Home blues

Final inspection was the 18th and we moved in the 21st. Then on the 9th of Feb, we had a big storm. 

I noticed a black spot in the corner that I didn't see before. Then as I stared couple of drops came down from the ceiling. Then the damp grew along the edge.

Next thing we noticed water on Ollie's floor. Soon the wall started sagging and rippling, dripping more water.

 After going downstairs, water was falling there too. We started to panic. Walking into Louis's room, there was water on the floor from the window, and water started dripping from the ceiling. We rang Lee to say the whole place is leaking in. As per always, it just went to voice mail.

You can see the wet seeping into the towel on the floor. I got up there in the rain and started cleaning out whichever gutters I could, including next door.

The roof guy banged on our door first thing Monday morning. He called Lee to say that his boys didn't do any of the finishing on the windows. One of their guys came some later day and did the caulking on the windows.

Lee came to inspect and starting talking about splitting the bill for Lou's ceiling as it wasn't part of the job. But Marie pointed out that we'd explicitly asked them to inspect the roof to be it was all tight.

It's only because they screwed up the windows that we noticed the rest of the problems. The gutter here is sitting out so it doesn't catch most of the water. I tried screwing it back in but the wood back is totally rotten.

Oh, and the new gutter we paid $5,000 for falls away from the down pipe. So the water is directed towards the dead end. This is why it spilled over into the bathroom.

Some sensational Casa Fabrica work here. Duct tape was used as a fixing for the gutter. As a result it fell down, spilling water into our roof drain. The roof guy tells me nearly the entire time of the build it's been laying down like this, spilling the water in.

Using duct tape as a building material is really aweful but not actually the worst thing they've done.

Lack of care: 40-50 tile spacers were disposed of in the sink. The toilet gurgles indicating a serious blockage. It's June right now and still has not been fixed.

This is how this looks at handover.

Backyard's looking good.

The windows at this point in time are hard to close and nearly impossible to lock. The force needed ended up popping this. Replacing the windows was a bad move. We've been complaining about it for ages.

I'm slowly starting to like the place.

Feb 1

Cruising around home! Now we're finally in. All the work begins.

Some awesome murals around here; stops the graffiti, looks terrific.

Next door's street garden. Hear no evil, see some lovely shrubs.

Keep left; no problem with this in the Inner West.

Out for dinner near home, on Canterbury Road

That's a definite no to Coal. The kids are fully into protesting about it as well. There was a turnout of thousands.

Do these cops look a bit like the Beetles Abbey Road album cover?

On the new metro train to work. It comes every four minutes except for when I turn up.

Plenty of demand for public transport; this is where the money needs to get spent!

The great day in 1855. Greatness peaked around 1920-1930, then cars started taking over in the 1950s.

On the way home from work: shopping around Olympic Park / Homebush.

Jan

The January long weekend, bbq at Peter's.

Some of the stuff from Mum's place is amazing; chicken shears that are about 50 years old still in the packet, linen table cloth made in Ireland.

We dropped in on an escape room in Newtown, only just did it in time, needed a few clues since the ones there were too cryptic.

Rafy and Finn and the scare crow bros.

At Peters

The old gang from France Hugues, new guy, Gabriella, Sylvie, Jean Louis, Carol, Alina; front row: Tristan, Liviu and the new bub.

Amazing the things that are still packed up unused since Mum's wedding day, about 60 years ago.

More building crap

Left: note of a practical completion. No-one stayed around to actually give us the note. They tried to hand it over on the 24th of December.

On the 18th of Jan, they tried again. The manager of the building company has a very curly eyebrow.

The original build came with a gaping hole open to the weather.

Then they put in a chunk of wood with less of a hole.

After further complaints from us, they put a plastic bag on the wood, which simply guides the water into the hole without being soaked up.

More choice work; ducting hanging from an electrical wire. Unsafe; what building standard?

Electrical wire not in a conduit - simply poking up through the concrete.

January 2020

Our stuff is still in storage! Waiting for a place to live...

And while we wait, there's always stuff to do, eg do some sketches at the art gallery. The McCabe kids enjoy it, ours not so much.

I should keep notes because I can't remember where we were going to this day. The tram ride was clearly fun.

Guests when we could have them; Raffy and  Finn.

3 of the fab 4; Cookie, Dixie and the other one. They are now producing a heap of eggs.

After Christmas

Paige's birthday - too much chocolate cake.

Some racing around at the water park, then some more chocolate cake.

Nice to catch up with some old uni buddies; Scot, Andy and Pete.Everyone's pretty much the same old.

Bill and Chap were down from Brisbane to visit family, so we all had a few in the afternoon at the Oaks - Bill, Johnno, Chap, Sharnie, Jeanie, and us two. Really good to see them.

The builders had 6 months on the contract to finish, we gave them an extra 8 months, but they screwed it up so much that even that was not enough time: a bad case of the measles at our house due to paint problems, problems with the doors shutting.

 This duct is an unwelcome sight in the middle of the living room. Nice touch from the experts. They could have routed it in the stairs, or up the ceiling.

Laundry completely unfinished. This was a deal breaker - we shouldn't be expected to live without one for who knows how long. We decided not to move in, so spent a few extra weeks with bags on the floor at the in laws.

Several months was not enough to make any progress on kitchen extraction. Still not, at the time of writing in June 2020. What a joke.

The duct at the other end is held on by sticky tape, no joke. This is their idea of a suitable fixing material? The duct tape has failed, and we didn't understand at the time, but this whole piece is simply laying on the bottom, no longer connected.

All doors did not close properly. The powder room door did not have the striker piece installed and could not be closed at all. This door is free floating since it lacks the bottom guide. Numerous problems are due to things simple not being finished.

Needless to say, living in a spare room at the in laws, living out of suitcases, not knowing when anything might get fixed was a major stress. Late, overpriced, poor quality finish: we would never use these guys again and don't recommend them for anything.

Christmas!

2019 was a good Christmas. I think the boys were pretty happy to be home again, sitting in a house and not having to set up a tent again.

 Our excellent hostess.

Me and the girls tried to make a house using brownie bricks, coconut snow, chocolate stick door, and sugar strap paths. It was all going well until a wall collapsed. Not sure who ate it, hopefully it got some takers.

 Present unwrapping, Ollie is pretty stoked, a new computer, but he needed it for school as well. I think he gets more games use out of it than educational use. I guess games can show people how to use these things.





The KK gift opening. The room was all activity.