The Ultimate Incentive natters on. Part 9

Lots of our skirtings had yellowed in our new house too - well, more turned a creamy sort of colour. I don't think there were smokers here as we couldn't smell anything, but agree that smoking definitely makes it worse. There was a How Clean is Your House? once where they cleaned a smoker's ceiling with sugar soap and the difference was completely shocking. I think its the nicotine?

I've been back to the doctors yesterday as I've been getting pains in my leg away from the operation site and wanted to get it checked. I also ended up in floods of tears in front of the doctor Dinah so you are not alone! Consequently he has signed me off for a couple more weeks, had to go for blood tests this morning and am under strict orders to rest. Momma and Poppa Shrimp are on their way over to tell me off/bring me cakes. Although the pain is still there I am feeling a lot better, so I think a fair bit of it was stress too and coming to terms with everything. I know I've been doing too much with the new house but its just not possible to relax when there's loads to do so I think to some extent it was unavoidable. We are nearly finished now though so hopefully I will be able to rest properly (and make some Fab Feb things of course).

It looks like we will be getting most of our deposit back now from the old house, the initial quote they claimed to have had was £350 just for some marks on the wall, but since we contested it and asked for more details and photos they have reduced the quote to £96 + VAT for everything. We have offered them £70 as they are still charging for damage we did not cause (there was a leak which we reported several times but wasn't fixed), but either way its a lot better than we feared.

Hope you and Grace feel better soon Dinah! And glad you had a nice break Birdie. Your pin canvas was super impressive!

clearmydebts wrote: »

Shrimpy - I am glad you have been signed off so you can get some rest. You have been through a lot, so SIT DOWN!!!

I second this! Relax and take it easy xx

Tete_en_l'Air wrote: »

Thirding what CMD says - but also re. the deposit - that's shocking! Just shows you what landlords/agents try and do to get money out of you - as soon as you contest they reduce it by that much! Grrrrrrrr!!

It's awful isn't it? We have been done on numerous occasions. I am so cynical of landlords now and getting deposits back.

Awww Shrimps, I agree with the others, take it easy! You've been through a lot in a short space of time so take some time out to recover properly.

cannot believe how much your landlord was trying to fleece you out of! :eek: Well done for standing up and refusing to pay!

Paint-wise I should have said that TBH all of our paintwork has yellowed a bit so it's not always down to smokers, that just helps it go from bad to worse! We really need it all redoing but I've proven myself to be rubbish with a paintbrush and there's no way I can be trusted with gloss paint, OH is worse than I am and we can't afford to pay for a professional! Anyone fancy doing it for me?!

Yes I'm afraid it's the yukky old nicotine type gloss that I have on the skirting boards in the cupboard I just realised I didn't take any before pics, which was a bit silly! (Hope my closet reveal won't be a huge disappointment, hehe).

Birdie, don't you like glossing? It's my favourite kind of painting. If I lived closer I'd certainly come and give you a hand. It's all about the masking tape skills. My OH is such a perfectionist, he'll be all like 'ooooooWOoooo' if I do a mistake. So I like to make it all perfect to show off.

Glad to hear you had some good time off. It's so nice to just chill out at home and do relaxing local stuff. The wine and beer sound nice.

Wendz, good to hear about the invites! Exciting that your wedding is getting so close now.

Sorry to hear about the cold Dinah. Hope Grace is getting better, and NIM's hand too.

Shrimpy, it's so stressful moving, I'm not surprised you're feeling a bit overwhelmed with everything else that's going on. I'm glad you've got your parents coming over to give you some TLC. Definitely take the opportunity for more rest and relaxation. Or alternatively you could write my PhD and I could rest on your behalf?

Glad that you are getting so much more of your deposit back. Landlords can be such scoundrels. I had one nice one though, she was Northern Irish too. We did have to shampoo the carpets and do a bit of cleaning, but otherwise she gave us all our deposit back.

Nice to hear about the little ones Flower and CMD. And all your plans too Cinny