House part 1

There had been contract cleaners in on the Monday. They should have been done by the previous week but, obviously GMT was an influence. Our supervision gave nothing to believe they were up to any good. Admittedly it is a large house but it was completely empty of furniture giving them a chance to get to every surface. All the floors are tiled so no carpets to worry about. A “deep clean” or as I used to call it “A builder’s clean”. I have been no stranger to turning up to clean windows of a newly refurbished house, to find the rendering meant for the walls adorning the windows too. One renovated castle I did the work on had massive windows, some of which were sixty feet off the ground. Each unit comprised of thirty two asticles. Every pane of glass and every join were spattered with mortar or render, some even had the stone chips from the render embedded in the mortar. I’m well used to finding the detritus left by builders, conservatory builders or anyone else who fails to take care. My brother and I even knew who had fitted new windows by the mess left behind. Top of the list for being clarty* buggers were CR Smith. Right enough, a polite enquiry to the householder or a look at the manufacturer’s etching on the base of the unit, confirmed our fears. The job at the new house should have been straight forward then. Sarah and Kevin are the second occupants since it was built. All that was needed was a good clean due to the place having been vacant.

We arrived just before eight to find one body tinkering in the kitchen. He was armed with only a sponge. This was no ordinary sponge, it would’ve been about the size of a large car sponge. It resembled a large car sponge that had got stuck in an automatic car brush wash on the full cycle. If that being the case, it might at least have been clean. It was sort of two tone green and shit in colour. The agreement was that the cleaning team started at six so time was already against them. They had to be done and out before the movers on Tuesday unpacked all the boxes. The plan, logical one would have thought, was for them to start at the top of the house and work their way down. The other fly in the ointment, was the kitchen itself. A new worktop had to be fitted, one of the windows didn’t shut right, the cooker hood was dead, cupboard doors were hanging off or squint and the fitted fridge was somewhere on a holiday. It had been here a few days previously but had vanished. Again, this is not something unique in my experience. The house in Fordoun, which you may remember from older entries here, had white goods included when viewed which subsequently went off on holiday as the previous owners left with them. The neighbours had told Katy and me they reappeared late one evening. Presumably after a solicitor having words in an ear. The other challenge, was the air conditioning units all needed serviced. One had a bird’s nest too close to it, one was at a jaunty angle outside the kitchen, some simply refused to switch on. The electrical engineer contracted to do that would also be milling about. More about him and his “qualifications” later.

By lunchtime, the cleaning team had swelled to over fifteen. Great news, more workers, quicker, better results. This did not equate to more productivity though. Notionally, they had been here since six, physically here en mass since about ten. Either way, more than enough time to have finished one room. The first one being mine. I am up one end of the house. I have a good sized bedroom, a dressing room, in which the window also does not close, and a bathroom. A team of fifteen could easily clean the windows and fly screens, the bathroom fittings, light switches and have the floor done in about an hour. How over ten managed to fit in the bathroom, I have no idea, they weren’t doing much of cleaning it seems. On later inspection, the toilet pan was still dirty and the hairs in the plug hole remained. The trouble seemed to be their ability to just wander off. A bit like an old people’s home where the residents suffereing dementia vanish. I found one guy downstairs armed with a mop ended pole. His job was cobwebs apparently. Sarah summonsed him at one point with the words “Oi, Spiderman” Needless to say, in spite of his several hour long cobweb extravaganza, some were still missed. It was obvious they were simply not working hard enough. Kevin went back up to my room to investigate the delay. I tagged along too, curious to hear new excuses from the myriad we had been given up until now. They had moved onto other rooms so he asked the manager what had been done. Was my room finished? So we were told. On venturing inside the door, it was clearly far from finished. Muddy puddles on the floor, new dirty marks all up the walls. Kevin again challenged the manager to confirm that room to be finished. Again he told us the room was done. Kevin warned him just before the third insistence not to lie to him. With the lie now well and truly out there, Kevin let rip with a string of expletives rising to a crescendo and a cowering manager with stunned staff looking on. The light fittings had not been touched; they needed dismantled to clean any dead bugs from inside. Of the tools the cleaners lacked, perhaps ladders and steps were the most obvious. The dirty marks on the walls explained their method here. A small chap would clamber up an inside wall to gain access to the tops of the frames before disappearing outside. His foot and handprints beautifully decorated rooms in his wake. It was probably just as well he did this, as there was no way of telling whether a window had been cleaned or not. That’s not strictly fair to him, the bloody great streaks and water dribbles were a lasting reminder too. A small set of steps did finally appear, as did a scaffold tower. The tower caused it’s own problems later.

