The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

PasturesNew

That's odd with the hospital, you don't get to choose where you go if you've had an accident or emergency. You go to "THE Hospital". Nobody thinks "Oh I've had an accident, it's an emergency, now, turn on the PC and get a pad/paper out - let's compare services and choose where to go".

I've got to make myself scarce in about an hour.... cleaned the loo floor and bathroom floor, tidied bits and bobs. I've put all my washing up away, tidied the kitchen. Given the house an airing through. Swept, dusted etc. I've gathered the abandoned underwear and socks from the floor and thrown them into the laundry container (that's hidden in the wardrobe).

Then off to the shop for a quick few bits and bobs of food ....

In a bit it's just final faffing of things, arrange curtains, polish sink, dismantle the PC/monitor/cables and tidy out of sight and move the small side drawers to the wall .... and I'm away, to hide round the corner, putting the "usual/grubby/used" front door mat in the shed as I pass, leaving the new one down that's hidden under the usual/grubby/used one.

Sunny here, so at least the viewing will be in sunny weather, which always makes a house look cheerier (although it doesn't help with the odd streak on windows ... tried to get rid of a few more of those earlier and just created new streaks/smears).

EDIT: Just had another go at those windows... thought I'd done a good/better job until I sat down and saw them at a different angle. To be fair ... nobody but me would notice

chris_m

PasturesNew wrote: »

That's odd with the hospital, you don't get to choose where you go if you've had an accident or emergency. You go to "THE Hospital".

Around here you don't get a choice either, but it's not "THE Hospital" - if the casualty was collected by the air ambulance (which is often because of the length of time to get to even the nearest hospital by road *) it could be Barrow, Whitehaven, Carlisle, Blackpool, Preston or, even, Newcastle.
I imagine that the choice of which is made according to a combination of the injuries/condition, availability of suitable facilities and where the helicopter is based.

* sometimes a casualty will be picked up by a road ambulance and driven to a suitable location for the helicopter to land, then flown to whichever hospital the medics have chosen.

PasturesNew

Well, that's that one over with then....

PC set up again ... slippers retrieved from the cupboard under the stairs .... kettle on, mug/coffee jar out of the cupboard.... sitting here with a pack of crisps and a coffee

Pyxis

CKhalvashi wrote: »

No ‘I’d recommend friends and family don’t need it’?

That seems weird to me too, but at least they’re trying to keep standards up.

I get this all the time from my GP surgery, after every visit and sometimes phone call, for whatever reason.

It's another stupid box-ticking exercise.

Sometimes I feel like saying: "I've told you all this several times before!"

Unfortunately, the surgery is obliged to do it....... they don't like doing it either.

The hospitals have probably just been using the same software, instead of asking for proper feedback, which might help to raise standards.

I agree that it is ridiculous asking if you would recommend a hospital, when in reality, you might have little or no choice, and you may only have seen one department anyway, which doesn't necessarily reflect on the rest of the hospital.

Then, you might get one person who is disgruntled because they couldn't find a parking space, who is so frazzled, they say "NO I WOULDN'T!" (recommend), not because they are cross with hospital services, but because they were cross with the car park.

PasturesNew

Still "nothing to die for" ... all pretty run of the mill houses out there in my budget... nothing that's "The One"...

46 on the potential viewing list ... spread across 23 agents.

You can't say I'm not putting the effort in.

I filter by price, newest order... then go down and see what's passable...
When I load one that's passable it's straight to the map "where's that then?" ..... then the floorplan .... and if I think it'll then make the list, I look at the pictures. I have a spreadsheet and on it I list them all.

Then I look at the map closer and do a street view and look at it from above (what's it attached to) and check the orientation (update spreadsheet). I check the parking options and update the spreadsheet. Spreadsheet then gets a short note about it, e.g. it might say Check Trees, or it might say Washing Machine Plumbing in Conservatory.

Then it gets banded as Nope, NEVER!, A List, B List, C List.

chris_m

PasturesNew wrote: »

46 on the potential viewing list ... spread across 23 agents.

Crikey, I don't envy you that lot.

At least when I was moving there were only four agents covering the area that interested me, and only two of those who had properties (or prices) that interested me - and both of those agents were in the same road, next-door to each other in fact

PasturesNew

chris_m wrote: »

...when I was moving there were only four agents covering the area that interested me, and only two of those who had properties (or prices) that interested me - and both of those agents were in the same road, next-door to each other in fact

That's the downside of the Internet. Agents used to be 99% local, within a mile/the same village... now people pick one from a 20 mile radius

My "area of interest" though is a little bit floaty ... it's about 5-6 miles deep and about 8-10 miles wide... but I will consider anything outside of that area if something about its benefits makes me think it should be on the list.... that's where the C List is populated from "Don't really think I want to be here, but this has something going for it".

