Unfortunately, we're a bit too busy painting walls and fitting lights to write this blog these days. I just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who read about our rollercoaster flat-buying journey, and to those of you who took time to leave us comments and advice. Merry Christmas everyone, love Boy and Girl.

 

 

No, the priority is the fridge. I've found the perfect one. It's retro, big and not too expensive. Who needs somewhere to put their clothes when they have cold beer? The veg drawer is normally empty, put your pants in there girl.  

 

 

 

Boy says: 

 

We’ve hit a bit of a stand still. Since the surveyor came around – he was here for 15 minutes, we paid him £450, that’s the kind of work I want – nothing has happened. There’s no damp, the mortgage has been accepted, we can go. But we can’t because everyone has gone. Mr. Solicitor is on holiday – he didn’t think to tell us, I was informed by a badly spelt out of office email. Surely, I thought, if anyone in this world could spell it’d be a solicitor. Or at least he’d know how to use spell check. But hey I’m only entrusting him with the biggest purchase of my life. Maybe I’ll sue if things go wrong. I’ll talk to my solicitor about it.

 

So nothing is happening, apart from everyone else is on holiday. We can’t go anywhere just in case we have to sign something really fast. But then everyone is on holiday so stuff that needs to be signed really fast isn’t coming through. We probably should have gone on holiday.     

 

The surveyor came round. Boy answered the door and grunted. I don't think he liked another man on his patch. He refused to talk to him for the entire time that he was in the flat and I only just stopped him from marking his territory with a stream of second-hand tea. Dirty boy. I, on the other hand, flirted like a girl in need of a one-bedroom flat. I complimented his big damp prodder and fluttered my wooden blinds, and the very next day our survey came through all approved and ready to go.

 

Unfortunately we've got a bit stuck since then. The council are doing a load of work to the communal areas of our block and charging a sweet £7k for it. Our landlady/vendor should've started paying for it in October last year, but hasn't. The solicitors are supposedly fighting it out, although ours has suddenly gone very quiet and impossible to get hold of. Maybe it's time to launch another flirt attack.

So girl and I are now buying the flat we’re renting, which I thought we could get for £240,000 three months ago, for £272,000. See how I have mastered the property world? Girl is pretty pleased, she wanted this place all along . I was sure we could find something better for the price, girl cleverly let me go off and prove myself wrong. I’m a bit stunned – she was right.  

She still can’t work the heating though – we’ve only lived here for over a year. It’s a simple concept: put the thermostat up and the house gets hotter and visa versa. But I still find her wondering why, having ramped it up to 30 degrees, she’s on the point of combustion.

“Put it up and it goes up, that’s up” I shout. “Why are you shouting at me” she shouts. We shout. She brings dusting into it – as in “don’t have a go about the heating when you haven’t dusted the lounge for… forever.” “Do we pay a dusting bill?” I think but don’t say. We spend the night in silence. One of us apologises. I calmly explain the heating once more. The next night I come home and she’s freezing – the thermostat is down at 10 degrees and we begin again. The cycle of life, or living together.

The surveyor is coming tomorrow, so we’re back in the same position as the last flat – in the hands of someone we’ve never met. This person could make the deal or throw us back into the grubby unwashed hands of an estate agent. We’re a little nervous. Girl is out drinking. I’m at home writing this and debating whether I should clean a bit. Will it make a difference? How can I hide that mould in the bathroom? I may go and line all the free hotel shampoos I’ve been collecting along the side of the bath. I knew they’d come in handy. And damp haunts me. I think I spot some then it’s gone. I’m hallucinating – perhaps I’m inhaling too many mould spores. At least I’m not seeing fish crawling all over the floor. That’s girl. She told me this morning there were loads of sword fish coming out of the wall. “Jesus! How the hell did they get there?”

“Not sword fish, silver fish,” she says.

 “Phew,” I think, “no wonder I can’t think straight when it‘s so hot in here,” I continue to think. “And why is it so hot? Oh yes.” And it begins again.

 

 

Boy says:

Girl wants to pull out. I don’t. We’re pulling out. I have a wardrobe full of trousers but it’s girl who appears to be wearing them. So my argument – that it makes financial sense, we won’t be able to afford anything if we wait any longer etc, etc – gets me nowhere. She wants somewhere less stressful, somewhere she wants to come home to, that she actually enjoys living in, where she feels safe… I know, crazy.

But, hey, you learn from every experience, good or bad, becoming a more rounded person in the process, so said some great philosopher, Jeremy Kyle I think. I’ve learnt girl and I are more different than I thought. I saw an investment, she saw a home. She doesn’t want to spend all her time doing somewhere up. Ok I don’t either, but I thought I’d give it a go. She’s sceptical about my DIY skills, thinks I’ve been swayed into believing it’s easy by all those property programmes. I may not be handy Andy, or even a- little-bit-handy Mandy, but how hard can it be? Knock the odd wall down, nice and open plan, a splash of paint, floorboards and before you know it the place is worth twice as much as you paid. It happens every week on Property Lad… maybe she has a point.

Rubbing salt in my housing wound girl has gone and developed a crush on Phil Spencer. Not having kitchens to fit and floorboards to sand we now have way more time to watch him lisping around the country looking at flats much nicer than any we could afford. Coincidence? Hardly. So not only am I forced to watch crap TV, I have to endure the humiliation of being out lotharioed by a bald, speech impedimented, smug gimp. Can my self esteem take any more knocks?

 Kirstie on the other hand. Now she’d get it.

