It’s been a good week. I haven’t needed anti-anxiety drugs since Wednesday, even though I delivered training yesterday to a group of employees.  And of course, Wednesday was our anniversary   I got SO a leather wallet by Hugo Boss, and he got me a rose bush.  Not just any rose bush – it’s called Petrona.  How’s that for smooth?!  Plus I got a beautiful card and a gorgeous flower arrangement at work, which everyone admired.  I’m a very lucky girl.

It’ll be a relatively busy weekend.  I’m looking after Mum’s dog, as she and J are away at the moment.  I’ll be dropping the dog off to Mum’s friend tomorrow, so it’s a temporary arrangement only.  Other than that, I need to get some descaling stuff to our tenants with the washing machine problem, and I’m meeting up with my friend S on Sunday for croissants and coffee.  Yum.

Yes, I’ve been MIA again. There was a good reason – SO and I were in Victoria.  We spent three days in Ballarat, and three in Melbourne. 

We were in Ballarat to catch up with my lovely friend M, the single mum of three kids under five.  (Just pause and think about that for a moment.)  She recently turned 30 and had a bash to celebrate.  We normally wouldn’t travel for something like that, but with the divorce over the last year or so, she’s had a hell of a time and we wanted to see her.  Anyhow, it was wonderful catching up with her and the offspring, all of whom are completely adorable.  She was so happy that we came over, too.  She told me that after she dropped us off at the train station to go to Melbourne, she had what she called ‘a sook’.  Poor darling, it would be so good if she were closer to us, but Ballarat is where her family is, and they help her out with the kids more than we would.

So yes, after Ballarat we went on to Melbourne.  While we were knackered after running around with M and the kids for three solid days, we rallied and managed to see a few things.  We did a tour of the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), one of the most historical sporting grounds in Australia, which was interesting.  We also managed to get in to the National Gallery of Victoria to see the Salvador Dali exhibition, Liquid Desire.  That was fascinating - we spent over two hours in it.  SO was very sweet and bought me the book that was produced for the exhibition, which is absolutely gorgeous.  We had lunch in the NGV cafe afterwards, exhausted but with our minds full of what we’d just seen.

We managed to get around Melbourne okay, considering neither of us had never been there before.  It took probably about a day and a half, then the whole tram system seemed to click in my brain.  After that we were fine.  We managed to get out to Bridge Road, the factory outlet section of town, and did a bit of shopping, primarily for SO.  I did pick up some gorgeous eclectic stuff for myself, though, which was great.  We also had a wander along Chapel St, the couture part of Melbourne, when we caught up with my friend K for dinner one night.  All I can say is SO is very lucky there wasn’t late night trading that night.

Apart from a delayed flight (only for two hours) the trip home was uneventful.  We got in around 10pm, which for us was around midnight, as we’d acclimatised to Victorian time by that stage.  I got a phone call the next day very early, asking about one of our units which was advertised - was it still available?  Why yes, it was.  The lease ended while we were away, so I got myself organised and went down there to turn it over ready to rent out again.

Well, what a mess.  It took me about eight hours to get the whole place clean again.  Marks on every wall, spills on carpets, dirty dishes, filthy oven, fridge and microwave…. and don’t even ask about the bathroom.  I’ve never scrubbed dried spew off a toilet bowl that wasn’t mine before.  Still, the good news is it came up fine, and it’ll be rented from tomorrow, so that’s great news for us.  My back, knees and shoulders are all sore, but it was a worthwhile effort.  And after all, that’s what the bond is for.

Things are feeling more and more settled.  All of our units are tenanted (yay!) so we don’t even have to think about them.  Our house is slowly (very slowly) getting back to a habitable state.  For example, I have an oven!!  It’s not installed; it’s currently sitting on the floor in the family room.  But at least it’s in the house.  If I’m lucky, and play my cards right, SO may even install it sometime today.

