Preparedness for when

jk0

jk0 wrote: »

A number of my flats have been like this. Not because I let them out like that. They were let to single folk from, how can I put this politically correctly, the third world.

Often I don't find out about this until I get the place back and see from the post that arrives.

Two of my one single, one double bedroom flats were occupied by five people, and a two double bedroom flat was occupied by two families.

I thought you guys might be interested in this story in light of what we were discussing yesterday:

http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?63188-Please-could-someone-clarify-the-HMO-rules

The cheek of the guy, eh? I'm glad it's not just me it happens to.

GreyQueen

Morning all.

Am hobbling around the place having performed a bizarre GP-advised form of physical therapy involving a golf ball and a pkt of frozen veg. Never get a heel spur, dahlings, they can hurt like billy-o.

jk0, interesting. The bliddy cheek of some people, hey? HMO licenses are for dwellings above 2 stories but if you intend to have 6 or more occupants at your rental property you really need to talk to the planning dept about change-of-use. I don't think familial relationships amongst the tenants count as a mitigaton.

Lots of entrepreneurs here are buying bog-standard small 3 bedroom homes and turning them into student-lets for 5 adults; one in each bedroom and the reception room carved up into two rooms. One assured me that he'd be writing into his tenancy agreement that none of his student tenants would have a live-in partner, thus taking him into change-of-use territory, but I thought to myself good luck with policing that, sir.

Tends to be hard on the structure and tough on the neighbours, as young adults away from parental supervision for the first time in their lives can be oblivious to the impact their lifestyle choices have on others. My student house landlord pal reckons that the spilt is about 70% good and 30% nuisances, and that 10% will continue to be nuisances after having had the implications of their behaviour spelled out them.

I have been perusing the 'Hedge and considering the gold smackdown which happened yesterday as a sign and portent, and will be removing some cash from the banking system today. I'm small fry in terms of cash, but I still don't want anyone getting ideas about an additonal Bank Holiday and freezing accounts prior to looting.

Ooops, my bad, bailing in.

I shall also be gardening today, because in times of trouble, a spud is a spud and a bean is a bean, no matter what the markets are doing. And I have 2 sacks of spuds in my living room right now.

Have just had my water bill for the previous 6 months. Worked out at £1.54 a week. Pretty pleased with that. Onwards and outwards, my lovelies.

jk0

Morning GQ.

I meant to ask about your amazing potato harvest. How on earth did you get that lot home on your bicycle? Did you take a little every day for several weeks?

Edit: Sorry to hear you are in pain.

GreyQueen

jk0 wrote: »

Morning GQ.

I meant to ask about your amazing potato harvest. How on earth did you get that lot home on your bicycle? Did you take a little every day for several weeks?

Nope. I had my parents come up to help me with the harvesting (well, me and Dad dug them up whilst Mum picked beans) and then we weighed them, put them into sacks and drove my share down to the flat, and then took their sackful (a hundredweight) on to their house. There are limits to what a Pashley can transport.

Without the use of their car, I would have had to bring them down a little at a time (lottie is 1.25 miles from the flat) in the bike basket/ my backpack.

I'm pretty pleased with the harvest. My previous best return was 9 kg back for every 1 kg planted and this was 12 kg return, which was fabulous. They're pretty uniform is size, too, and very little scab, especially where the bonfire was.

ETA; Thanks, jk0. Its been the case for the past 10 months, I just postponed talking to the GP about it. It's the interaction between a heel spur and plantar fascitius. The golf ball (10 mins of standing on it) is to traumatise the tissue which had previously torn and healed awry, followed by 10 mins of stretching, then 10 mins of veggie ice pack then bed.

Big fun, huh? Gotta do that for 2 weeks. The idea is to irritate the damaged tissue into healing in a more stretchy way. I used the kitchen timer to time the segments and read a book about the ancient Greeks to alleviate the tedium. The golf ball hurts like be88ary.

