House Part 2

Early morning was a chance to reminisce on the journey we had taken to spend our first night in the new house. For two days, the cleaners had been a liability to themselves and others. Even my soft approach had not worked and I had hit breaking point. Kevin and I returned to the house to be told by Sarah that despite her protests, they tried to wet the hall floor just as movers were taking things through. She had told the cleaner to stop; she had summonsed Kenneth to get him to stop. A female cleaner stationed at the front door, even had the audacity to challenge Sarah that the movers should use another door. Heavy pieces of furniture would have had to traverse the garden, only to double back to the rooms close to the hall. I brought Kenneth into the part soggy hallway to ask for an explanation. Contractors were back in the form of the air conditioning professionals. My brother once worked as a professional photographer. He encouraged my attempts with the reassurance that “The only difference between an amateur and a professional, is that the professional is paid” therefore, you get very good amateurs in a field and some very bad professionals. The air conditioning contractors rode in on an Opel Omega, maybe not hired guns, namely because they carried something far more dangerous, their qualifications and screwdrivers. A light load then, the qualifications were clearly eminent works of fiction, the screwdrivers often recognisable, in fact, as Kevin’s. More to come about who was soon to be come known as Emanu-hell.

“Kenneth?.. a word!” I was no longer in any humour to be polite. No taking him aside for a quiet word. The amphitheatre, a double height hallway, six feet wide stairs winding their way up one side, to an overlooking balustrade on the first floor. Lots of front row views for what was soon to become our audience. I asked him if he remembered our previous conversations, if he remembered my polite manner and calm nature. I went on to reiterate I was the calm one, yet was finding it increasingly difficult to restrain Kevin or Sarah. The issues in my absence were raised, did he know what “Stop doing that” meant? My volume steadily increased, as did the pitch of my voice, anger surging through my vocal chords. I know that when I raise my voice, I find an authoritative tone difficult to maintain. Somehow, the desired booming sound, comes out as a high pitched, loud squeak. “If someone tells you NOT to do something, what should you do?” I squeaked. “Why then, did you continue to do it?... Had you all done your job properly, you would have been finished by now….Why does every thing your staff do, or not do, cause a problem?” In full rant mode, my soprano solo continued. Kevin silently slipped past us, he later told me he was desperately trying to keep a straight face, neither he, nor Sarah had heard me like this before, it’s possible only dogs could actually hear me by now, yet there the concert hall was certainly filling up. Most of the cleaners had stopped whatever hapless task they had been engaged in, Sarah stood aghast half way up the stairs. Even the diligent movers had temporarily suspended their tasks. “Do you know what this is Kenneth?... DO YOU?” “No Sir” he sheepishly replied. “This…this whole thing, is a Clusterfuck!, Do you know what a Clusterfuck is Kenneth? I continued, not allowing him a reply, his ashen face enough to convince me my slight displeasure may be apparent by this point. “That’s fucked, that’s fucked, that’s fucked” I pointed randomly all around his head off the direction of different parts of the house. “..It’s all fucked, that is what a Clusterfuck is Kenneth, it is a cluster of fucks and you and your staff deserve the title like no other” The swearing benchmark, now comfortably set, my tone lowered again. “I am a very patient man but you have tried my patience, you and your staff have been rude to my best friend. It seems that speaking nicely did not seem to work, I apologise for my language but not for my anger, this is ridiculous, what are you going to do?” My head jerked towards Sarah’s stance, he knew from that, the first thing would be an apology.


Kenneth and I had more little chats over the next week. There was the question as to the width of the scaffolding they had used in the hall. Kenneth gave me a rough measurement stretching his arms. I corrected his measurement by showing him two previously unbroken floor tiles, now smashed. The many curtains had been taken away for cleaning. They finally arrived back, with Kenneth and another cleaner tasked with tackling the worst bits of their neglect. Rather than deal with the high areas we had no access to remedy, Kenneth was set on scrubbing little bits downstairs. He was adamant that they would not re hang the curtains. Eventually, Kevin just told them to get out. We would do the curtains, how hard a job could it be after all?


