Fixer Upper

I have no idea how old our apartment block is, or any of the buildings around here. They look pretty old to me, but then we did see buildings in China that looked old and derelict from the moment the builders completed their work, so who can tell?

I am not sure that our apartment block is sound. I'm fairly sure that we are leaning just slightly. Whenever Peter uses his weights and then puts them down, they straightaway roll to one side of the room. None of the doors can be closed properly, and when we pull the bedroom door almost closed and then let it go, it swings back and forth about five times of its own accord - I'm guessing it just doesn't hang straight.

We often found that there was a bad smell, especially in wet weather, and we suspected that it had something to do with the trapdoor and duct in the bathroom. Since we installed an extractor fan and the weather has been dry for ages we haven't had trouble with that.

But now it's Spring. Time to fix things. We came home one day to find the workmen in our foyer.

They had ripped out the electrical metre boxes and were apparently planning to install new ones, part of Spring necessities.

Unfortunately, these renovations required that the power be turned off, and yet at the same time they needed electricity to complete their work.





So while the apartment residents went without power for a few hours, young Waldo there held the bare wires together to run his mate's power tools.



We suspected that the bad smells may have something to do with (what Charlotte calls) "the Down" in the apartment block. Its always been too dark and cluttered with junked for us to peek down there or venture down to explore. But now, they fixed the electrics in the building there was a light shining down there.


Now we can see ( and we still haven't been down there!) that there are at least two below ground floors ... oooh dungeon! And dank! Bleh!

So the renovators and workmen got to work down there. They have been dragging out mouldy wooden doors - which they they smashed into small pieces and carried away in rubbish bags - and huge broken up fibreglass tanky things (wonder what was in those?) ... and broken up brick walls. I hope they weren't supporting walls.


Then there was a long day when the whole building stank of creosote, or some such. We guessed they were doing some kind of waterproofing, sealing. And then they poured in gallons of sand. Lots and lots, and apparently some cement in there somewhere. They have made a new floor down there, several feet thick, flat and smooth and odour-blocking.

Bells and Whistles

We had a doorbell that made an annoying twittering-birds sound. So when someone was downstairs and they wanted to get into the building for whatever reason, they would press our bell more often than not. Apparently our bell button was at just the right height for anyone and everyone to press - including people visiting the accountancy business on our floor. There was no intercom, we were just expected to drag ourselves to our door every time and press the downstairs door button. So we disconnected our bell - we figured our real friends could phone us.

But now, with the renovations, we have a new doorbell!

It took them three days of work, power off, door kept open while people came and went and smoked in and out of the apartment ...

And we have an intercom on the inside, so if you want us to open the security door you'll have to tell us who you are.

In English please.