The laundry situation is under control, the bathrooms have been cleaned, and the sheets on the bed are fresh.  The kitchen is also reasonably neat and tidy.  All in all, it’s starting to feel more like a home, and less like a dump we have to live in for protection from the elements.

There are other signs life is becoming more calm and regular, such as my increased interest in cooking.  I find that when I’m tired, stressed, and the place is a mess, the very last thing I want to do is cook.  Lots of time and effort for temporary gain, plus the production of more dishes to wash, are the major cons against cooking.  However, I was at the local shops yesterday and noticed vine-ripened tomatoes for $10 a box.  I immediately starting thinking of buying a box to make some napolitana sauce. 

I’ve been looking around for a good recipe, and this one seems to tick all the boxes.  As I read through it, though, I noticed a reference to pomarola sauce, which seems like a richer version of the same thing.  So I’ve decided I’ll give the pomarola recipe a go.  Of course, I’ll write up a review of it if/when I do make it.

I also did the right thing and tried to give my mother a call.  She has left two incredibly nasty messages on our home answering machine, stating that she ‘knew’ I was home and that I was deliberately ignoring her.  After getting the first message a few days back, I wasn’t inclined to call her back, so I didn’t.  Yesterday we received a similar message, in the same vein.  I tried to call her this morning but she was (fortunately) out.  I think she needs to be told that honey attracts more flies than vinegar – not that I’m a fly, but you know what I mean. 

It’s a funny thing.  I’ve always wished that mum and I got along well, but we never have.  While it’s gotten better than when I was a teenager (when I left home, to escape her), it’s kind of got to a point where she’ll be fine, and I get excited thinking she’ll always be relatively easy to deal with; then I get these really unpleasant voicemail messages from her.  If I’m really unlucky, I will actually be home and receive her call, in which case I have to emotionally defend myself for up to an hour from her vitriol.  It makes SO furious that she is so unpleasant to me.  We’ve had heated discussions about it.  Ultimately, though, she is my mother, and when you’ve lost one parent, it makes you realise that you do love them, despite their faults.  I just wish her faults weren’t so detrimental to my mental health.

Life has certainly settled down a bit. Not having renovations to do leaves both of us with a lot of ’spare’ time.  I say ’spare’ because in reality it’s taken up with lots of things – like going through our house, deciding what to keep and what to move on.  We have a kerbside collection for household goods in a couple of weeks, so we can get rid of lots of stuff that way, like the oven we’ve had to replace. 

It’s been on the blink for a couple of months – everything lights up but it doesn’t heat.  According to my mother, it was the heating element that had packed it in.  So SO had a look at it over the weekend.  Not only had the element gone, but the fan wasn’t working.  As a result, and given the age of the oven (around 14 years old), I made an executive decision that it wasn’t worth fixing.  So I started pricing replacements.  Amazingly, they ranged from $950 to the one we decided on – $569.  I couldn’t believe the variation in prices.  We went for the $569 version.  I’m not interested in cooking, SO isn’t either, and paying an extra $400 for an oven that’s still very basic seems like a waste.  Hopefully we’ll be picking it up either tomorrow or Thursday.  I’m excited, primarily because I’m looking forward to having the gaping hole in the kitchen filled up.

We’ve also been going through a process of rationalisation of our clothing.  We have an absolute heap of stuff we don’t wear any more, and most of it is in fantastic condition.  In the past, I’ve sold this stuff on eBay.  However I’m moving away from doing that now, for a few different reasons.  Firstly, money isn’t as tight as it used to be.  While any additional cash is nice, we don’t need it.The second reason is that the economy isn’t the best, and I’m sure that there are people who would appreciate the chance to buy gently used clothes that are suitable for interviews, etc.  So we’ve been doing some culling.  As a result, today I dropped off seven (yes, seven) bags of work clothes, and assorted other stuff – things like material for sewing I’ll never use, curtains still in the packet (I’d lost the receipt to return them), that kind of thing – to our local Goodwill bins.  (SO and I refer to this as ’stuff for Will’, ie. Goodwill.)