Frugalsod

I have discovered this. It is a kickstarter campaign for an Archery app. I know that someone here might like this.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/velocitip/uno-the-science-of-archery?ref=category

GreyQueen

It's about saving time setting the bow sight. I use a longbow (no sight) therefore of no interest to me personally. Dunno that archers using recurves or compound bows, which do have sights, would care. Most of them are gear-nuts who love nothing more than fiddling with their toys (ooo-err missus).

Am just chilling with a cuppa before going to the lottie. Have been domestic-engineering this morning; laundry and breadmaking and shoving a vacuum cleaner about the many acres of flooring......

Listening to Radio 4's news programme and the article on inflation says that food prices have been falling the past few months......hmmm, not in this part of the forest.

I saw two examples of stealth inflation this past weekend at the parental homestead. One was the happy finding of some After 8 mints, should have been eaten by March 2013 but still entirely edible. And the individually enveloped chocolate wafer was much smaller than it used to be, so much so that there was plenty of fresh air around it. And a squint at a stack of those orange plastic Jac0bs cream cracker boxes revealed that they're now smaller and contain 800g not 900g of product. OK, I only ever buy them for £1.50 in the post-Xmas sales, but it's annoying when you use them for storage and they won't stack properly.

Wanna bet there'll be down to 700 ot 750 g for Xmas 2014?

But inflation is still under 2%?! I should ruddy co-co.

Frugalsod

The inflation figures should take this into account but I doubt that they do. I also suspect that the percentages spent on food are substantially lower than most people actually spend. If you are on a low income you will not be spending much on high tech or clothing which falls regularly and would be spending more on food rent and heating all of which rise a lot more than the inflation figures suggest.

fiftyeighter_2

Grey queen, thanks for the info re strawberries. Ouch that sounds very painful. Hope you feel better soon.
Very pleased this morning, my daughters car got through the MOT. Well they have recommended a new tyre to be fitted soon. So we were both over the moon. She's only just College and working PT till she starts Uni. So obviously money is tight.
The yield from the lot tie sounds brilliant. I'm afraid I don't have a lot tie anymore. Just couldn't handle it with my arthritic knees and wrists. So I try to grow what I can in large tubs. Can't give up growing my veg. I love it.
Funny day today. Seems overcast but very, very clammy.
Well hope you are all having a good day.

craigywv

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Dibs on one.

be still my beating heart............................your in there GQ I reckon the pair of you would be like the "new race" after Armageddon , between his survival equipment and your knowledge you would survive the heap!

GreyQueen

:eek: Don't encourage him, craigyw!

Anyway, I'm menopausal, if anything my post-SHTF role will be the wise old woman in the woods, uttering gnomic utterances to the bemused villagers who come to my door seeking truths profound and mundane.

Post apocalyptic villager (wringing hands) But what should we do about.....?

GQ (crossly, probably brandishing a broom) Get off my bliddy doorstep, stop whingeing, think for yourself and don't be such a wet hen!

Was on the lottie yesterday afternoon, haymaking. Or I could have been haymaking if I'd had need of hay, as I had a lovely bit of wild meadow in the middle which was full of wildflowers (that's posh-speak for weeds) which were just about to drop seeds and needed to be got outta there.

I know allotments shouldn't include meadowland, btw, but this was a 4 m wide stripe across the middle that I didn't get around to clearing and included the feral strawberry beds from 2010-2013. I told one passing allotmenteer that it was set aside and they told me sadly that this helpful agricultural money-making wheeze doesn't exist any more. So, I rebranded it as fallow land, which made me feel better.

Anyroad, I gave it a radical haircut and dispossessed a lot of frogs, and started biking the seeding weeds down to the tip. With millions of grass seeds and black medic seeds about to drop, I daren't keep them on the plot until the October bonfire. Did 2 dump runs (4 IKEA bagfuls) yesterday and will do some more today.

I also saw the allotment officer, a nice enough bloke who is probably the least favourite officer in the local authority. If he does his job properly, such as writing to people for not cultivating their plots, he's bad, if he lets other people get away with uncultivated plots, he's also bad. I've met him once before but not on the plots. We had a wee chat.

Righty, going to get brekky and ease into the holiday and then back to the allotment. Still limping from the golf-ball go-around, 2 treatments down and 12 left. Damn well better work!