The so called electrician, employed by the developers of the complex, Trasaco, started hanging the curtains. He was a lot better at doing curtains than he was electrics, not particularly difficult given his exploits with electrics. On opening one of his wired plug tops, the wires fell into my hand, rather than use the customary screws, he had relied on gravity as a fixative. We had a debate on whether it really was wise to install a cable along the top of an outdoor sink. I used the visual aid of turning the mixer tap towards the wall, he countered with running water onto the outer insulation of a cable. I concluded by holding the cable up to allow the water to drain towards the connections. He was not the worst electrician; then again, he wasn’t the best curtain hanger. I had to get him to step back and tell me what was wrong with his current drape. Thankfully the left hand trailing two feet below the right, was enough of a clue that he may have mixed up a pair. I was left in hysterics by another of his efforts. A single curtain at the top of the stairs pulls either to one wall or the other. depending on which side has been attached to the non moving ring. Sarah found me with one leg over the top banister, arms outstretched. I felt a reassurance was necessary that my intention was not to jump. When I tried to explain, I was inable to control the giggles again, part way through my explanations, Sarah joined me in the uncontrollable laughter. Both sides had been fixed, making the curtain more or a blind than anything usable as a curtain. From then on, “Trasaco Man” as he became known, endeavoured with varying degrees of success to tackle other jobs. Plastering he cannot be faulted for, painting too, I would question the wisdom of using emulsion paint for the outside masonry. This came to light during a heavy rain shower. I expect the house to resemble a half sucked Smartie come the proper rainy season.


There was an incident where I spoke to Trasaco Man in the kitchen. Rather, I thought it was Trasaco Man. The kitchen fitters had a habit of disappearing for hours on end so, when they went to leave en mass, I challenged them. I was told they were off for lunch and would return in thirty minutes. I suggested tgey should leave their tools behind, after all, it must be tricky carrying a sandwich, tool bag and an electric drill. They insisted they would come back and I further insisted they should leave their tools which I would look after. So paranoid was I that this may be them abandoning a half finished job, I took hold of one man’s drill, telling him that, based on past performances, I didn’t believe they would take only half an hour. Reluctantly, I let go and confirmed with them it was now 12:40 and I would see them at 1:10, “oh yes, sir, yes” I was told as I looked back on the still unusable kitchen that should have been finished the week previously. The time in my head was twenty past one to start worrying. I need not have worried; in fact I should have known this wouldn’t happen. At just after four, I greeted them back. As they puddled away, I got into conversation with Trasaco Man, “These kitchen guys, they promised me they would be back in time, we have a kitchen we cannot use, I even tried to take a drill off one of them” I explained with displeasure. “Yes, that was me” he replied, “You held my tools, I am Frank, I do woodwork” A lesson learned not to confuse people and be aware that sometimes they change T- shirts half way through a day so going by the colour someone is wearing is not always the best indicator.


The kitchen was eventually finished; many take-aways later and with a few minor challenges along the way. The gas hob ran from an outside LPG bottle. Copper pipe ran all the way to the back of the cooker where there was an unfitted joint. This joint upon connection just would not seal correctly. We did a test connection; we applied washing up liquid to the joint to check the seal. If there are any leaks, gas will produce small bubbles. With my head under to smell and listen, I came away with a headache, quite a big leak then. One of the helpful staff reassured us he could fix it and that he would give it a squirt of silicone sealant. Kevin had to firmly tell him that not every job can be done with silicone. He had already corrected a piece of waste pipe covered in silicone that was leaking. By this point, very little surprised me, Emanu-hell, had done his utmost to rub us all up the wrong way.

