This Perth Life

What Water Form?

macro water drop
Originally uploaded by Hypergurl.

Going out to get the post the other day I was confused by a Water Authority notice teling me that I had breached the regulations of water use and could be fined $500 next time.

Now, as everyone knows, you have your watering days which are Wednesday and Saturday in our case and you have to water before 9am or after 6pm. Fair enough and I know this.

But we have new turf and if you have new turf you can water it every day otherwise it'll die. Or so I thought.

It turns out that I can water it every day BUT only if I have applied for a water exemption certificate. Apparently the landscaping company should have mentioned this to us. And you can only water every day for 28 days and then you have to go onto your watering days and times because the turf should have bedded in by then.

Well now I know.

Aaargh Foxtel!

http://www.publicity.foxtel.com.au/
Originally uploaded by Switch I.T..

You may well ask who's next on my "aaargh" list but I'm hoping that no-one is otherwise I may well go completely mad.

As before with Telstra, I phoned Foxtel well in advance of our move to the new house. I explained what it was I was looking for (basically move what we had in the old house to the new house and add the new all singing all dancing Foxtel HD IQ2, not difficult), got the prices and decided on the date of the cut off and the installation.

Day of moving arrived and no phone call from Foxtel. Now bear in mind that this will be the 3rd house in 3 years that we have had it installed so I know that they tend to phone early and find out if you're there before they turn up. No phone call by lunchtime so alarm bells started ringing.

I phoned them on my mobile as Telstra still hadn't got the phone line working at the stage. After much hanging on and being moved from department to department it turns out that the person who booked it all in in the first place hadn't done it properly and so no-one was booked to do the installation.

Not good enough was my response! How fast can you install it? 10 days.

So 10 days later the guy arrives to install it all. Bear in mind that we are in a brand new house with brand new paint on the walls and what does he do? Leave dirty great fingerprints everywhere that he goes, drills through walls and then tries to get the dust up off carpets with a dustpan and brush. Aaargh!

THEN comes the bombshell. In our last house we had Foxtel IQ where you can pause live TV and record programmes. We brought the box with us to go into the family room. On the hard disc inside was the last series of the West Wing, a full series of Battlestar Gallactica, half the series of The Long Way Down and verious other programmes that we hadn't yet watched. The guy installs all the boxes, gets them working and then proceeds to delete all the programmes from the old IQ box. When I enquired, with a slightly hysterical voice as to what he was doing, he informed me that he was deleting all the programmes because they won't now work as we've moved the box.

Did no-one think to tell us that? Just mention in passing that there was the possibilty that this could happen (apparently it doesn't always happen, just sometimes)? NO. How hacked off was I? Hacked off enough to phone Foxtel and shout at about 3 different people before I was put through to the customer services manager who sounded like he got the same complaint at least 6 times a day.

As I write this I can feel my blood boiling once more so I'll stop. Save to say, if you have an IQ box and are moving, just watch all the programmes you have carefully recorded over the last few months before you switch the box off because they may well disappear. Or not.

Aaargh Telstra Again!

broadband here i come...
Originally uploaded by Avid Maxfan.

So finally we have phone, internet and email all up and working again even though getting them up and running was like pulling teeth.

Did you know that Telstra are only obliged to make sure that one telephone socket in your house is connected? No, neither did I. So the phone working from the socket in the kitchen made me presume that it was safe to set up the pc in the games room.

WRONG!

Once set up, I couldn't get the internet or email no matter how many times I turned my modem off and on and off and on and off and on and phoned Bigpond (part of Telstra, ha ha how stupid was I?!) and went round and round the different departments until some bright spark said "you do have a dial tone for the modem don't you?".

"I don't know, I presume so" says I. But then you get that little drop in the pit of your stomach and you think "No, it can't be that simple surely?".

But YES it was. No dial tone whatsoever. So I get off the phone from Bigpond and phone Telstra. Several hours later I speak to the right department and I'm then informed of the "we're only obligated to connect the main socket" spieal. WHAT? What do you mean?

Apparently the sub contractor of the sub contractor of the sub contractor of Telstra should have told me this and then I could have arranged to have any other sockets in the house connected up weeks ago.

AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Aaargh Telstra!

You may or may not be hearing from me in the next few days as we're about to move into our new house! Which I'm very excited about bar one thing.

Telstra.

Last time we moved house I was without the internet and email for just under a month. Trying to sort it out with Telstra was absolutely ridiculous.

Now I've been trying to get them to connect the new house up.

Yes, someone will be there on Tuesday. No-one arrived so I phoned to check why. Apparently someone had been there but they just hadn't bothered to knock to tell me that they were there. And anyway they shouldn't have been there because someone else needed to be there before them. It was only my phone call that then prompted Telstra to tell me that whatever it was that needed to be done was sub-contracted out.

At the words "sub-contracted" my heart contracted. Of course, Telstra couldn't possibly contact them, I had to so they gave me the number. The sub-contractor then told me that they also sub-contract and, yes you've guessed it, I once again had to contact them.

Chinese whispers springs to mind.

So I phoned the sub-contractor of the sub-contractor of Telstra. And I phoned them and I phoned them leaving more and more irate messages as the week went on.

It turned out that every single time that I left a message, it cut out part of my phone number so they couldn't contact me.

Have you every heard of something so ridiculous?

I had allowed for 3 weeks to get a phone line in. Should have doubled it.

Anyway, the upshot of this little rant of mine is that if you don't hear from me for a few weeks, you'll know why. Cross your fingers that I have a dial tone tomorrow!

What About This One?

Slab Down!
Originally uploaded by thisperthlife.

Have you ever noticed that when you know you've got to make a decision about something like roof tiles, you end up looking at everyone's roof tiles?

