When it rains, it pours

Rainy view of The Westcliff, fancy, very expensive hotel near my work

We have tenants in a cottage on our property (very common in Johannesburg) and with all the heavy rains about 6 weeks ago, the cottage roof started leaking.

Not good.

Especially after I went to see and SMELLED it - yuck.

But we couldn't seem to get anyone to come out and give free quotes, and I am violently opposed to paying R500 just for a quote. Daylight robbery.

Finally we got a very professional company to come out, give the quote and since we were happy, we went ahead.

Oodles and oodles of cash later, everything is all sorted and I wanted to have the inside repainted.

Well, the tenants give me story after story - no, this weekend isn't suitable, my wife is sick, blah blah blah.

And then we had some more rain. And when I say rain, I mean RAIN.

Turns out it was a good thing we postponed the painting because the roof is leaking again.

There's also some he said, she said between the company and the tenants (I believe the company) as to where the leak is.

Bottom line, some of the leak is where it was repaired so they fixed it but another part is a new section of the roof.

We're not sure what to do because we don't have yet another R9000 to fix the roof. Well, we do but I don't want to clear out our savings account again.

That's 1.

Then

2. iron suddenly packs up one day last week. V comes to me and says "there was a spark" and the iron is dead. I phone D immediately to pick up a new iron and all is well.

3. vacuum cleaner is also dead. same story with spark... I suddenly got thinking "what if there's a short circuit somewhere" so we are replacing the vacuum cleaner and (3) getting an electrician in (I can't procrastinate on these things anymore because I have babies at home)

4. We got our house valued and we may be able to swing it. But am not a fan of the "may" so I want to paint everything in sight and make everything look gorgeous so it will sell on the high end of the scale.

I actually need to do some more number crunching based on the valuation, estate agent's commission and costs. I had two valuations and the one agent valued it R50 000 higher than the other. She's less experienced in this area though so the lower one is probably more accurate.

Also, I was chit-chatting with a colleague (I call it relationship building :)) who told me the bank we're currently bonded with has a special offer where they don't charge you any cancellation and bond registration costs if you do a subsequent bond with them too. Yippee! That's about R10 - R15 000 saved.

It's very strange for me to be moving this slow on the house thing. Usually by now (one week later) we'd have signed everything. But I'm really trying to do things slowly and I promised D that I'd THINK things through (I'm of the rush in and think later crowd) properly. Time to do an excel spreadsheet...

Back to the painting...

Today on my last day of our lovely four-day weekend, I'm going to be buying LOTS of paint. Fortunately I have a guy who does all our painting and he knows how we like things done - perfectly :) D has to go buy a vacuum cleaner - I don't care because I don't ever vacuum!

P.S. On Saturday night Connor slept right through from 7 pm (because we were out at our friends' house) right through until 7:15. Am pleased but not getting too excited!

P.P.S. Today is my fabulous boss's 40th birthday. And an ex-boyfriend's :)