The grumpy thread

[richardmorris]

For anything expensive from Amazon I tend to arrange a local pick-up just in case. It isn’t far in my case just the local coop.

[reb]

  On 19/10/2024 at 16:51, richardmorris said:

I went through this with Amazon before. Never arrived despite saying delivered. No proof of delivery though and they did refund. Turned up out of the blue 6 months later, so the brio railway track for my niece was a free Christmas present not a birthday one.

 

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With any luck whoever it did get delivered to is both honest and knows where my house is and brings it round. Free chair!

[artdjones]

  On 19/10/2024 at 15:45, richardmorris said:

Just cleaned the windows. Now the sun is on them, they look worse!

 

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Get a pro in.

[artdjones]

My grump is that most jobs on cars are made more difficulty by the people who have worked on the car before you. I did a timing belt change on a 1.5 DCi Renault today. When the time came to take the crank pulley bolt out, the impact gun wouldn't touch it. So I got a friend to jam a chisel into the fly wheel teeth after removing the starter and attacked it with a socket and a 5ft scaffold pole on my t bar. Result? The 6 point socket split, and I wouldn't even try with my 12 point. I nipped over to a neighbour's and borrowed an old school 6 point Bahco socket from him which moved it, but it was tight enough to need a 2 ft breaker bar for ¾ of the way out. There was some grey stuff on the threads which had turned to powder. I suppose it was some kind of thread lock. Once the hole had been blown out with the compressor, it was possible to screw the bolt in using fingers only. So that wasted quite a bit of time.

[richardmorris]

  On 19/10/2024 at 16:54, artdjones said:

Get a pro in.

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They do the outsides. 

[artdjones]

  On 19/10/2024 at 17:08, richardmorris said:

They do the outsides. 

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They will probably weep next time, then.

Get a cheap squeegee, put a good layer of Fairy Liquid sudsy water( maybe with some vinegar in)on the window, squeegee it off, then use some dry microfibre cloths to carefully polish off any residue.

Never use the squeegee exactly parallel to the window frame, always at a slight angle, and each stoke should slightly overlap the one before.

[Pieman]

  On 19/10/2024 at 16:31, reb said:

DPD.

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That reminds me - I went to my boss's house in Surrey a couple of weeks ago (was going with him to an event so he let me leave my car at his place while we took the same flight).  As I arrived, there were two fairly large cars parked up virtually opposite one another in the cul-de-sac he lives in (there was an entire road they could have parked in, but no, they had to park opposite one another for maximum inconvenience).  That isn't what made me incredulous though.  As I approached, a DPD van pulled up to deliver a parcel, and the driver left the van in the middle of the road directly between the two parked cars.

I am sure he did it deliberately just to piss other road users off - he left the engine running in the van while he made the delivery and I almost got out and shifted the thing myself!

[reb]

  On 19/10/2024 at 17:23, Pieman said:

That reminds me - I went to my boss's house in Surrey a couple of weeks ago (was going with him to an event so he let me leave my car at his place while we took the same flight).  As I arrived, there were two fairly large cars parked up virtually opposite one another in the cul-de-sac he lives in (there was an entire road they could have parked in, but no, they had to park opposite one another for maximum inconvenience).  That isn't what made me incredulous though.  As I approached, a DPD van pulled up to deliver a parcel, and the driver left the van in the middle of the road directly between the two parked cars.

I am sure he did it deliberately just to piss other road users off - he left the engine running in the van while he made the delivery and I almost got out and shifted the thing myself!

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Recently I was in town and one of their drivers had left their van fully on the pavement next to the main road, more or less completely blocking it. I may* have bashed/folded the mirror with my shoulder as I passed.

[myglaren]

  On 19/10/2024 at 17:17, artdjones said:

They will probably weep next time, then.

Get a cheap squeegee, put a good layer of Fairy Liquid sudsy water( maybe with some vinegar in)on the window, squeegee it off, then use some dry microfibre cloths to carefully polish off any residue.

Never use the squeegee exactly parallel to the window frame, always at a slight angle, and each stoke should slightly overlap the one before.

