We always knew 2017 was going to be tough. Even before the turn of the year the flat was literally falling apart, as I almost put my foot through a squidgy, smelly, damp-rot infested section of our bathroom flooring just before Christmas. I hesitantly assessed the damage, a gaping foot wide hole at the end of the bath. Job number one on the list for 2017, hidden away for now under a clothes basket.
After the chaos of the Luke’s birthday, Christmas and New Year combo from hell had died down, it was time to face the cold-hard reality that the girls were rapidly growing out of cot-space and we needed to move, fast! Being 3-stone overweight and up to my eyeballs in debt wasn’t helping matters. I started to make a list of jobs, nightmare DIY tasks which stressed me out just thinking about them. Rotting bathroom floor and bath panelling, peeling away kitchen worktops,disintegrating kitchen floor, the dreaded plinths, our knackered old, barely functioning boiler, internal doors hanging on with superglue, a new front door, an actual door number, the wrecked old catflap on the backdoor, as well as filling in all the plaster cracks and re-painting.
After work, when tea had been digested and everyone was safely out-of-the-way was, of course, the only time to get the work done. Mrs H, 3 children in toe was somehow managing to organise quotes and workmen for some of the jobs, but the ever-expanding list wasn’t going away. There didn’t seem to be enough hours in the day and our energy was pretty much zapped out of us by the kids anyway. One by one though, we gradually started ticking them off.
But could we really afford to move ? My initial positivity was quickly scuppered with one mortgage application rejection after another. Phone-call or online didn’t matter. Unfortunately, so it seemed, having 4 ‘dependants’ was a red flag to any notion of ‘affordability’. Just as the house renovations were starting to go well then, our first knock down.
Out of the desperation of getting the twins their own bedroom, I pressed the mortgage companies a little more, I’d done the sums, we could definitely afford it. Something told me there were other factors in play here, and that’s when I first learned about “Credit Check Agencies”.
Gradually I put the pieces of the jigsaw together through a series of lengthy lunchtime calls. The Mortgage companies used 3 credit check companies, Experian, Equifax and Call Credit, and my record in all 3 was a mess, apparently. I closed all dead accounts and removed any incorrect information (i,e. Financial associations that weren’t even true) by constantly badgering them at great expensive and time. Numerous calls and emails later, we were starting to get there, starting to unravel the tangle web that had grown out of control over the years. Just one more alert remained, a suspicious looking default on my water bill.
Of course the water company weren’t budging. I had switched banks a while back and the switch didn’t transfer over my water direct debit. The water company had sent me two reminders apparently, then placed a default on my account which lasts for 6 years! It didn’t matter that I’d settled the outstanding amount of around £30 within a week or so. There was literally nothing I could do. Their computer said no.
I had only one option available. Contact the local MP or forget about the whole house-moving plan altogether. I put together my heart-wrenching email of the needy family vs the corporate bad-boys. Amazingly, one call from the MP did the trick, an apology was issued and my default was removed. Back in the game! (I really need to thank Mr Alan Campbell MP personally).
I needed to wait awhile for the Mortgage company’s systems to update, so in the meantime we ploughed ahead with selling the flat and looking for a new place. Eventually our efforts appeared on the Estate Agent’s website, our home proudly presented in its best ever light. Even I would buy it! Not long after that we had accepted an offer and things were finally looking up, until we re-applied for our Mortgage.
This time there were no hidden surprises, no grey areas. It was just a flat-out No. All on the grounds of affordability. the final knock-down maybe. So we took our last option, a Mortgage-broker who could question the Lender’s reasoning and respond with options. We just about scraped in to get the house we’d fallen in love with, just. Now there were just no savings to renovate a house in need of it.
We walked past the house almost every day, wondering about what it would be like to live there, it was in a really nice area close-by, great for schools, handy for the shops, and snuggled away in a cosy cul-de-sac. Mrs H had instantly fallen in love with it, Its cottage-y feel, three double bedrooms, ideal for the growing family, front AND back garden, a rarity in this area and price range. It really was a ‘forever’ home to make our own, to put our stamp on. In our heart’s we’d already moved in.
So we had sold our flat, had our offer accepted on the new place and our Mortgage. We were moving into an empty property and we had a first time buyer, End of the story ? Not even close.
Our newly renovated house began to crumble. A year of children’s footfall had battered up our lovely bare floorboards, doors started to hang loose from their hinges and yet again the boiler started playing up. We could not believe our bad luck, but nothing was to prepare us for what was to come. A rodent infestation.
Maybe we always had rats, maybe it was the mouldy mattress left out in the back yard, or the particles of food between the floorboards, but one day I noticed a hole in the floorboard against the wall, about a couple of centimetres wide. Once the idea of rodents had entered our minds, it pretty much dominated all our thoughts, day and night. They were definitely damaging our floorboards, but what about the electricity wires, or worse, the gas pipes. We feverishly googled the dangers and the horror stories. Would it stop us from moving ? How do we get rid of them ? Can we get rid of them?
At night you could hear them knawing away. Going from room to room rattling the radiator pipes, making new holes, causing more damage and worry. I looked at methods for trapping them online. They became our project, our obsession. We started to try to think like them to give us a chance, but we knew there was nothing we could really do as they were hidden away under our house. Eventually we plumped for the tried and tested Rat trap with peanut butter, and had summoned the Councils pest controller. Having identified that we did have rats, we went to war.
It’s a sickening feeling knowing we had visitors in and around where your children were playing and eating, carrying diseases. On top of that was the worry of the damage caused, to other more life-threatening threats of electrics, gas pipes. Mostly though, it was the helpless feeling that we’d need a bit of luck to win, something sadly lacking this year. It was out of our control.
Gradually though, we cut off their routes in and out. Snaring two in outside traps in the back yard. It was then down to the poison laid by the exterminator to work its magic. All the while of course, there was the mortgage to progress, Solicitors, things to organise. my day job….. and not forgetting Luke and the twins.
The foul smell emanating from the kitchen confirmed the kill,which took a while to die down, even with the strategically placed neutradol, the floorboards were repaired, and we were finally into the end-game, with a moving date pencilled in for 15th December, or in other words bang on Luke’s Birthday / Christmas.
It of course didn’t go smoothly. The survey on our new home was a list of red-flags. Wonky floorboards, the broken roof, suspect electrics, asbestos. you name it. But we were determined to stay on course. Determined the layout, location and space was just what we needed and everything else could be fixed in time. It needed a new bathroom too, but hey, we could deal with that couldn’t we?
To be continued…..
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Thank you! It really didn’t get any easier!
Wow, Adam, what a painful saga! Having renovated two old houses myself, I empathize with you and the myriad challenges you’ve been facing. I wish you the best as the story unfolds.