sit there with a face like a slapped arse. Then proceed to spend the rest of the weekend eating sweets, fried food from the takeaway, crisps, and snacks aplenty, and then 2 hours later moaning about their gut.

And I could go on. It is getting beyond me why I put up with it. I do make the occasional sly dig here and there but as with everything else, it goes over their head! Pass me the gin...

Viewers #6 and #7

No. We haven't sold the house yet. But I've never cleaned it as much! #6 was a friendly man who came to view with about 20 minutes notice. He seemed to like it even with mess everywhere, but was undecided where he wanted to live, he had our area and somewhere about an hour away. So he wasn't that serious in my opinion. Then #7 was at the weekend and I had high hopes for him. He was a single bloke, seemed to really like it, and won the award for the first viewer to open the cupboards (and nothing fell out on him!). I was convinced he would make an offer, but silence. Our estate agents are supposed to ring with feedback, but they haven't bothered. As I am doing all the tours, I fail to see exactly what they are doing to earn £3000 if they manage to sell the blessed house. People can find the details online, and all the agents have to do is ring up and check I am in. They are not doing a lot more. I should have just put the house online myself, I might as well have!

Viewers #4 and #5

So we had a busy weekend. Cleaning for no apparent reason that is! The first lot of viewers were a young couple, looking to buy their first house. They were lovely and seemed to like the house, I was very positive about them. But then I asked what else they were looking at and they showed me a picture of a new build house which was pristine and very very shiny. So that's that then! The next viewer turned up with half an hour's notice, an Eastern European, very tall gentleman. He wanted a buy-to-let, and he looked at my bedroom as if he was figuring out exactly how many families he could fit into it. He also asked if the loft was high. I said "not high enough to live in" but I fear he thought otherwise!

And now I am being doorstepped by all the other estate agents in town. Which is positive as apparently there are lots more people registering to buy. But we are trapped in with our current agents for a few more weeks, but I have lots of promises of reduced fees and am getting lots of free advice just in case we decide to change agents when the time comes.

Even if we don't sell, I am actually starting to enjoy it now! I'm treating tours of my house like I used to do library tours, though I fear buyers aren't really interested in the book collections and size of my bed. Which I have managed to point out to every one so far. But it IS big :)

Viewer #3

Today's viewer didn't like the garden. It's too long and needs too much maintenance. I said he could always concrete it over :) I am getting more laid back and cynical with every viewer we get. We have another one tomorrow, she'll probably not like the fact that the carpets are green. But one day, one day far off in the distant future, someone will come in and like it. I hope!

Selling houses

Ah, I knew there was a reason we decided to put our house on the market. It is so I have a fresh batch of material to blog about, raising kids isn't really that exciting/rage-inducing. House selling/buying is. You think I would have remembered all this from last time round, when I accused our solicitors of being trained by monkeys.

But no, after 5 years of solicitor and estate agent free bliss we signed up for the rollercoaster again. And I have to say it's going marvellously! No, really! First of all, the valuation. The estate agent we picked to sell the house was super lovely, SO enthusiastic about the house, she had "at least 5 viewers lined up already", was positive about what we could get for it, and how quickly we could sell it. For definite. It would be sold in about a day. Then we signed on the dotted line. And it all changed. In the 3 weeks it has been on the market they have got us the grand total of 2 viewings. The first lot didn't like the fact we didn't have a proper hallway. And they didn't have a deposit. And the second was a doctor who basically wanted a crash pad for when he was doing long shifts at the local hospital and couldn't get to his Hertfordshire mansion. Which begs the question: "DID NEITHER OF YOU EVEN LOOK AT THE DETAILS??". The details clearly show the lack of hallway, and the fact that we have a 100ft garden. I don't suppose a doctor on 12 hour shifts is going to want to start on that when he gets in. And he didn't like the car garage on the corner. Honestly.

I am cleaning like a thing possessed before we have viewings, just in case the dust on the lightshades puts people off. But it is turning out that people are weird. Bloody weird. And they walk around with poker faces and don't say much, and I wish they were just honest and said what they did or didn't like at the time. When it is our time (ha I saw "when", this may never happen) to look at houses I am going to sniffily say that the lack of helicopter pad put me off, or the fact that it had a front door. There is no rhyme or reason to people, but at least my house is super tidy at the moment!

And I haven't even got to any serious dealings with any solicitors yet.

I''m starting to think it would be easier to just get an extension on our house. Then I can do a blog on "dodgy builders" instead! Or just sell one of the kids...

Still don't like school!

A week later we have progress. Of a sort. Littl'un walked into his class without screaming or having to be carried in. He then looked at me sadly and went and sat down at a table with tears coursing silently down his cheeks. I think I preferred the screaming on the whole! He just looked resigned to his fate today bless him.

Don't wanna go to school today...

So the 2 year old started pre-school this week. 3 mornings a week, just to run around and play in messy things he isn't allowed to play with at home. His older brother was fine, went in without a problem when he started. No tears, nothing. Not this one. We have had tears every day, screaming and pleading not to leave him there, it's been a tough week! I thought he'd be fine, he's been asking to go to school for about a year already. I hope he gets used to it soon, you do start to wonder if the minute you leave they lock the kids in a cupboard or something when they really don't want to stay.

So for the 2 days a week he isn't at school I am making it REALLY boring, cleaning and shopping and stuff, in the hope he'll be running to school next week. Shame he enjoys a good polish really...

More bad parenting!

And not from me this time! At a kids party yesterday, two parents turned up with their son who was invited to the party, and also their much younger daughter who wasn't. The host said to them that the girl could stay and play if they paid for her entrance. Then all the kids went off to play and nobody thought anymore about it. Then when the kids were called to come and eat the girl came along too and started tucking in, so the host took her off to find her parents. And came back 5 minutes later to say the parents had buggered off and left the kids unsupervised! So the host of the party had to pay an extra £15 for the girl to eat. And they are really not well off, they struggled to have a party at all. It made me so mad. And at the end, the parents reappeared and smiled and left. No wonder they were bloody smiling! I wonder if they do that at all the parties they are invited too, sneak an extra kid in so they don't have to feed them later. The cheek! But I know who won't be on the list if my boys have a birthday party!

Banks

I want to open bank accounts for the boys. You would think this would be easy. But no. The bank I chose as they had the best rate couldn't see me for 5 days (they "didn't have anyone in" to do it apparently) and now they are demanding to do a financial review about my account which is with a different bank before they'll do anything else. Why my financial affairs are relevant I don't know. If I was an aunt or something they wouldn't want to would they? I feel a row coming on. And when I told the man that I didn't bank with them, he looked disgusted. You would think they would welcome new business and be very nice to me, or else I'll go elsewhere. Which I might just do. I feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. When we win the lottery I'll go in there and show them my wads of cash going "you could have had this". That would be brilliant.