Carbon monoxide anxiety levels have reduced
7 Likes
Apparently it’s my fault because I like pudding
1 Like
Xmas songs and turkey culls. Beautiful.
1 Like
The Sir Keir Starmer Story
4 Likes
Still feeling pissed off from yesterday.
So basically my dad died two years ago, and we sold his house (parents divorced for a very long time). It’s a cute craftsmany type 1920s house that the original owner built themselves - lots of nice old woodwork, slightly weird layout and ways of doing things, garden with fruit trees. Not the biggest rooms, but a nice old house with a good feeling. My parents bought it in the early 80s for a very reasonable amount of money, and my dad hadn’t redecorated or changed anything since about 1995, so the windows, boiler and bathroom desperately needed replacing, but you could definitely move in there and live while you fixed things up.
It didn’t make any sense (or financial possibility) for either me, my brother or sister to keep the house, so my sister tried to make sure it was sold to someone who wanted to live there, rather than a developer who would strip everything out to flip it, or demolish the house and build on the garden. The couple who bought it seemed really keen and acted like they loved the house.
Then yesterday I found out they’d spent the last two years demolishing everything inside and adding a huge boxy extension (that seems bigger than the original house almost) to turn it into a giant open plan Grand Designs McMansion. All the downstairs interior walls are gone, along with the carved wooden fireplace, panelled doors, bannisters etc. My old room is now a windowless bathroom with tacky marble his and hers sinks. They cut down all the trees in the garden and pulled up all the plants.
Like if you want some huge modern open plan minimalist mansion, why not just get that? Why buy a cute medium sized period house with small to medium sized rooms and then tear it apart?
Even worse, after spending two years irreversibly ruining the house (and not living there), they’ve obviously run out of money and are trying to sell it as an abandoned building site. For £250,000 profit. Feels very Boris-era Tory. Where did they get all that money to spend on ruining a house for two years and not even living there?
(I’m not going to link to the estate agents listing because it has the address- here’s a couple of photos)
The front room previously-
That’s the original wooden fireplace - there was a hatch into the kitchen behind those shelves that we never used.
Lots of original panelled doors, skirting board and architraving, and thick wooden lintels (plus very tired carpet and lino)
Now- no doors or trim or bannisters or fireplace (that stone one is from the 80s and used to be in the back room over on the right hand side- I don’t think it’s even real stone, my parents got it reduced at the time).
The front room is now a sort of weird waiting room corner before you go into the huge open plan area. They also got rid of a large window for some reason to fit the radiator in there.
Extremely dated 70s kitchen. The photo I’m holding is from the early 90s, showing how it hadn’t changed at all in any way since then until 2018 when I took the picture, except my dad bought a dishwasher and a new microwave at some point. (The round mini sink always got called the potato sink and hadn’t worked in years- the real sink was under the window).
Giant empty box extension. Where that solitary sink is, is where the kitchen used to end. The extension is as big as the original house on the floor plan.
The old back door. Downstairs is the kitchen, upstairs my old room. About level where the sad sink is in the extension photo. All gone.
The new back of the house, with frankenroof. The windows on the left were the original end of the l-shaped bit that have been extended even further out. Now it’s a big square lump.
How the garden was before- lots of trees and shrubs and plants. Luckily that wood area you can see at the end is kind of communal/plus protected, and they can’t chop any of those trees down. My family just never bothered to put a fence up at the end of the lawn where the proper garden ends, because the view was nice. (View from my window upstairs above the kitchen)
The garden after they were done. Everything chopped down and thrown away, and the lawn churned up. Also note metal fence.
My Dad used to work for Kidde. Might break my likes record with this bad boy!
3 Likes
I didn’t see your post before I replied to Rob, apologies that it now looks really insensitive 
You go get your Smoke Detector Mates clout, don’t worry
1 Like
CO Crew 4 Eva 
Is your speciality dish cider from a lemon lemon lemon lemon lemon lemon lemon?
4 Likes
He might not want to talk about it anymore…
1 Like
Plz someone motivate me to get off the sofa and put my workout clothes on 
But it’s so warm and cosy and if you’re on the sofa then Winnie can join you 
Such snuggles. Embrace it, gnomey.
2 Likes
Never try and get into the mind of developers (or wannabe developers). They’re a different breed. Everything is seen in monetary terms with no regard for emotion. It might have made good 90s / 00s television, but it’s done serious damage to so many properties in this country 
Every bastard year I get myself some mince pies and think “yep, this is it! This is the year I really enjoy them! Because I’m an adult with a sophisticated palette that eats olives and drinks red wine out of choice so of course I’ll love mince pies.”
And you know what? Never happens. Because urgh.
They wrote a horrible glurgy text on the listing too about how it was going to be their “forever home”.
You could have had a lovely 1920s period forever home by spending about £20k on some new windows and bathroom and kitchen in a matter of months!
4 Likes
I thought the same as you Kermy until I had Vienesse Mince Pies. Changed my life.
1 Like
I think I would have felt less insulted if some competent developer had come along and done it up blandly and got it finished. Like it would have been sad, but there would have still been a house people could live in.
Instead these people have spent an absolute fortune creating a terrible mess and just walked away from it.
And I guess as well resentment that they had the money to create this horrible mess. Like they must have been living somewhere else while spending two years carving the place up.
Some other family who perhaps might have only just been able to afford it could have had the house and lived there and enjoyed it.
Instead these people threw vast sums of money at ruining an already nice house to live out an unrealistic fantasy. Just seems so entitled and spoilt?
Oh man, those sound 
It’s not the filling I dislike! Or even the sugary pastry! I think it’s the combination of the two that screams “Brexit means Brexit.” that means my body just rejects it.
Thought of you this morning actually, cause I was thinking about how much I want to go to a Christmas market and they have those Yorkshire wraps and I’ve never had one but thought “you know who’d enjoy them too? Funky.”
1 Like