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That was what I did.  Looks like impressionist art anyway.

[richardmorris]

  On 19/10/2024 at 17:39, myglaren said:

That was what I did.  Looks like impressionist art anyway.

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This was after window spray and two microfibre cloths.  Ho hum. £17 a month for the outside 5windows

[chaseracer]

  On 19/10/2024 at 17:57, richardmorris said:

£17 a month for the outside 5windows

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HFM??!  We used to pay 13quid for a 3-bed detached; nine windows plus conservatory.

Until the bloke subcontracted to his mate, who was a dick...

[richardmorris]

  On 19/10/2024 at 18:01, chaseracer said:

HFM??!  We used to pay 13quid for a 3-bed detached; nine windows plus conservatory.

Until the bloke subcontracted to his mate, who was a dick...

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It was £15 for ten years. 

[Bren]

I had a tooth extraction a couple of weeks ago - a molar. The socket took it's time to heal and I now have a bone spur in the socket.

I had a tooth on the other side filled - dentist spotted that it might be cracked. I can't bite down on it - hardly eaten anything for two weeks and for the first time in 52 years I am developing a set of abs....

[artdjones]

  On 19/10/2024 at 18:01, chaseracer said:

HFM??!  We used to pay 13quid for a 3-bed detached; nine windows plus conservatory.

Until the bloke subcontracted to his mate, who was a dick...

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I would have thought a union man like you would have been all for the working man making a decent wage. And £13 for a three bed with conservatory wouldn't come near that.

[chaseracer]

  On 19/10/2024 at 19:01, artdjones said:

I would have thought a union man like you would have been all for the working man making a decent wage. And £13 for a three bed with conservatory wouldn't come near that.

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[chadders]

Ours is £22.50 for the roughly 25 windows on the ground and first floors plus the conservatory. It was £20 up to a couple of years ago.

It doesn’t add up to me but he regularly holidays in Turkey and often spends £1k on a new puppy. Anyway it's his business, literally.

[Metal Guru]

  On 20/10/2024 at 09:28, chadders said:

Ours is £22.50 for the roughly 25 windows on the ground and first floors plus the conservatory. It was £20 up to a couple of years ago.

It doesn’t add up to me but he regularly holidays in Turkey and often spends £1k on a new puppy. Anyway it's his business, literally.

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Helps when your business is cash and you “only” turn over £12k a year.

[chadders]

  On 20/10/2024 at 10:09, Metal Guru said:

Helps when your business is cash and you “only” turn over £12k a year.

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It does but if still doesn't seem enough.

He's got an assistant and they're here for about half an hour.

I can't be bothered with the numbers but he runs a fairly new van so his overheads won't be trivial.

[andy18s]

  On 19/10/2024 at 15:45, richardmorris said:

Just cleaned the windows. Now the sun is on them, they look worse!

 

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We use one of these little Karcher vacuums, brilliant bit of kit

[artdjones]

  On 20/10/2024 at 10:48, chadders said:

It does but if still doesn't seem enough.

He's got an assistant and they're here for about half an hour.

I can't be bothered with the numbers but he runs a fairly new van so his overheads won't be trivial.

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So one man hour for £22.50. I'd say he has another "sideline" in the back of his van. Or is money laundering. Even minimum wage is £11.40ph, put National Insurance  and a new van onto that, plus the fact that neither of them will be earning while they drive to the next job. You're right. That doesn't add up. It would only add up if the charge was £50.

 

[Remspoor]

  On 19/10/2024 at 15:45, richardmorris said:

Just cleaned the windows. Now the sun is on them, they look worse!

 

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Cleaning vinegar (do not use table vinegar) and newspaper.  We grab free newspapers when they are left around and save them up.

[myglaren]

3 a.m. a couple of nights ago it sounded like squirrels in hobnail boots in my attic, immediately above my bed.  Went on for about an hour then silence.  Began again at 05:20-ish.  Only for ten~fifteen minutes this time.

I should go and check but it is not in the main attic but an annex that is very difficult to access.  No one has been in there in at least twenty years, only the bees and starlings that nest in there.