I have a little knowledge with electrics. I rewired my old flat, the Fordoun house and have a father and two uncles with over a hundred years of experience between them. I am still learning and would never profess to know everything about circuits but with my knowledge, I knew that Emanu-hell was quite simply full of bullshit. Sarah and Kevin had complained about his attitude, he was certainly not the most personable man, preferring to whistle to his staff as if they were dogs. He tried to summon me a few times with a grunt, he knew my name and besides, a simple “Excuse me” would have been better. After more grunts, I told him my name was John, he could call me John, Sir or John Sir but to please stop grunting. An incident arose where the tumble dryer plug melted the socket. His explanation was obviously wrong to me and I told him so. He told us, the plug was thirteen amps, where the socket was fifteen. This made absolutely no sense and, after trying to politely correct him several times I walked off, calling back “Bullshit”… “You’re talking out of a hole in your arse” I decided he was not only a liar, but a liability, both to himself and our safety. His favourite tactics, are making out the other person does not understand electrics. When proved wrong about something, he tries to turn it around that it was not what he meant in the first place. He is arrogant and takes no care over other’s property. More than once, Kevin’s electrician screwdrivers needed to be rescued from his clutches. The situation came to a head when I tried to tell him how deep a new cable to the generator needed to be. I have covered this before, possibly in more depth than the general rule for soil depth is here. Both Sarah and I had spoken with Emanu-hell’s staff a few times to persuade them to put the cable further under the ground. I had dug a deeper hole using the spade to show them the minimum depth we wanted. Much shallower than I would ordinarily do, but deep enough, that neither the dog, nor a lawn mower could uncover. They needed constant checking and asking whether their hole was the same depth as mine yes or no. As I hovered, Emanu-hell summonsed me with his customary grunt. He was telling me his men did not need to dig the hole any deeper as it was armoured cable they were using. I countered that it was not armoured cable. I have worked with armoured cable and even that I sank deeper than this stuff. The cable in question was standard white flexible cable, carried inside plastic conduit. At some points, the lengths were springing out of the ground.
“This is not armoured cable”
“You do not understand”
“I understand perfectly well, that” I pointed to the main feed from the generator “is armoured cable, steel wire armoured, probably made by Pirelli, this, is not armoured, it is PVC sheathed flex, flex-i-ble. YOU are lying to me again. I know what I am talking about, all I want is for that stuff to be buried deeper for SAFE-TY”
“I am electrical engineer, this is deep we put things here”
“Not here you don’t, besides, you put in the armoured cable, it is deeper, you tell me the point of putting an armoured cable so far into the ground, and a flimsy piece like this barely under the surface”
This continued for some time, I kept telling him to stop lying to me, he kept insisting I didn’t know what I was talking about. Eventually, tempers completely frayed, I was shouting at him barely an inch from his face. My shouting was of genuine anger this time, no squeaky voice as with before, being outside, we had though attracted a larger crowd. His men stood by, guards from the complex had flocked to see for themselves what they had heard from afar. I was just finished telling him that he was stupid, that I knew it was an insult and repeated it again, “A FUCKING IDIOT, STUPID LYING FUCKING IDIOT” when Sarah interrupted us for fear of violence breaking out. I wouldn’t have done anything to him; he was much bigger than me in any case.
What I first mistook to be sweat was all over his face, I was literally spitting mad at him. I walked off, knowing I could never have won the argument, out onto the road and started walking laps of the house to calm myself down. I can truly say, this place has brought out the worst in me. With good reason, Sarah has now been electrocuted four times and counting, I have seen the little one be close to getting hit with showers of sparks from an exploding TV or flying light bulbs due to overloading, overheating or incorrect wiring of things. Making the fuse box live, was a particularly good move by Emanu-hell. Strangely, the rest of the house had been plunged into darkness, yet there was power there to throw her backwards as she tried to isolate the distribution board. It was later found, that a neutral had been used as an earth, with the earth cable dangling in mid air. Emanu-hell had charged to service the ACs. This included cleaning the filters, a simple job but when we checked, we discovered none had been done. He should have dismantled the boxes on the outside too. How could he, when one was twenty feet up a sheer wall and he had no ladders? That same AC had a bird’s nest which should have been cleared. He was, and still is a truly unpleasant, arrogant, ignorant man. His habit of turning up at six am, the day after he should have been there, was tempered slightly by Sarah’s calls to him after ten at night, eventually. He stopped answering those calls but it was still nice to randomly let the phone ring to disturb his sleep.


The new electrician, Sammy, was a complete breath of fresh air; I met him just as his jobs were nearly finished. He was very personable, interested in my experience and suggestions to allow jobs to be done easier, very conscientious and trustworthy too. As I’ve said before, not all Ghanaians are bad; I hate to portray that impression of them. It just so happens, The Emslie Effect seems to attract the dodgy ones.