The decision tree is:

How much is it/can I afford it?
Where is it?
SUN/LIGHT!!
GOOD parking, preferably a garage.
Are the boundaries simple to maintain and easy to "defend".
Is the layout working for me, or movable (in part depends on the price and effort that'd be involved).
Is the actual look/age of the house something I could live with (passed the point where I thought I could pick one 10-20 years old that I liked the look of) ....

Then I'll check crime, footpaths, floods, heath fires requiring evacuation and other localised disaster types.

Just loaded one and there are no photos of it .... it's surrounded by heathland. I know there was a catastrophic heath fire with full evacuation of thousands about 2 months ago .... so I wonder if the house is in the throes of being redecorated/similar due to smoke damage... don't want to live there!

Pyxis

PasturesNew wrote: »

That's the downside of the Internet. Agents used to be 99% local, within a mile/the same village... now people pick one from a 20 mile radius

My "area of interest" though is a little bit floaty ... it's about 5-6 miles deep and about 8-10 miles wide... but I will consider anything outside of that area if something about its benefits makes me think it should be on the list.... that's where the C List is populated from "Don't really think I want to be here, but this has something going for it".

The decision tree is:

How much is it/can I afford it?
Where is it?
SUN/LIGHT!!
GOOD parking, preferably a garage.
Are the boundaries simple to maintain and easy to "defend".
Is the layout working for me, or movable (in part depends on the price and effort that'd be involved).
Is the actual look/age of the house something I could live with (passed the point where I thought I could pick one 10-20 years old that I liked the look of) ....

Then I'll check crime, footpaths, floods, heath fires requiring evacuation and other localised disaster types.

Just loaded one and there are no photos of it .... it's surrounded by heathland. I know there was a catastrophic heath fire with full evacuation of thousands about 2 months ago .... so I wonder if the house is in the throes of being redecorated/similar due to smoke damage... don't want to live there!

You forgot to put:

Does it come with its own standing army?


Oh, and an integral anti-feral tank would be useful, one which is auto-activated by squeals.

chris_m

PasturesNew wrote: »

That's the downside of the Internet. Agents used to be 99% local, within a mile/the same village... now people pick one from a 20 mile radius

My looking was only three years ago - but this is a pretty rural area so that will always limit the number of agents.

My "area of interest" though is a little bit floaty ... it's about 5-6 miles deep and about 8-10 miles wide.!

My initial area was huge - I basically wanted to be within an hour or so of Ambleside so the Mk1 area stretched from Carlisle to Heysham, bounded to the east by the M6 and to the west by the sea.
Looking closer at times/distances knocked the southern area off so the limit became the Kent Estuary, whilst as far out as Carlisle became only the "if nothing else is doable".

Then I looked closer at West Cumbria - Maryport, Workington, Whitehaven and Cleator Moor. Prices were doable and the sort of place I was after was available - however, the travelling time to get to the M6 (should I wish to go elsewhere) was excessive due to there only really being one road, the A66, which has many single carriageway sections and a lot of heavy goods traffic restricted to 40mph :-(

That left South Cumbria because inside the National Parks was a definite no-no. People pay up to £100K extra for places inside the park compared to similar properties outside.

I looked at Kendal but decided that was too run down (well, a dump TBH). Grange-Over-Sands was nice but rather pricey. Ulverston was also nice but most properties were terraced which I didn't want. Walney Island was eliminated due to access - only one bridge between the island and the mainland at Barrow-in-Furness - whilst I wasn't keen on Barrow, either the town or the roads off the Furness Peninsular.

That pretty well left the Millom area, where I found half a dozen houses worth looking at and one just outside the town worth buying. It's still not perfect, mainly due the time to get to the M6 and the rest of the country, but it ain't too bad. Nice and peaceful, that's for sure

Pyxis wrote: »

You forgot to put:
Does it come with its own standing army?

Oh, and an integral anti-feral tank would be useful, one which is auto-activated by squeals.

PSML :rotfl:

PasturesNew

I knew Google's car was due to visit these parts recently/soon - and I've just looked at my address and it's been updated.

Luckily, there's nothing out of place. When it drove past I'd cut the front hedge down so it looks reasonable, there are zero "waifs/strays" loitering, no traffic to speak of on the road, no litter, hedges over the road had been recently trimmed and the weather was bright.

Glad that went well then - nothing to fear from what the Streetview car passed when it came. It came in June.

The last photos showed a building site adjacent; now it's all shiny houses.

On the market observations:

I've also noticed that every house that's for sale as "newly refurbished throughout...." has invariably got light grey/pile carpet wall to wall. Every house has the same carpet.... all of them.

I liked grey carpets - in 1990.