Maybe next year.

And laid in the bath reading, sounded like the bloke next door was coming through the wall with an SDS drill.

I suspect it was the wind attempting to remove the solar panels though.  I hope they don't leave without saying bye-bye.

[maxxo]

No doubt going to end up being a grump from this

but the fact is I spend around £800 a month on tabs 

i can’t justify it, I can’t continue smoking 40 a day

i can’t be bothered

im sick of it

I’ve been recommended this so let’s just

im annoyed at myself for becoming such a chain smoker

i can’t afford it yet I literally sit there all day burning money

[High Jetter]

  On 20/10/2024 at 20:40, myglaren said:

3 a.m. a couple of nights ago it sounded like squirrels in hobnail boots in my attic, immediately above my bed.  Went on for about an hour then silence.  Began again at 05:20-ish.  Only for ten~fifteen minutes this time.

I should go and check but it is not in the main attic but an annex that is very difficult to access.  No one has been in there in at least twenty years, only the bees and starlings that nest in there.

Maybe next year.

And laid in the bath reading, sounded like the bloke next door was coming through the wall with an SDS drill.

I suspect it was the wind attempting to remove the solar panels though.  I hope they don't leave without saying bye-bye.

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Try an ultrasonic mouse repeller, scared our squirrels away.

[GrumpiusMaximus]

  On 20/10/2024 at 23:48, High Jetter said:

Try an ultrasonic mouse repeller, scared our squirrels away.

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The same as the ones that supposedly send cats away?

i) They don't work.  We had a cat shitting on our (shared) front lawn for a year after our next door neighbour put one in.
ii) They're fucking antisocial.  Some people (myself included) can hear them clear as a bell and it's just irritating.

One of our neighbours decided to do a land grab and claim a bunch of communal land as their own in a snicket that goes onto the main road.  They put three of them in a row in this narrow space that a lot of people walk through.  Within a week, somebody had taken golf clubs to them...

[chadders]

  On 20/10/2024 at 23:48, High Jetter said:

Try an ultrasonic mouse repeller, scared our squirrels away.

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They scared our mice away as well. I don't know about squirrels though as they're just in the old stables where the mice can get I and the squirrels don't bother.

[High Jetter]

  On 21/10/2024 at 05:57, GrumpiusMaximus said:

The same as the ones that supposedly send cats away?

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I think a different frequency, have experience of inneffectual and annoying cat repellers too.

[myglaren]

  On 20/10/2024 at 23:48, High Jetter said:

Try an ultrasonic mouse repeller, scared our squirrels away.

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Very awkward to install there. 

My neighbour has one but the cat ignores it.

No further incidents though.

[cobblers]

Speaking of loft based rodents, we've got rats in ours, I think someone on the allotments next-door has a compost heap that they put food waste on and we're pretty rural so the place is fucking teeming with rats.

Our loft is fucking disgusting - every bit of pipe insulation is chewed to pieces, layers and layers of fibreglass insulation riddled with paths, burrows and chewed up debris. A horrific place to be, an hour up there feels like a full day on planet earth!

I've had pest control bloke out and we've put plenty of poison about, and inevitably there's a couple of dead ones up there, causing a foul stench in the hallway.

I went up yesterday to try and locate the corpses. Masked up with half a pack of airwaves chewing gum in my gob to mask the stink. Predictably the dead ones are buried in insulation right in the eaves at the hardest to access place.

I crawled over towards it, getting snarled up in cobwebs and dead flies. As soon as I disturbed the area I unleashed about ten million flies all started swarming at me and my head torch. Totally grossed me out, my claustrophobia kicked in and I got out of there fucking sharpish, very nearly coming through the ceiling a couple of times

 

How long does it take for a dead rat to stop stinking if I just let nature do it's thing?

 

Plan is to have all the many layers of filthy loft insulation removed after winter - you can get a company that will come out and hoover the lot up through a 18 inch wide hose into their truck, then  once it's clean I can work out what I can do about it all and maybe replace it with something like kingspan that they're less likely to nest in.

 

 

[wuvvum]

Hairy Japanese bastards!