In investment-related news, we are signing up a new tenant tomorrow night for the latest (now finished) reno.  I’m looking forward to getting rent in for it, I have to admit.  Nothing like being able to pay the mortgage to sleep well. 

Speaking of which, apparently I’ve started humming in my sleep.  SO actually woke me up last night because I was making so much noise.  <blush>  I asked what it sounded like, and it’s definitely a very deep, loud humming sound.  How completely bizarre.  I know I occasionally talk in my sleep when I’m stressed, but humming?!  SO was really grumpy about it too, he doesn’t like being woken up by someone else making noise when they’re sleeping   It seems I’ve been doing it for a little while, about once a week or so.  Weird.

This has been a completely scattered entry, please excuse it.  I think I’ve just gotten out of the habit of regularly blogging as stuff happens, so I end up with lots of little things that are unrelated to ‘get out’.  I’ll have to try to write here more regularly, especially now we have more available time.

I served a notice of non-payment of rent on two of our tenants today.  They’re a couple who live in one of our units – the fully reno’d one that took us eight months or so last year to get finished.  They have a history of paying late.  They’re supposed to have the rent in the account on Saturday.  Well, they were good to start with, then they slowly started paying later.  And later.  And the original phone calls we got apologising changed into text messages ‘letting us know’ and then, nothing.  I don’t like calling or texting tenants to ask when the rent will be paid.  As far as I’m concerned, it’s their responsibility to remember.  Surely it’s not that hard to forget to pay for your shelter, whether it’s rent or mortgage payments?

Anyhow, they paid a week late the week before last, and I said to the girl that we would charge a late fee next time.  I served them with the notice this afternoon, after work.  They’re five days overdue.  I wasn’t sure about the reception I’d get, so I actually used a digital voice recorder from work to tape the coversation, just in case it gets nasty down the track.  It was a short but courteous interaction, so hopefully they’ll get the hint and start paying on time without me needed to hound them about it. 

One of the things I did include was a service charge of an additional $50 on top of their overdue rent.  This is specified in their lease, should they break the Residential Tenancies’ Act or their lease, and a notice be served as a result.  Finally I thought, no, it’s in the lease for a reason, and we’ve let it go before – it’s not like it’s the first time they’ve been late.  So I included it with the notice, and mentioned it to the girl when I served the notice.  (‘Serving the notice’ sounds formal, but all it means it that I handed it to a relevant person as defined under the Act.)  She seemed a bit surprised, but I did kind of appear from nowhere with the paperwork, so that’s to be expected.  (I didn’t want to call in case they pretended to be out when I got there, which would prevent me serving her with the notice.)

Yes, so that is one to keep an eye on.  I’m so hoping they get the hint and just pay their bloody rent on time from now on.  Watch this space.

It’s Thursday night already!  Where has the week gone?!

As per usual, it’s been a busy one.  Monday night we had an annual general meeting for one of our groups of units.  It was a good meeting, we got a quorum, and we decided on some capital works projects for the coming financial year.  We have a good group of owners in this block, which is good to see – all very concerned with maintaining the building appropriately.  That went from 6pm to 7:30pm, so it was basically straight after work.

After the meeting, I went to our just-vacated unit and did a clean.  SO refers to these cleans as ‘details’ because that’s really what happens.  I didn’t vacuum or mop the floors, for example – but I did scrub around tap fittings with an old toothbrush, to get rid of built-up scum.  I also made sure that the shower and toilet were spotless, dusted all the surfaces, cleaned marks off walls, wiped the fridge out, those kinds of things.  Poor SO turned up just after 9pm, as he’d been trying to call my mobile and I hadn’t been answering, so he’d panicked.  (I’d left it in the car.  Whoops.)  He then helped out by doing a few things like changing blown light globes, cleaning windows, cleaning dead bugs out of the light fittings, checked the inventory list against what was actually there, etc.  By the time we’d finished up and got home, it was after 10:30am, and we were both knackered.

