The previous week, we had received email from the tenant of our Aldgate apartment complaining that, on Thursday when they were eating dinner in the garden, they had an uninvited dinner guest in the shape of Mr or Mrs Rat. They subsequently found that, in erecting their desirable residence in the garden, Mr and Mrs Rat had excavated a considerable proportion of the soil under the brickwork of the patio, which they had considerately left in a large neat pile in the corner. Mr Rat is stronger than you would think; he had also picked up and moved several of the patio bricks because they were in his way. He piled these up quite neatly too.
Our tenant emailed us at the end of the previous week with photos, so at the beginning of the week we arrived with pick and shovel, intending to excavate chez rat and make them unwelcome. Unfortunately, chez rat proved to be quite extensive, so excavations on the patio and subsequent repairs took most of the day. Paul found the cozy bedroom, with a considerable number of Miss Rats and Master Rats comfortably installed;
these young rats are now 'late' rats, having unfortunately met a savage end at the hands of Paul (and a convenient brick). He says that is much kinder than poisoning them, which is a slow and painful death. I asked what I could do; his suggestion that I read the service for the dead over them did not meet with my approval.
Chez Rat proved to be very extensive, having a number of passages and doors, and was not excavated in its entirety, time (and energy) having run out. However, all the excavated soil was returned underground, along with several buckets of water, the four or five entrances I found have all been blocked up, and we have been supplied with two bait boxes which are apparently superior to those we can obtain in B&Q. If Mr and Mrs Rat return, I suppose we'll need to have a professional exterminator in.
This was just one day in our busy fortnight. Let me describe some of the rest of our days.
I am a Director of the Residents Association of the development where we have this apartment, and seem to have had at least 8 solid days work associated with it. The development owns an apartment which was supposed to be the Head Porter's apartment, but we don't use it for that. It has been rented unfurnished for many years, but we have now been advised by the Estate Agent that it needs to be furnished, so one of the other directors (A.) and I got stuck in!
The first task was to visit the apartment (70 mile round trip, so a lot of driving) and decide what furniture to buy and what other work needed to be done - the oven cleaning again, it goes without saying! Then, some days were spent on the Internet looking at possible furniture. You can buy various 'landlord's furniture packages' but we were reluctant to commit money to something which might look charming in the photo but awful when you actually saw it. So in the end most of the stuff came from Ikea. It's only about 15 miles from us, but traffic is awful so it usually takes an hour each way. Then you have to get the aisle and location numbers by tramping round the long and winding Ikea trail, and put the stuff on trolleys. We needed 4 trolleys in the end, and lots of Ikea people had to help us.
I arranged for it all to be delivered - we are used to carrying a lot of Ikea furniture in our car, but not a whole houseful! Checking the delivery isn't possible when you live more than 30 miles away, but the Facilities Manager received the delivery and told me one item had been forgotten and would have to come the next day. However, when we drove up to build the furniture, it still hadn't arrived. We soon noticed what it was - the 3 seat sofa! How can any delivery company forget a huge sofa? And of course, with everything being identified by those weird Swedish names, all anybody but me knew was that there was a Skogaby missing!
So then there were several phone calls to locate our missing sofa, which fortunately turned up the next day. Next, Paul embarked on wardrobe building, while A. and I tackled the building of the dining chairs so we could all sit down. The first chair, fortunately, was no problem, but the legs belonging to the second one just would not fit at all. We turned the leg frame every way we could, we turned the chair itself around every way we could think of, wondering if we had gone mad, and then it dawned on us - wrong set of legs! Fortunately, all other sets of legs were correct, but we only had 3 dining chairs until we could visit Ikea to change the wrong legs.
We ate a quick lunch, which I insisted we eat in the kitchen for fear of dropping things on the carpet, which was just as well, since Paul's sandwich jumped out of his hands onto the floor. Then he went upstairs with his cup of coffee and juggled with that as well, so there was a lot of carpet cleaning needed. The only other problem that day was a bit of the wardrobe hanging rail which proved to be missing. So on the way home, we had to stop at Ikea and change the legs and the hanging rail. We didn't get home until after 9!
Next day, all 3 of us were back again, and we finished building all the furniture we had bought. However, A and I decided we should buy a second bedside chest and a suitable coffee table. So, at the weekend Paul and I were back at Ikea buying more stuff, and then on Monday we drove back to Aldgate again so we could build the two remaining items. This time, we also took a scrubbing brush so Paul could have a proper go at his coffee stain.
So all this is the reason for no blog for a while - I've spent so much time on the Internet researching beds and sofas and bath panels and flooring and getting samples of stuff I've had very little time for anything else.
I do now trust it's almost at an end. A. is ordering Venetian blinds for the kitchen windows, which look out onto a busy street, and looking for replacement lampshades. And various staff who work for the development are co-ordinating the laying of the flooring, the putting up of various blinds and curtain poles and the cleaning of various items that A. and I felt had been left too dirty - like the oven!
And now I am hoping to have a few days rest.
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