Once we'd been to the builder and signed the contracts etc we then had to decide on EVERYTHING. This means EVERYTHING from the colour of the roof, whether to have tiles or colourbond, colour of the gutters and downpipes, what colour and size of bricks, what colour of window frames, what design of front door and what colour, what shape of paving and colour etc etc. I could go on for another few lines at least!

So there you are umming and ahhing about whether a blue colourbond roof will go with a creamy coloured brick will go with grey window frames will go with limestone pavers...you get the idea.

Luckily I have a dog walking friend who didn't mind wandering the streets with me and a pram looking at peoples windows and roofs and bricks and all the various combinations thereof.

I can tell you, there are some horrible combinations out there (I've even been known to steer husband off specifically down a street just to show him some horrible designs of houses and colours!) but you need to do your leg work so you get to know what you like and definitely what you don't.

I went through terracotta roof tiles to blue colourbond and ended up with white colourbond so you can see the process. Best to take a friend with you to ping ideas off, even if they don't necessarily have exactly the same taste as you. At least you get another view and opinion right there at the time.

Thanks Janice, I owe you one for keeping me just a little saner during that time!

House For Rent

House For Rent
Originally uploaded by thisperthlife.

Our house that we have built took 5 months to build rather than the 11 months we were expecting!

Back in February we had to move out of our previous rental as the owners were returning and wanted their house back. So we took out a 12 month lease on a new rental and now we have to break the lease.

Anyone want a very nice 4 bedroomed, 2 bathroomed house to rent in Tapping?

The rent is $400 per week and includes lawn mowing. The house is Foxtel ready in both the formal lounge and the family room. There's a very nice sized master bedroom with en-suite and walk in wardrobe. Three minor bedrooms (all of a decent size), one with a walk in robe and the others with build in wardrobes.

The laundry has a large linen cupboard. All neutral colours throughout. The family room and games is a very large space as you can see from the picture above. There's room for a dishwasher. Front and back gardens are neat and there is a paved patio.

The house will be available from Monday 17th August.

If you're interested or know anyone who is please contact Pam at Professionals Joondalup on 9300 9300 to arrange a viewing. quoting "Yandella".

How Much?

Day 195 Brush
Originally uploaded by geo3pea.

Oh my goodness!

What a shock we got when we went to look at paint for the new house.

$160 for a 10 litre tin of paint?

And we need two coats for every wall?

And we need one coat of sealant on before the paint and they're $160 a tin too?

And when we measured all the walls to get the amount of paint needed it came to 1200sqm in total!

That's equivalent to 20 litres of sealant and 70 litres of paint for the whole house.

That's $1440 of paint?

Luckily we know a painter and decorator who can get it wholesale for us and that halves the price.

But $1440? Where do they get that price from?

Interest Rates Going Up and Market on the Way Down?

interest rates are on the move!
Originally uploaded by quizzleblog.

Now's the perfect time to sell and trade up according to Robert Williams, Director of Independent Real Estate Consulting.

It’s not only the buyers that feel the pain as the interest rates continue to rise… their borrowing capacity decreases and their dream of purchasing their first home fades little by little and many just simply give up hope!

This has a direct affect for the home seller as well as now there are fewer buyers that can actually afford to service a mortgage! As a result many properties are taking substantially longer to sell and the average sale price is dropping in many areas across Australia.

Robert Williams comments “This drop in sale price is affecting sellers as well as they usually have some minimum figure in mind that they are willing to accept for their property”.

Mr Williams went on to comment “It is particularly important at this time in the market to look at both aspects of the transaction, the sale and the subsequent re-purchase. A vast majority of sellers are re-purchasing almost straight away so the important thing here is the changeover amount, not the sale or purchase price.

So although your sale price may be down a few percent you should also realise that your outlay for your next property will also be a few percent lower!

Building a House and Extras

Slab Down!
Originally uploaded by thisperthlife.

OK, so we chose the design of the house and then went to sign the contracts and pay the $2200 that the builder wanted for drawing up the plans.

I have to say that our builder's representative was very helpful and dropped off plans to our house over the weekend so we could see what the house would look like on the block etc.

The only thing is (and I believe that this is the same with all builders) the hidden extras!

I would take it that there would be obscure glass in the bathrooms and wc's wouldn't you? Nope, you have to pay extra not to be oggled at by your neighbours whilst performing your oblutions in the morning!

I would take it that the soakwells (these are large concrete buckets with holes in basically for taking the rainwater off the roof through the gutters and downpipes and dispersing it into the ground. Don't ask why they don't collect rainwater off roofs and use it for drinking water, that's an entirely different article) would be included as, if you don't have them you'd end up with floating patios or bogged down plants, but they're not (and they cost about $3000 to install).

I would take it that I would get more than one plug socket per living area but no, you don't even get one double socket for your dollars, it's just a single!

Other things, I quite freely admit, are none essential and therefore you have the choice whether to have them or not. Things like extra doors, whether you want termite protection in your roof, whether you want an extractor fan over the hob or a proper rangehood etc.

One thing I would say when you go to visit show homes, remember remember remember they are done to the highest spec and I would add on at least $20,000 to get it looking like that.

Oh, and don't forget, there is no flooring included at all. You will have to source and pay for all your flooring seperately (unless your builder offers it...at an inflated price of course!)

House Build cont...

Slab Down!
Originally uploaded by thisperthlife.

So, after we'd put the deposit down on the land, we sorted out the finance with Nicole from West Coast Solutions who was a mine of information and comes highly recommended by moi now that we've finally had the opportunity to put her to the test!!!

Next was choosing the house to build...

...and there's rather a lot to choose from.

The best way, we decided, was to first of all to choose whether we wanted single storey or double and then pick up all the plans you possible can lay your hands on from all the show homes that we visited.