Tuesday I actually got a phone call from some prospective tenants, so (thanking my lucky stars I’d cleaned the unit!) we met them straight after work.  A travelling Irish couple with a friend, they loved it and wanted to move in immediately, so we agreed to meet at lunchtime the next day and do the paperwork, and they could take the keys and move in after that.  I knew though that there were a few things that still needed to be organised – the unit needed a new mop, and also some new teatowels.  I also wanted to do a welcome basket for them.  All of this required an early-morning dash to the shops on Wednesday, to get everything, then to the unit to put it all in there.  Got to work at 9:15am, organised the paperwork for the new tenants, and met them at noon and signed up the lease documentation.

Wednesday night I had dinner with the girls.  My friend E who recently got married had some news for us – she’s pregnant!!  She and J are over the moon.  It was a honeymoon baby, which they’d hoped for, so that’s lovely.  It was quite funny, out of the five of us at dinner last night, three of us were pregnant – myself and my friend S.  After E told us, I turned to S and asked, ‘So…. got anything you’d like to share with us?!’  She didn’t.

Dinner consisted primarily of discussing baby-related stuff, from home births (which E is going to try) through to the smacking/non smacking debate.  It was interesting, but I’m not sure how long my interest will be sustained…. after all, I’m not really clucky about (or even interested in) kids.  Still, I’m so happy for my friends.  I hope it goes well for all of them, especially after M and L’s experiences last year.  And I know I’ll be a great aunty.

So yes, a very busy week.  I woke up today and really felt bone tired.  As a result, I only worked a short day – I left work at 12:30pm, went home and slept.  Still tired now, but better, and I’ll be even better tomorrow, I hope, after a good night’s sleep.  SO said again that he thinks my tiredness is a result of depression and anxiety, which could well be the case.  I was hoping my recent blood tests would throw up something that a tablet could easily fix, like a thyroid problem, but alas they all came back fine.  So it’s back to the psychosomatic theory.

The weekend looks like being another busy one.  We’re up to painting (yay!!!) and the bathroom cabinet will be installed tomorrow (double yay!!!!!) so it’s finally tangibly progressing.  Saturday night Mum and J have asked us over to dinner, so that should be fun, playing with the dogs.  I love animals and it’s the one sadness of my life, that we can’t have any as SO is so allergic.  But I do get my pet fix when I see Mum.

Sunday looks like more reno stuff, namely painting.  So exciting, it’s finally moving along!  I can’t wait ’til it’s finished.  I’ll make sure to post some before and after photos, to show the scope of works.

Wow, it feels like longer than a week since I last wrote here.  I must admit, nothing spectacularly interesting has been going on.  We spent every evening except Friday at the reno after work, sanding and patching, sanding and patching.  I think we may FINALLY be coming to the end of it.  I’d forgotten how slow and monotonous this part of doing a reno is.  Still, in a few days’ time we’ll hopefully be painting, which will speed things right up.

We had tenants move out today, and this is a first for us – we don’t have new ones lined up to take their place.  I’m not too concerned, at this point.  But what do we do if in a month it’s still empty?  I don’t want to drop the rental rate, as it doesn’t cover the mortgage as it is, and will mean more money out of our own pockets to meet the repayments.  Sigh…. I guess I’ll worry about it in a month’s time, if it’s still an issue then.

I”m still sleeping really badly.  It’s been weeks now that I’ve woken up every night for a couple of hours or so.  I know it’s because there’s lots happening, but it gives me the whoops.  And SO gets really grumpy about it too.  I was up for three hours last night, and finally got tired (and relaxed) enough to go back to bed.  So I crept in and very quietly slid into bed.  Well, SO began an inquisition.  ‘Where have you been??’  ‘Awake, on the net.’

‘Why??’  ’Couldn’t sleep.’ 