Following Kevin’s explosion, I made it my task to be good cop to his bad cop. I developed a rapport with the manager, his name was Kenneth. He would give me updates as to which rooms they thought they had finished and I would inspect the work and send people back in if I was not happy. Any issues I found, I would take Kenneth aside for a quiet word and things were then dealt with. Every time we spoke, I reminded him of our time scales and the problems they would encounter if they over ran. Kevin is over six feet, I come in about five nine and Kenneth comes up to my chin. Referring back to Kevin’s explosion, I impressed on Kenneth that I was trying to keep Kevin calm. That dealing with me, he was safe from “Big Kevin” and that as long as everything went smoothly, I wouldn’t have to get him back upstairs. One of the times I went up to check, I decided not to investigate further. In front of me, was a puddle of water, snaking through the puddle was an extension lead with parts of the plastic case missing. I had already witnessed the wall socket conversion method of just shoving bare wires into the socket. With a maze of electrics face down in water, I concluded I could wait a little longer before my next routine check up.

Earlier in the day, we had been wandering outside. The air conditioning unit at the jaunty angle caught our attention. From it came a short length of electrical cable. The unit didn’t work so we thought it must’ve been disconnected for some reason. Sarah poked at the wire using her foot – BANG! It was connected then. Apart from being a bit shaken, Sarah was alright. The wall now had a blackened scar across it. Once the power was off, Kevin and I investigated to find this was a cable wired into the connectors of the unit to draw power to somewhere else. It may well have been the water pump whose cables had been ripped out from the ground by a previous contractor who had fitted the electric fence. Where the electrical conduit was buried across the grass, followed exactly the same line as had previously carried the pump cable. When they bury a cable under grass here, the depth is typically in inches rather than feet. I hesitate even to pluralise the inch. The water pump is vital to keep pressure up inside the house. It also serves to draw mains water into the two holding tanks for back up in case of mains water failure. The new pool being built was taking shape. The various utilities severed during its construction slowly reconfigured. The pool boys dug through a sewer, wires for outdoor lights and a water pipe. The sewer was reconnected after a couple of weeks. The only downside of that being, the buttresses built to support the walls of the pool were in the way so they just smashed through them to get a new pipe in. The severed water pipe is the source of water to mix concrete. Rather than put a tap on the end, they chose to just bend it over. Inevitably after a while, the plastic pipe gave up and we had the outside of the foundations filling up with water. Not to mention the mosquito breeding ground, water is metered here so getting a plumber in was important. He didn’t fit a tap but instead pushed a spare piece of electrical conduit inside the pipe and bent that over.

