KonMari 2016 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

PollyWollyDoodle

I gave up reading newspapers a few years ago (wouldn't have read the Mail in any case although their financial pages are usually very good). I read BBC news and listen to the Today programme on R4 and that's quite enough news for me - I don't usually watch it on TV unless something exceptional has happened. Don't miss it at all, and I still seem to be better-informed than some of my paper-reading friends!

GreyQueen

maryb wrote: »

DD2 graduates this year and she is just going to abandon most of the stuff in her house. The bedding was from Primark so doesn't owe her anything and I knew she was never going to do much cooking so didn't give her a very extensive batterie de cuisine. She did nick some good towels to take back with her last time so I want to make sure those come home!

You might want to glance at her tenancy agreement (if she has one) to make sure that doing so won't cause her to be charged for clearing out her stuff. I know a woman with several student houses and hear things which would make your hair curl.......

I'm regularly astonished at what students dump on the streets around here, particularly given the charity shops every few yards who would be glad to get this stuff. I may possibly have been seen wombling some of this stuff in the past (to pass to chazzers or to pals, once thoroughly cleaned up). Waste not, want not.

Feeling a mere smidge less like death warmed up today but still coughing at olympic standard, not ideal when working in a call centre.:p

If I felt a bit better, I'd hie me off to the tip with some stereos, but that's not happening tonight, not even archery is happening, I shall be impersonating a couch potato for a few hours.

silvasava

And what a lovely couch potato you make GQ - sensible idea to listen to your body!
DS1 took 3 x roasting tins, an enamel pan and dish. A set of mixing bowls that I've never used, 3 x oval pyrex dishes. I've given 2 springform cake tins to my friend. The odds & sods are in the boot waiting to be joined by whatever else I can fling!
DH also managed to find a few defunct metal pieces in the garage for the scrap man - a little more out of my kitchen and out of the garage - its all good!

LizzieR

kittie wrote: »

I did have a vivid dream before waking, that my handbag was stolen, together with my cards. I was away from home, did not know the bank telephone number or card numbers to report it. How on earth can you keep these numbers on you without them being in your bag or leaving them in the car, which is not a good thing to do?

Tricky one this..... I tend to e-mail myself things as (for me) it's a fairly good way of storing information. I don't mean account numbers as I'd be worried in case someone else got into my e-mail account and had all my info - but things like a list of phone numbers for the bank, dvla, etc. Also things like a scan of my passport if I'm travelling, a copy of parts of my CV which I always seem to be unable to find anywhere else, etc. I had my purse stolen several years ago when in Rome, and the only place I could find some of the numbers I needed was in my e-mail account (on a pc in the hotel) rather than having to trawl lots of websites when I was already stressed. I know this means there's a fair amount of personal info in my e-mail account, but in this day and age I think that's fairly unavoidable and I do make it as secure as I can in terms of passwords.... If your purse is stolen I don't think the account numbers are that important - just the phone number of the bank - they'll be able to find your details from your name and address and stop the account. These phone numbers can just as easily be kept in a diary, a copy in the car etc - even if someone else gets hold of the list all they get is a phone number which is probably not that useful to them.... There are probably better (more secure) ways of keeping this info to hand if you should ever need it, but this seems to work OK for me.

Not much kondoed here today apart from a bit of me (hopefully) as a result of a long walk. Spent some time at my folks setting up the mini greenhouse that we use each year to keep seedlings in for the allotment, which means they can now start setting a few more seeds. Also managed to post a parcel of 3 of my long skirts to a fleabayer - funny how I can only seem to get rid of certain items if I can make a bit of money on them to help towards future clothes for when I lose more weight!

Hope you're all managing to resist climbing in your cupboards :rotfl:

maryb

GQ thanks for the warning but, in fact we will be going up there anyway before the end of her tenancy as she is graduating at the end of June, So I will take the bedding to a charity shop - they can't sell the duvet and pillows but they can take them for rags. There were some bits and pieces in the kitchen when they arrived so I don't think anyone is fussed about a few pans and bowls.