He grunted.  ‘I don’t like you doing that [getting up out of bed to surf, I think he meant.]‘

At this point, I grunted back (something I never do) and rolled away from him.  It’s bad enough to have early morning wakefulness, but even worse when your normally sweet, understanding husband gives you a hard time about it.  I felt like saying, ‘What the fuck do you think I can do about it?!’ but wasn’t prepared to start World War III at 4am.   Grrrr.  Maybe I should’ve.

Still, he was his usual sweet self in the morning, and he even was fine with me going home and having a nap after only spending three hours at the reno today, so I’ve forgiven him.  This time.

It’s been a busy weekend.  SO went for another all-day bike ride yesterday, so I cleaned the bathrooms and toilets, did the food shopping, and also did about five loads of laundry and hung it out.  I also had good intentions of cooking, but all I managed was to half-do some rissoles.  After that I collapsed in a heap and slept for four hours.  Whoops.

Today being Mother’s Day, we saw SO’s stepmum for breakfast.  We went over to their place, but took our coffee machine, and made french toast.  It was nice, but we got there at 9 am and didn’t actually eat until 11:30am, by which time SO was frothing at the mouth he was so hungry.  I was okay as I’d had two coffees by that point, so I was high on life and caffeine.  SO still isn’t in touch with his mum, and mine is currently away in New Zealand with her boyfriend, so it was an easy day for us.  (In the past we’ve had to see all three on the same day, which was a killer for both of us.)

We got home after 1pm and I had every intention of having an afternoon nap.  However, SO was going to a couple of the units to do some work (one needed new tap washers, the other needed a replacement TV as theirs blew up) and I wandered outside to say goodbye.  In doing so, I was confronted by SO’s latest acquisition – a fridge/freezer he’d picked up from the side of the road.  It does work; but it was so revoltingly filthy, I had previously vowed I wasn’t going near it, much less clean it.  The black, fluffy mould which covered the interior was retch-making, and would probably lead to a nasty dose of ebola if it was inhaled.

Anyhow, I looked at it.  And yes, two and a half hours later, the bloody thing was clean, inside and out.  I’m sure there are antibiotics you can take for ebola, so I’m not too concerned.  When SO came home and saw it, he was overjoyed….. new beer fridge!!!  As a result, he actually offered to cook dinner – grilled fish and vegies – so I took him up on his very kind offer.  Quid pro quo (otherwise known as, ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’.)   ;)

Here it is, Sunday afternoon already.   Where on earth did the weekend go?!  We did sleep in today, admittedly; but then we made up for it.  The kitchen and both bathrooms are clean, the bedsheets changed and washed, and about six loads of laundry have been done.  Oh, and dinner is already slowly simmering away in the oven.  Meat and veg casserole – cheap, tastes good, easy to make, reheats beautifully.  It’s just about the perfect dish, especially for somebody with my limited interest in food.

Yesterday was a busy day.  We had different stuff to do, all in the morning, which resulted in a huge rush from 9am until midday.  We needed to lodge some mortgage documents for the latest purchase, then SO and I needed to go to different units – SO to hang some mirrors and check a sticky door, me to give some new tenants their keys, show them the meterbox, etc.  After that I came home via the shops, where I bought some much needed necessities like milk and bread.  (Yes, that’s how bad things had got.  So shoot me.)  After that, I did some paperwork, and washed my hair, then fell into bed for an afternoon nap.

I needed the nap because I had a hen’s night on last night.  My friend E is getting married next weekend, so we were celebrating in the traditional way, by eating indian food and then going out to sing karaoke.  The dinner was great fun, and I enjoyed myself.  My other close friends were all there too, so we essentially used dinner as a way of catching up on what has been happening with each of us.  Some great news – my friend L, who lost her baby last year in very sad circumstances, is 11 weeks’ pregnant.  I’m so happy for her and her husband.  I hope this time has a happy ending for them both. 

