WHERE'S BEST TO LIVE IN NZ AND WHAT DO WE NEED TO KNOW:PART 3!!!!(HOLY SHIT!)

[AngryBeaver]

Can you believe we've finished finished off another thread? Jeez we can talk!!
Just an update..we've found a nice double glazed,4 bed house,with nice garden. So that's one stress off the last.
Hilongwhitecloud

Estate agent just turned up "to let us know when the viewing would be & organise for photos to be taken". We've heard nothing official from the landlord

I suspect we're going to have a fight on our hands.

I'm really hoping we can get something near DD1's school or we'll have to move her... I don't think she can handle too much more change

How rude. I would talk to the landlord ASAP- they will be signing up to advertising and paying the photographer.

Might be a good idea to do it by email so you have a legal record?

Doozy means something extraordinary or unique.

Did you get through to Energywise/council to clarify the heating grants situation justabout?

Hi Justabout- we are not ex-pats so I don't post here usually but just saw your post about insulation and grants.

We looked at the cost and quotes from several companies for our insulation (ceiling and underfloor), and it cost us less than a third of the cheapest quote to do it ourselves, including paying some skinny friends to get under the house and install it. Meant that we could afford to insulate sooner than we had thought and it only took half a day to do under the house and a few hours for the ceiling.

You can find the (new) materials on TradeMe. I think we got our underfloor insulation for about $7/square metre and used pink batts in the ceiling- found them cheap on TradeMe too- including a few bags of offcuts which we used to fill gaps.

Hope this helps!

We put in our insulation ourselves too (well, dh and a friend's son did, I made cups of tea and helpful suggestions). Definitley cost a fair bit under a grand - only ceiling insulation though.

Justabout - if you do decide to do it yourselves I volunteer DH as manual labour. He'll be happy to help.

Latest here is estate agent who manages place & handled rental was here this afternoon about something else. She's not impressed with how it has been handled and is v much on our side.

Selling agent has been in phone again about open homes etc & seems to think we're being v unreasonable to want appointment only rather than six open homes.

Sigh. I'm very glad the law is on our side, but it is stress I could do without right now.

Stand firm vvviola. Estate agents are often not reasonable people IMHO. One of ours advertised an open home at our rental without telling us and wasn't there to show people round. I was working from home that day and had to deal with it.

6 open homes - so you need to do an immaculate tidy and hide of DDs junk and then make yourselves scarce for an hour (whilst paying the rent). What's in this for you Vvviola??? So unfair. I imagine this may be coming my way too.

6 open homes may be less than individual appointments - I guess there could be 20 or 30 of them. Still a pain for you though.

Houses are selling quickly and for quite a lot round here, may not need 6 open homes? A friend of ours tried to buy a place at auction today, regular 3-bed 1-bathroom type of place, it went for 33% above CV. And this is in '"cheap" west Auckland.

I went to the Degas to Dali exhibition at Auckland Art Gallery today, it was good - big queues though, took about 20 mins to get a ticket. Last day of it tomorrow.

Interesting thought re the amount of appointments. Maybe we will agree to some open homes on the condition DH can stay (I'm really not comfortable with the idea of strangers wandering around what is - at least for the moment - our home).

Justabout - in theory we probably don't have to tidy, but between wanting to put personal stuff away, and hearing my mother's voice in my ear saying "you don't want people to think you're a slob", I'll probably have to tidy up anyway (oh, and yes please to the egg substitute - we're excluding cooked egg at the moment and it seems to help)

A question: am I just being more than usually clueless, or am I just missing the health food shops around? I can find loads that do supplements & homeopathic stuff, but not that do whole food/dairy free/vegan/alternative stuff (if that makes any sense)

Vvviola - I've known a few people who've had open homes during tenancy's and they have normally been given a rent reduction to compensate for the inconvenience. I would have to tidy up too.

I've seen a lot of gluten/dairy free food in Indian food shops.

no obligation to tidy for open homes, just to keep things reasonably tidy. If the landlord specifically wants regular open homes and a nice tidy house then they should offer you a rent reduction for the inconvenience. Sorry you're going through this vvviola, it sounds as if the landlord has handled the whole situation really badly. Just one positive thought - if the new buyer is another landlord, you might be able to stay on after your fixed term expires if you want to.

Do you folks have Commonsense organics in Auckland? It's a reasonably good source of veggie/vegan foods here in Wellington (I still miss quorn though...).

Huckleberry Farms and Harvest Wholefoods are organic-y shops I have heard of. Same company I think. Website here.

Ok, so is anyone else getting changed for bed under the covers because it's too darn cold to strip off anywhere else??

I just moved house to a smaller 'warmer' place, bought more heaters and it's still freezing. Grrr.

Yep, it sure is freezing. -1 overnight here. Have just moved next to a kiwi fruit farm, didn't think when we bought there has been was a helicopter going from 3.30 to 7.30 am warming the fruit - I am tired grumpy and ready to put the house back on the market!!! Not helped by going all the way to Hamilton for a party, driving back and getting into bed at gone midnight (a good few hours past my normal bedtime). Can feel a day of sofa, tv and baking with the boys.

whatshesaid I'm jealous, I had every intention of going to the exhibition but never made it.

Landlord has to get tenant permission for viewings/open homes but I think tenant cannot "reasonably" withhold permission.

Natures Organics, Rosedale rd, North Shore

I recommend the Kermadecs exhibition at the maritine museum too. It's free and quite impressive.

Sibble- is that legal? We had a car alarm go off near us one evening- started at about 7pm and by 9pm I was getting annoyed. At about 10pm the noise control man arrived and knocked on our door to see if it was us. He'd had 3 complaints and they were going to tow the car. Luckily our neighbour got back just in time.

Am sorry to bring a downer. But have just had some bad news.Dh is at work.All my friends in the UK will be out... and I am scared. The midwife has just been round with the scan report. There are some indications that the baby has downs. The neuchal fold was 4mm outside the normal range,and there was no nasal bone detected.
I am having bloods first thing to get a percentage.
I am sitting here in floods,can't believe this is happening after everything.
I've started another thread in pregnancy asking for advice, but if any of you guys have ever had anything similar happen after a scan,I'd appreciate your story.