 

 

 

I'd like to start by pointing out that I'm not some sort of crazed pyscho who 'disappears' vendors and rules her household with an evil, totalitarian 'system'. Yes, okay, I am slightly retentive and I have dusted the bin lid twice already today, but I'd rather live in a clean, tidy flat than one where football socks develop their own ecosystem in the back of the wardrobe and the toilet seat crawls with wildlife. Before Boy and I moved in together over a year ago, he lived with lots of other boys in a hovel of filthy plates and dirty carpets, and I know, secretly, that he didn't much like the mess. He also admitted to me yesterday that he gets 'satisfaction' from cleaning the bathroom and he likes it when he's hoovered the lounge and the carpet is all brushed in the same direction. So, Boyo, stop trying to make out that I'm the only one with a touch of anal retention, because now everyone knows that you love the bleach bottle too.

 

There has been some movement in the flat buying, which is good because we've got to move out of this place at the end of July and if the sale hasn't gone through, we'll be in my parent's spare room. Now I love my parents and I'm so grateful that they've offered us a temporary roof over our heads, but last time I was living with them (a couple of years ago when I split up with my ex, before I moved in with a mate and then got together with Boy) my mum made me weigh my dirty washing on the scales so that I didn't overload their new washing machine. I'm not sure I can go back to that. 

 

The latest is that the estate agents have decided that the down-valuation of the property by Halifax's valuer (he downvalued it by £10k because of damp and general mess) is wrong. They've sent Halifax a load of 'comparable evidence' - examples of other properties in the area, in the same condition, that have gone for at least £230k in an effort to get Halifax to change their valuation or at least send someone else in for a second opinion. To be honest, if they don't up their valuation to £230k, we'll be in a complete catch 22 - the mortgage lenders won't give us the mortgage for the full value, we don't have the cash to make it up to the full value, and the vendor won't drop the price from the full value. I may be weighing washing for the rest of my life.

 

 

Boys says:

Something is worrying me. It’s not the damp, or the mortgage, or the disappearance of the vendor. It’s girl. She’s changing. It’s subtle, it always is at first, but she’s starting to exhibit despotic tendencies.

I’ve always accepted her dusting regime, yeah it’s tough but it’s not forced labour. I do it – well I don’t – just to keep the peace. Of late though any discussions about the new house have been laced with “the system.” It keeps popping up: “In the new system socks unpaired for 48 hours will be disappeared,” girl said (in as many words) recently. What is this system? I thought I was moving into a new flat not an Orwellian nightmare.

Apparently it is nothing to worry about, just a way of making things run a little more smoothly. I’m a little suspicious, didn’t Stalin say Siberia was actually just a lovely place for a holiday and that’s why he was sending so many of his friends there? I’ve decided to try and nip it in the bud – appeasement has never worked – I have already refused to file my payslips in any particular order and I have a secret stash of unsorted, pointless bits of paper under the bed. I’m the defender of the free world.

When I said I wasn’t worried about the vendor (it’s been over a week since we asked for some money off) I wasn’t being totally honest – he may have been "disappeared."      

 

 

Boys says:

The survey's in. Turns out the flat wasn't built on an ancient Indian burial ground. Worse than that it has damp - I'd prefer some low level poltergeist activity, you know where you are with that. A quick exorcism would be far less hassle than ripping up the floorboards. But then what do I know about damp? I know damp jeans are really irritating and chafe like hell, damp towels can really stink and damp paper doesn't work as well as dry paper. So damp is bad. But how bad? And why don't I know more about this stuff? I'm a boy, well a man, own a drill (unused) and only wear girl's concealer when absolutely necessary. Yet bricks, stud walls, damp, dry rot... what? So am I ready to do up a flat? As a 21st century man I've no problem committing to buy a house with a girl, but replumb the kitchen? Move a freakin' radiator? Are you mad? Worse still girl's dad is an engineer - builds bridges, airport terminals - big stuff. He could assemble a kitchen blindfolded with both arms amputated. He'd only have his feet, but by God they're a fine pair.

No doubt he'll offer to help us, which is fine, and cheap. But do I have to be there? Can't I just keep to what I'm good at? Do I have to suffer the humiliation? He won't say anything, but I'll see it in his face as I struggle with the screw driver - YOU'RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR MY DAUGHTER. And he's right, how will I fend for her when nuclear armageddon hits? When only girl and I have survived along with a load of cockroaches? At least the extra arm I may grow, having been exposed to massive radiation, will be handy when it comes to building a shelter.

So perhaps being damp isn't so bad -  we may have to ditch this flat and buy a nice new one that's ready to go. I may have just bought my ticket (a pretty expensive one, about £750 for searches and surveys so far) out of DIY hell.

 

 

 

 

As girl said she's turning to drink. I don't mean mojitos, I'm talking green tea. That stuff's addictive, it should have a health warning on it. When combined with Ideal Home magazine girl becomes weird - it must be hallucinogenic. Suddenly fridges become exciting, beds provoke yelps of joy and pleas for the keys to my savings. From Heat to House and Home is a big jump - most men have time to prepare but overnight I've got myself a nester, babies will be next up for discussion.

 

I like fridges as much as the next man - those retro Smeg things are great, imagine pulling a beer out of one of those (ok, who am I kidding,  a packet of pre-washed salad, I'm no lad). But am I ready to spend days - whole weekends - measuring wardrobes and checking out kitchens? I'm not sure I am, and DIY? Surely I can pay someone else to do that? Oh no, I'm broke and about to spend a few hundred thousand pounds. Wish I'd concentrated during technology at school.

 

We don't even know what work needs doing. The walls need painting, even I can see that, but the survey hasn't come back yet. It was done two weeks ago. What the hell have they found? What don't they want to tell us?