And there was also some sad news – my friend S’s dad was made redundant.  I’ve always been extremely fond of S’s dad, as he and my father were in the same line of work, and both had very similar temperaments.  So when S told me, I was really saddened.  Apparently he’s coming to terms with it though, and as I said to S, at least this way he and S’s mum will be almost forced to enjoy some time together, which is something my parents missed out on – Dad left work only because he was sick, then he got worse very quickly and died.  S agreed with me, especially as her dad (like my dad) is a workaholic, so they really almost need something like a redundancy to concentrate on other parts of their lives.

Yeah, so the dinner was good.  Then we went to the karaoke bar…. and I felt old.  I mean, not old; but too old to be at a karaoke bar, or indeed any bar, probably.  It was incredibly disconcerting.  Up until about five years ago, my friends and I were still going out clubbing/pubbing fairly regularly, but there’s no way we’d do something like that now.  We’re not prepared to be mutton dressed up as lamb, essentially.  So yes, we all got a drink (except L) and stood awkwardly around in a circle, wincing at the overly loud music and trying to hold conversations with each other.  S and I found we could amuse ourselves by laughing at how bad people were, or alternatively, how serious they were.  (I had no idea that karaoke is such an important thing to some people.)  We stuck it out for about an hour and a half, then we made our apologies and left.  As we walked out, we all breathed a collective sigh of relief that we could hear ourselves think again.  Yep, I’m waaaaay past it.

As mentioned in this post, we had tenants leaving one of our units this weekend.  When I did the final inspection, the place was spotless.  They’d obviously worked really hard to get it spick and span, and it looked like it did when they moved in.  We’d completely renovated it and finished just before they did move in, so to all intents and purposes, it looked ‘brand new’.

And yet, despite all this, it took SO and I about three and a half hours to get it up to scratch for the new tenants.  Why is this?  Well, there are things that tenants just never do.  By default, it’s our responsibility to do these things before we hand the unit over to the new tenants.  Usually this is ’spring clean’ kind of stuff, but some of it is fairly routine (you would think).  These things include:

• cleaning around taps and spout fittings with an old toothbrush and a cream cleanser;
• emptying the light fittings of the bugs that have died in them;
• washing windows and sliding doors;
• cleaning the oven (I’ve never met a tenant yet who cleans the oven <sigh>);
• vacuuming dirt out of window and sliding door tracks;
• damp dusting every surface, including tops of wardrobes, door jambs and the fridge;
• wiping every cupboard shelf down with a cream cleanser (gets the marks off);
• properly cleaning the fridge;
• moving the furniture and vacuuming underneath everything;
• checking all the lights and replacing any blown globes;
• wiping sundry marks off walls; and
• cleaning filters for air conditioning units, expel air fans, etc.

This doesn’t include the handyman-type stuff, which SO takes care of – things like changing the flyscreen on the screen doors, changing tap washers, etc.  It also doesn’t include the ‘extra’ stuff that finds its way onto the list, like scrubbing graffiti off the external part of the air conditioner, which was needed for this turnover.  (Luckily it came off relatively easily). 

Then there’s organising the paperwork – drawing up two copies of the lease, the bond documentation, the initial inspection paperwork, as well as remembering to put in the two receipt books, and the little guide we produce for every unit which outlines handy info such as who’s responsible for what utilities, local shops/doctors/chemists/you name it. 

So yes, it’s a full on process.  However, it’s all worth it – when we do it all ourselves, it saves money, and gives us a better idea of how the place is looking generally.  We also become aware if there are any potential problems that might arise in the near future.  For example, when I opened the kitchen cupboard which houses the water heater, I saw two little cockroaches.  Yuck!!  Now, both SO and I remember the cockroach infestation that was in this unit when we originally bought it.  They particularly love the water heater, because it’s warm, and the main plumbing duct is an entrance and exit to our unit for them.  While our tenants didn’t mention any problems with cockroaches, we now know that they do still get in, so we can take preventative measures and give that cupboard a spray and some baits to manage the problem.

So yes, it can be very handy turning over rental properties.  You keep an eye on the place, save money, and have a better awareness of how it’s travelling generally.  It’s definitely worth it for us on cost savings alone.