In the Beginning

December 2006, the month we completed on a flat we'd spent a year trying to buy. The day before completion I stood in the kitchen and wept. Twelve months of arguing about a structural report had finally taken its toll, some time in the next 24 hours we'd be home owners, and I didn't like the flat any more. I could feel Ian's dismay, I had been the driving force behind the move, he hadn't even wanted to buy anywhere and here we were about to take on a 125% mortgage (yes, we were those people) and now I was telling him I didn't want to buy the place.

For years tenants had lived there with their many cats and dogs, the place had a strange odour to it that we hadn’t noticed in the viewings. The carpet that had been in the bedroom had disappeared, along with the burglar alarm. The three piece suite had been abandoned in the living room, they couldn’t be bothered trying to get it out and evidently thought we would get rid of it for them. I toyed with asking our Solicitor to take it up with the owners, ask them to replace the alarm and the carpet that were listed in the property details and to pay for the furniture to be removed. I didn’t have the energy to do it, it was more effort than I could face and the next day we got the keys, that’s when the fun started. I say fun, I mean, half arsed attempts at DIY, and that’s the point of this blog, to catalogue how far we’ve come. It may serve as a reminder for us that we’ve come a long way, it may also serve as a warning for us to never try this again. 

The three piece suite and animal pee saturated carpet we inherited