KonMari 2016 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

Wednesday2000

Fen1 wrote: »

Wednesday 2000: unless the Scratching post is completely knackered, could you donate it to your local cat rescue, or post it on freegle? I volunteer for my local animal rescue and we are always grateful for equipment, even if it's a bit tatty.

It really is knackered!:D One of my cats got her claw caught in the top part a while back (not sure how she did it, we just heard her squealing!) and we had to cover it in duct tape.

silvasava

Lots of good advice GQ on ventilation. I remember a work colleague who was buying a house with a flying freehold - nightmare doesn't even begin to cover it!
Another hot one today mateys but cooling down soon and thunderstorms on the way. Why am I happy about that? Love thunderstorms and my waterbutts need filling up lol!

Siebrie

Yesterday dh asked me to put all the batteries from the bowl into a baggie for him to dispose of at work. I was convinced not all batteries were dead, so I tested every single one of them using a small torch and my ladyshave We were both right, about 20 were dead, and about 20 still had life in them and are now in an appropriately labelled container.

Fen1

Wednesday, I hope your cat is ok? Did she need a check up at the Vet?

Re: battery life. Years ago we had a battery-operated camera. It ate batteries, a la Audrey 2. Yet there was always enough charge left in the batteries for low-consumption gadgets such as alarm clocks, despite the wailings of the ravenous camera.

Today I went grocery shopping and thoroughly checked my receipt as I had a number of offers and wanted to know if they had come through. One had not, and I had been charged full price. According to the customer service desk, that particular offer repeatedly failed. It makes me wonder, 1. why has the shop allowed this repeated failure, 2. how many people have lost money by not checking receipts?
( Cynical me has ideas about 1.)

SpikyHedgehog

Siebrie wrote: »

We kondoed some money , because I dropped dh's ipad and the screen broke. He found someone who could replace it for just €55, and it was done the same afternoon, but we could have done without the extra cost! A similar amount was kondoed to pay dh's speeding fine.... I'm happy we both have good jobs and decent incomes, but this month is a bit tight and the extra costs are due to stupidity, which makes it extra sour.

Siebrie, when DS2 got an Ipad with his birthday money, I made him buy a strong case for it as well, like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Griffin-Survivor-Case-iPad-Black/dp/B009VXH3UW?th=1. It is jolly strong, DS2 has thrown his Ipad all over the place and broken things it has hit, but the Ipad itself and the case are fine. We have them on the Ipads at work as well to protect them from sand, paint, etc and they were a jolly good buy! (Though still more money to pay out...)

Not much done today, only more shredding of old paper out of the filing drawer, and registering for ziffit to get rid of books. While waiting for DS2 to get out of bed this morning so I could get him to school. Had a phone call from the school nurse later to say she'd seen his yesterday & will be seeing him tomorrow but thought we needed some more help for him, so I explained we're all ready putting together a plan for that which we hope will get him the help he needs. She agreed that was the way forward.

Oh, I'd put a couple of things on Fr33gle, and had plenty of takers for the tv from my bedroom, but DS2 wants that for his room. The hamster bedding is waiting to be collected.

DS2's bedroom needs a jolly good sort out - he's got the pl@ymobil & l3go boxes in there, but hardly ever plays with toys. Partly because there's no room, and partly because he has ASD and finds playing with toys hard. And partly of course because he's now 14.

DS1, however, really isn't ready to get rid of the pl@ymobil or l3go, and they are largely his. Or mine, and I'm not quite ready to get rid of them yet either (but then, they count as sentimental for me, and I've not got that far yet ), so the plan is to sort and box them up to make space in DS2's room.

GreyQueen

silvasava wrote: »

Lots of good advice GQ on ventilation. I remember a work colleague who was buying a house with a flying freehold - nightmare doesn't even begin to cover it!
Another hot one today mateys but cooling down soon and thunderstorms on the way. Why am I happy about that? Love thunderstorms and my waterbutts need filling up lol!

I wasn't even thinking about the legal aspect, I was remembering the many many incidents I've heard about from people who own these blasted things; the over-passage room is a bedroom, typically, and has a giant 'cold spot' under it and is cold and plagued with damp and mould. Some owners have found these rooms unusable.

Persons with a garage/ carport under a bedroom can experience some of the same joys, I hear.

Sometimes, there are serious defects to a dwelling which are causing mould, such as absent or breached damp courses, covert leaks under floors or behind walls or simply poor orientation of the building to the prevailing land/ weather conditions, collapsed drains outside.

But the surveyors have always said that about 95% of the causes of damp and mould in the home are due to lifestyle issues with the residents, and can thus only be mitigated by changes in habits.

Oh, and if you have a bay window, it's probably not a good idea to have any furniture in the bay itself against the low wall, and areas of wall behind curtains can also be little mould-factories.

Overall, very OS habits like Spring Cleaning, as well as modern things like KM are great habits to acquire and practise.

I mentioned up-thread that I was looking for some more little plastic baskets to corrall the many and varied vegetable products in my fridge, and was keeping an eye peeled in the chazzers as I passed, although I haven't made a concerted shopping trip because I never buy new plastic items.

Anyway, yesterday I had a LBM; there is a plastic basket identical (apart from colour) and a same-sized little plastic crate sitting in a bigger crate on the floor and holding project yarn for my WIP rug. Doh! These things are mere feet away from me and under my eye unless I am either asleep or in the bathroom. How could I have possibly missed them?!

It's true what Marie says about you having all the storage containers you need already. I fetched down a square tray-like basket from the allotment shed, transferred the wool and now I have what I need.

Karmakat, I have had a Thought (today's ration of one thought, saved just for you) - could you improvise a flyscreen by taping up a fine-gauge net curtain? OK, it isn't likely to win decor prizes but it could offer a temporary solution to the problem. HTH.

Floss

SpikeyHedgehog my DS1 still has his L3go Technic, and indeed bought the new Saturn rocket last week....he's 31!

silvasava

GQ - we've got two bay windows but I've never had furniture in them and my curtains go across the wall not round the bay so never had a problem. We did have a problem with damp/mould on the outside wall of the hall (north facing) but when we extended the property on that side we found that the drain pipe from the roof just went down a couple of feet into the ground & wasn't connected to anything! It took over 2years for the brickwork to dry out.

GreyQueen

Glad you got it sorted.

When we do damp remedial works to our properties, tenants are often disappointed that the problem isn't immediately resolved, particularly if the disruption caused by the works has been extensive, such as digging up their floors etc, or dry-lining whole rooms. You can see their point.

We have to tell them that it might be a year before there are substantial improvements, which doesn't go down well, but buildings only grudgingly give up excess moisture, although I imagine the heatwave is helping some people's homes dry out.

When a flood from the flat above mine saturated the cavity wall, wetting the wall behind my (back-less) kitchen cupboards, I knew the score. I boxed up their contents and stashed them in the sitting-room and had the cupboards empty with doors ajar and windows open whenever possible, for over two months. You can still see a faint shadowing of damp on the external wall where it hasn't quite given up all it's moisture and that's from nearly a year ago.

One great benefit from having an uncluttered home is that you're more likely to be able to see such problems and will have less carp to shift to resolve them.

PollyWollyDoodle

Great tips about ventilation, GQ - although I will add that ive owned a couple of houses in the past with an 'entry' or 'ginnel' between next door and me, and not had a problem.

I've probably mentioned this before but if you have severe condensation problems - and good insulation/double glazing can contribute massively to this - then it's worth looking at a Positive Input Ventilation system. Not cheap but it solved my problem of mouldy walls and I think it's repaid the cost because I don't have to keep redecorating.