Brick Walls

I wanted to write a post about a fabulous line in a book, but my book is currently in storage along with the other 11/12ths of my life.  So I'll write about that instead.  Superstitious as I am I was going to save this post until my life was happily unpacked in my house, so I'll give you the safe version.

We've lived in Australia 5 years and almost 7 months and for almost all of that time, we've owned a house that we haven't lived in for clever husband reasons. It's a do-up.  A tired, crusty do-up with less than average bathrooms.  I do like a nice bathroom.  And even worse than less than average bedrooms.  Which I can live with. We had plans of greatness, of House and Garden style makeovers, of nice bathrooms.  But life has changed, call it two GFCs, or perhaps call it buying into a business, or even call it removing the rose tinted glasses, but the do-up is no longer on our short term horizon. *sigh*

This house was going to be my Grown Up House - the one you imagine yourself living when you're grown up.  With beige and white everything, nice furniture and not an smidge of quirkiness or council clean up finds.

We've had a collection of tenants in it over the years, from the ones who lived in it after they sold their $3.4m house across the road (they were always dissatisfied with it - I would have been too), to the ones who moved in on a Friday and I received a call at 8.30am on the Saturday to say they were moving out.  Apparently they didn't like it after all.  They were our favourites, especially as they had to pay rent for a long, long time after that.
So with our own living situation changed  the owners of the very pleasant house we were living in - which had satisfactory bathrooms, decided they wanted to come back and live in it, so booted us out, meaning we are currently living in a teeny tiny house chocker block full of us.  We told our tenants we needed our house back please, they got grumpy with us, tried to play tenancy chicken, and gave us notice, we carried on a bit like this, and then we said 'no really, we need our house back please'. Then they got all narky and said "tenancy tribunal, blah, blah, 90 days notice blah blah, not going anywhere sorry, blah, blah".

This happened one school day, so instead of freaking out and calling The Husband in a blind tearful panic, I thought I'd try and answer a few "what by when" questions first.  So I called the Tenancy tribunal people myself.  And spoke to an unhelpful person who said "nah, you have no rights, the tenants have all the rights...sorry".  Undeterred I asked to be escalated up the Tenancy Tribunal important people ladder.  Next stop, same response..."no rights...blah, blah...sorry".  Mild panic was setting in.  School pick up time was looming.  Next person please...she was lucky enough to get the indignant, panic stricken, tearful me, she was quick to terminate my call with a brick wall. Three people, three brick walls.  I regrouped, and thought I'd try a different approach and ask some sneaky questions.  So yet another phone call to another person at the Tribunal, and this time, a fleeting mention of a few words, and my life saver threw me a much needed life line.  Triumphant, I phoned the Husband with The Facts.  And triumphantly we went on the war path.  And happily we move into our house in 2 weeks.
Let me correct that, we move into our home in 2 weeks.  Because after many years of renting, we can now bang nails in whatever walls we want, we can feel a tiny bit like getting in the garden or water blasting the pavers, or just doing general house stuff, beyond the basic cleaning.  This is all ours baby.  No one can kick us out, it's ours all ours....  (maniacal laughing)

Postscript.  I am perhaps the worlds least interested gardener, I am no intention of water blasting anything, and I still have secret plans of mini-makeovers
Postscript: This house in the photo unfortunately isn't the one we'll be moving into.  I'm sure the bathroom(s) are nice though