But believe me, I have read her tenancy agreement VERY carefully. When they signed the agreement there were two parental guarantees, one for the rent and another for damage. Both of them were limited to her share of the rent, so in effect I was on the hook for twice her rent. I could live with that.

Before they moved in, the house was sold to a new landlord with a new letting agent and I was sent a new parental guarantee to sign. He put me under a lot of pressure to sign it quickly saying it was the same terms but just in their format.

Was it hell! There was an unlimited joint and several liability for damage in there. I refused to sign - the house was sold subject to the existing tenancy agreement so they couldn't renege on that. In the end I wore them down and my liability was specifically limited. But I don't think any of the other parents noticed or realised what it meant. (I was the last to sign because we had been on holiday) So, for example, if the students covered up the smoke alarms so they could smoke inside (not that DD smokes but her housemates do and apparently that is very common among students) and the house caught fire the parents would be on the line for the full value of the house. Yes the landlord had insurance but the insurance company would make him mitigate his losses by claiming on the guarantee. And any one of the parents who had signed the joint and several guarantee could be sued for the whole lot.

The letting agent tried to argue my limitation of liability wasn't fair. I pointed out that it wasn't fair for me to provide the landlord with free insurance. And it wasn't in his clients's interests anyway - if he had to claim on that guarantee, he would end up having to go to court to try and enforce it before the insurance would pay out and he would end up with a lengthy void period he couldn't afford. As I say, in the end I wore him down because we already had an enforceable agreement.

But I was telling my friend who is also a student landlord in the same town (his kids went to the same uni - a lot of student landlords are parents of current or former students). He looked quite worried about this possibility from his own perspective and it turns out he uses the same letting agent. So I think the letting agent is cursing my name

GreyQueen

Well done for not being browbeaten, maryb.

Aged 19 and recovering from a nervous collapse that saw me sent home from uni a few weeks before the end of term by orders of the GP, I had to have a knock-down drag-out fight with a firm of Scottish solicitors who wanted me to pay a share of the flood damage that my half-wit flatmates caused to the flat below ours due to drunken idiocy when I was several hundred miles away.

I won.

maryb

You have to be so careful with try it on landlords and letting agents. My friend is quite reasonable about the damage indemnity - he basically makes the parents guarantee the excess on his insurance which seems fair to all sides. But he had only just started using this letting agent and was concerned that they might be using this form of guarantee

Shortie

Slinky wrote: »

Shortie have you thought about crocheting those little hats that Innocent Smoothies use each year to raise money for charity by putting on their bottles? Many small projects could shift some of your stash.
.

I'm fine with crocheting flat things but struggle with 3D items. Unless they are happy with randomly shaped hats for their bottles :rotfl:

Except the pumpkin I crochet'd... that work surprisingly well. So it has taken pride of place in the kithen. To Mr Shortie's dismay. Which of course makes me happier to leave it there :rotfl:

kboss2010

My mum needed a guarantor for her flat and at the time I didn't earn enough to sign it so she asked my boyfriend. When they sent us the agreement, it stated that not only were we liable for the rent for the 12 month term of the contract but the rent indefinitely if my mum moved out after 12 months and they couldn't find a replacement tenant!

My mum was begging me to get him to sign it because she wanted to move urgently (long story about her less-than-impressive bf) and that it didn't matter. I hated doing it but I had to remind her that my bf was not her son nor my husband and *he* was ultimately the one liable for a debt that I couldn't have afforded to pay if she couldn't.

I think we young folk often forget that our parents' generation aren't used to having to sign rental agreements on property, most of my parents' generation have owned their houses since they got married, and times have changed. Most landlords/letting agents in my experience are not trustworthy and will try to screw you for every penny they can and older people often fall foul of them. I and my friends have had to live in enough cr*ppy rented places and been burned too many times to not be super careful!

GreyQueen

Based on personal experience, anecodates from people I know, plus what comes down the phone lines in the course of my work, I have to say that letting agents are, with a few exceptions, the scum of the earth.

Sorry if anyone reading follows this line of work and is a decent soul, or knows some of the non-scummy ones, but I speak as I find.

I'm heartlily glad that I'm no longer in the private rented sector but have had 20+ years therein and have had some dodgy experiences.