So, We Moved...

In my last non-pet related update I mentioned there was something happening that I’d explain about once I understood it myself.  Well, now that I understand it enough to do so, I’m going to explain, though I expect the title gives you some idea of the gist of where this post is going.

 

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Yes, that's right: We moved.  Yes, I know we're in the middle of a pandemic, with the country in partial lockdown.  Hey, don't judge me; it wasn't my idea.  Read on.  I'm going to explain how it happened.

 

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On May 20th 2020 we got a letter from someone claiming to be the owner of our flat.  He mentioned our landlords by name, said they’d been working on his behalf, and we should get in touch with him because he wanted to be acting for himself from now on, so we should pay him rent from then on, not the landlords.

 

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To be honest, since we were under the impression our landlords owned the building – because they acted like they did – our initial thought was that this was some kind of new scam.  But we called our landlords – figuring they should know about it, especially if they were being mentioned by name – and they confirmed it was genuine.  Sure would have been nice to know there was a higher power we could have gone to when we were having all that trouble with nasty neighbour, but there you go.  Regardless, to cut a long story short, our landlords and the owner had an agreement that allowed them to act as if they owned the property, collect rent on it, etc, but it wasn’t really theirs, and now the owner wants it back.

 

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Remember the beach trip Logan posted about, where Kelly left me and Lilie out there for a long time by ourselves? Yeah, that was so I could socially distance while the owner and his solicitor came to look at the place, and see what kind of condition he was claiming it back in.  Kelly took us out there shortly before they were due to arrive, and came back to fetch us once they left.

 

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On the one hand this is a pretty simple matter from our point of view.  We’d just need to sign a new tenancy with the owner so he became our landlord instead, and life could continue as normal.  But there’s a complication: repair work.

 

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As long time readers of this blog will know, there are several repair jobs that need doing on this building and haven’t been – another thing we wish we’d known we could have gone to a higher power to force to get resolved – which the owner now wants to get done.  The trouble is, while it’s possible to do repairs and things with someone in the property, with how much needs doing it would be easier to do it with the place empty.  Not to mention, the owner is incredibly reluctant to do as much work as needs doing with a blind person in the property, given the extra safety risks involved in that.

 

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To cut a long story short: he told us we needed to move, and sooner rather than later, even giving us official notice, since the property was, "Not fit for purpose," as he put it.

 

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What followed was a very stressful couple of weeks where I tried to get the council to rehome us – like they’re officially meant to do if a disabled person is at risk of becoming homeless – and they told me I had three options:

 

1.      Stay put for the couple of years it would take me to get issued a place of theirs.

2.      Let them put me in their emergency accommodation once the date of our notice came up, which would mean putting almost everything we own in to storage, rehoming all of the petkids, and waiting in that emergency housing for however many years it took for us to get a proper place from them.

3.      Find somewhere ourselves.

 

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Of course, option one wasn’t really open to us, since he wasn’t about to wait several years.  As for option two... Well, I’d have moved back to Wales and lived with one of my parents before I picked that one, and – as I told the woman from the council – taking away most of my stuff, and then taking away my petkids, was just asking for problems from a mental health point of view, because quite frankly I wouldn’t have been able to deal with this year without them.  So that left us with option three, and the need to find somewhere to live... During a pandemic, with a lot of things closed because of the stage of lockdown we were in.  I mean, some things are still not open.

 

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Luckily, as it happened, the guy who moved in to the place below ours when nasty neighbour moved out had given his notice back in February.  We just assumed he was spending lockdown with his girlfriend, since he spent a lot more time with her than in his place anyhow, so we didn’t realize.  I mean, we saw so little of him under normal circumstances, and with lockdown... Well, like I said, we assumed he was just staying elsewhere with his girlfriend or something.  But it was discovered when the owner was trying to get access to that flat to look at it too that he’d moved out and the landlords hadn’t found anyone else because of the whole virus situation.

 

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Why luckily? Because the owner suggested he did the work that place needed and had us move in there, and then do the work in the upstairs flat before renting it out to someone else, which – after some consideration - we agreed to.  Partially because it wasn’t like we were having any luck finding somewhere else, and partially because we like living here, and it was the closest thing we could get to staying.  That flat also needed a lot less work done on it.