By the end of Monday, the cleaners had finished making a mess upstairs. Things would be tight for time on their return the next day. The new kitchen worktop hadn’t arrived, let alone being fitted. Ten the next morning was when the movers were due. Sarah and Kevin were previously in Libya so there were all their boxes they hadn’t seen in months stacked up in the study. They had their other bits and pieces to move from the apartment which Kevin tasked one of the guards there to arrange transport for. Tuesday came, Sarah and I dropped off the wee one at school before heading to the new house. I had quickly shoved all my belonging back into their cases to save anything getting lost or stolen in transit. We were unsurprised to find no cleaners in attendance. They finally arrived just after nine. We were joined by the guy to fix the air conditioning, he and his staff set to work on the various units throughout the house. He was supposed to have been and gone the previous week. The last thing we needed was even more people under our, and the movers’ feet. As with the cleaners, the AC guy had no ladders. More clambering over roof tiles with FBI grade handprints upon their re-entry. Unless they were using trained ants, there was no way they would reach all the outside units. That would suggest they even bothered about them. Very quickly they disappeared complaining they had run out of gas to recharge units. They also lacked what the guy called his “specialist tool” this later turned out to be a standard pressure washer. The AC man is allegedly an electrical engineer by the name of Emmanuelle, the same name as the ill fated final Carry-On film. How very appropriate except you can sit back and enjoy a carry on film without fear of electrocution, explosion from illegal venting of air conditioning gas or total exasperation from his obvious lack of even basic electrical knowledge. The movers arrived a little late after being sent thirty miles away to where the boxes had been a few weeks before. Immediately, they set to work heaving furniture and boxes upstairs. Below them, the cleaners were wasting time again. Kenneth was summonsed and reminded that although “Big Kevin” wasn’t here, he would be very soon, Kenneth shouted to a few bodies who paid him scant regard. Three large windows look out from the living room. Each measures about eight feet by five, the good thing, is it is only two asticles, only two pieces of glass and a bit of frame. The middle one has sliding doors but the other two are sealed. An easy job that if I were doing, I could have completed in less than five minutes, allowing for possible paint and stubborn marks to need scraped off. To clean the inside of one of these took one cleaner an hour and a half. With that level of meticulous care, one would expect the brightest ever gleam. Something that could be used as a reflector for a giant telescope perhaps? A perfect piece of glazing delight. Of course, it was none of these, it looked like a synchronised swimming team of toddlers had been offered up to the glass and engorged every last drop of spittal and snot. I may be exaggerating slightly; it really was streaky to the extreme. I felt so strongly, I decided it was time for Kenneth to have a window cleaning lesson. I located a two in one mop squeegee; the rubbers on the squeegee had certainly seen better days, a bucket of clean water with washing up liquid added. The liquid was added only after I was able to confirm with Kenneth which unmarked bottle to use. One bottle was marked, that bottle was of solvent paint thinners only found after they left. A small bottle previously used for and marked as mineral water found by a thirsty four year old. Lying just beside this had been a loose razor blade. Just as well then, a certain four year old knew to ask before picking up a drink! I set to work on a downstairs window, explaining my technique as I went along. Soon there were assembled a small crowd watching. I don’t know whether it was for educational stimulation or purely laughing at their boss being shown how to do something by an Abroni. I very much doubt whether Kenneth took any notice of my attempts to help his company work faster and better, it made me feel better at least.

Upstairs the movers were spent the rest of the day flying through their task. Cardboard boxes cascaded into the hallway from above. This display was a sign of how teamwork should be conducted, with only one slight hitch when Kevin had cardboard crash past his ear. It was just cardboard though. The movers unpacked everything from the Libya shipment leaving only the stuff from the apartment to arrive. The moving vehicle was an open 7.5Tonne truck and not everything survived the journey. Firstly, our maid Doreen was left at the apartment to clean everything. As her style dictated, she decided to disregard this and pack everything. That would have been a very lovely thing to do, had she not used a rather unconventional packing technique. Most of my stuff was back in my bags, everything else was stuffed into whatever she could find. Suitcases, plastic bags, anything. No method to this, just
whatever came to hand got tipped in. every morning, I wash my face water. Just water, no soap, no cleansers. Others have suggested using something so my intention had been to use the stuff bought for the purpose. The first morning in the new house, I washed my face with cleanser, I washed my arms with cleanser, I washed my arse with cleanser. Tuesday was the day of moving in, and if you look at that as the nuclear blast, the radiation cloud continued for another week and a half.