Unfashionably late

I walked the dogs yesterday in pre-dawn darkness, then raced home for a quick shower so I would be ready when the plumber arrived.

He didn’t.

At 8.30am I rang the plumbing company and asked where the bloody hell he was. They said he’d been in the building since 7am.

It turned out the retirees and stay-at-home workers had been hogging him. FFS.

I found him on Jenny’s rooftop terrace. He hussled to my place for five minutes, took a few photos on his phone and raced off, as did I … arriving at work unfashionably late.

I thought he wanted to examine my mouldy ceiling, but the focus of the plumber’s attention was my balcony.

Apparently the previous owners took it upon themselves to do a dodgy reno without getting body corporate approval. The work included knocking down the wall between the kitchen and the living room.

I am not sure how they stealthily did something as noisy as knocking out a wall, but they weren’t found out until the dirty deed was done. The body corporate made them get a retrospective engineer’s report, which advised they needed to put a supporting beam in the ceiling.

That wouldn’t have been cheap.

And it turns out the work they did on the balcony is causing damage to the building.

There has been much body corporate consternation about it. Although the committee grudgingly conceded that the open plan living area did look good during the meeting that I hosted.

Anyways, the things you find out after you buy a place.

My personal gripe about the apartment is that travertine tiles belong in the big-mistake basket alongside orange Renault Capturs.

They are total duds in wet areas. The floors in both shower recesses have discoloured really badly and the verandah tiles get dirty and mouldy again within weeks of being expensively cleaned. They look nothing like the real estate picture above and are covered in black and furry green patches.

Blergh.

In other news, the kids are having their ups and downs in Paris. The youngest is really sick with some sort of cold or flu, as she has been all year, so she didn’t go sight-seeing with the others yesterday.

I still haven’t received any selfies, but the youngest sent a photo of some groceries she bought.