 

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In fact, by the time you’re reading this, we’ll be moved in, since we agreed to it towards the end of June, when we could see the work in it was progressing well, and have been moving our stuff downstairs throughout July.  The official date for the tenancy for the upstairs flat to end and the one for the downstairs one to start is August 1st, but we had most things scheduled to switch to the new place on or around July 21st.  Or, at least, that was how it was meant to work, though I'll tell you what actually ended up happening - and why it's only because of scheduling posts ahead that there have been any from me for the past two weeks, and you almost didn't get any Thursday posts for the past two weeks - another day.

 

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We were still able to keep Lilie and Logan’s vet and grooming appointments, but I had to move Artemis’ vet trip and my dentist appointment, since they were right when we had the BT engineer coming to swap the phone and internet to downstairs and the guys coming to help with the heavy stuff we couldn’t manage, neither appointment was urgent, and I needed to be here (if nothing else then at least to keep Lilie and Logan out from under everyone’s feet).  So now Artemis’ vet trip is on August 11th at 2:15pm, and my dentist appointment is on September 1stat 12:30pm.

 

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I'll update you on the rest of the random day to day stuff later, but... Yes, as you can imagine, my days have been very busy.  I've been keeping up with writing posts for my blog, and keeping my eMails from becoming overly out of control, because I had several posts already scheduled, and all the stress has meant I've not been sleeping well, so I've been working on stuff during sleepless nights, and letting it cut in to my reading and watching times.  A good idea? No.  But I did it anyhow.  Needless to say, the closest thing to writing I've gotten - besides writing blog posts, eMails, etc - has been dealing with the production of the paperback and audio versions of my latest release.  So, if I've been slow to answer eMails or comment on posts lately, sorry, and if you don't see any comments or anything from me for a few days, it means I finally got some decent sleep.  Something I honestly hope happens.  Yeah, sorry not sorry, because I really do... I'm incredibly exhausted.  Oh, and a word of advice: if you're ever in the same situation, don't try and keep up with everything while also dealing with the move, because it will just leave you physically and mentally exhausted.  Just saying.

 

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Anyway, the downstairs flat is very slightly smaller than the upstairs one, and there’s a slight layout difference, but the differences in both aspects are slight.  The main change for us is that we’ve gone from having to climb 40 stairs when we come home to only needing to climb 24.  Yes, I counted.  Since we’re still in the same building, the doors to the places are right next to each other, and the layouts are so similar, it’s good for me from a mobility point of view, since I don’t have too much adjustment to make in learning to navigate.  Plus, we like living where we are, so are glad we still get to.

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Now we're hoping the owner/new landlord continues how he's been so far in getting repairs done, and we have a better time of it when it comes to that kind of thing in the future.  Oh, and that whoever moves in upstairs when the work is finished up there will be the kind of people you don't mind living below, if you know what I mean.

 

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We could have done without the stress and hassle of moving though, even if it was just downstairs.  Especially considering we were already dealing with the stress of the whole virus situation - even if it hasn't changed much for us personally, it affects everyone, after all - and still being on partial lockdown while dealing with all this – not to mention trying to observe social distancing as much as possible while dealing with it all - added an extra layer of complications and stress.  Plus, now we’ve had to pack the stuff we’d unpacked to move it downstairs, so have to start again with unpacking.  Although, not entirely from scratch, since some stuff we just carried downstairs and put away immediately, without bothering to actually pack it.  But I hate moving, especially all the packing and unpacking that goes along with it, and wish I didn’t have to keep doing it.  I hope, if we have to move again, it’s not for a very long time, and we can be in a position to pay a little extra to get someone else to do the packing part for us.

 

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In the meantime, I need a nap.  A long nap.  Let's hope my mind will now agree.  Maybe this weekend I can have a quiet and relaxing couple of days, with plenty of sleep involved... That would be nice. *sigh*

 

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I think Logan would like that too, considering how upsetting he found it that I sometimes whent down to the new flat without him to go put stuff away.  He really didn't like his Mummy keep leaving, as you can tell from this clip Kelly got for me one of the times I popped down stairs.

  *~*~* Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going for that nap, and taking my Logi-Bear with me.  Hey, is it too early to hibernate?