Jill of all trades

I'm feeling the effects of two days of doing physically more than I probably usually do in a week....
I have cleaned, tiled & grouted, unscrewed, screwed, sanded, painted a ceiling, filled out an entry report, balanced on the edges of a bath, vacuumed, delegated gardening, changed curtains, scrubbed walls, changed door handles, climbed up & down ladders (many times) and visited the huge hardware store (twice!). And I haven't finished yet!!!!
Such are the joys of owning rental properties that both empty at the same time......At least one, #10, is in a rentable condition with only a few minor adjustments needed, the other #16, has an empty period ahead.

Since the interior 'destruction' of #16 the police arranged some cleaning to be done but while that has admittedly removed the majority of the graphite fingerprint dust from the walls it was not an all encompassing clean. Most of today was spent scrubbing over the walls with good old sugar soap which removed another 50% again on most walls finally leaving a fair painting surface.
I did all the cutting in around the wall edges then did a test with the roller to see if the paint would cover the graphite -it seemed to pass, we shall make final judgement tomorrow - a lite 2nd coat may be needed to cover all the previous paint anyway.

While we have this forced rent free period we thought we'd get the outside painted and were lucky enough to find a reasonably priced painter who could start today.
(note - never paint with a professional outside, they will always think you should undercoat)

I thought we'd change the colour scheme while we were at it, so the televised apricot and green exterior will now become a more modern lite warm neutral with a dark charcoal blue, still retaining the white highlites. Inside my clever textural effects (to hide lumpy bumpy walls) are being transformed with what looked on the colour chart to be a warm creamy neutral but which is drying as a kind of mushroomy pinky mauve -it looks ok just pinker than I'd go for. I hope the outside doesn't go pink too....

We still have a way to go, painting our way thru the house, re enamelling the bath and re lino-ing the bathroom floor and then finally getting the floors polished in the previously carpeted bedrooms....... maybe this can be the start of my fitness campaign.....

Professional Development attempt 1

My most recent paid work is as a face painter. An old school friend came across this wonderful job last Christmas to work along-side the Santa & elves in a nice department store so I joined her wondering if I could get thru without anyone noticing what a novice I was.....need not have worried, make kids happy and their parents think you are wonderful regardless of the quality of your work (not that I was bad -just new at it).
Given that we had to buy a painting kit the 2 of us decided to go it alone and Cheeky Cheeks Face Painters was born. We have been going almost a year now and have been more sucessful than I ever thought we would be on free advertising only.

This past weekend was our first attempt at professional development. We discovered very late ( ie Monday) that the Australian Body Art Carnivale was on in the small but crafty little town of Eumundi (famous for its wed/sat markets) just over 1hours drive north. Having recently missed the 1st Wonder Down Under face & body art convention in Melbourne, I was especially eager to see other artists at work, see new products and learn a bit too. Given we could only go for one day we chose Saturday as that was the Face painting competition and there were technique workshops happening too as opposed to Sunday when the body art would be done (yes more spectacular but we face paint, so it seemed right).
Unfortunately this was the wrong decision: after searching for some sign of this event we finally found a few tents at the side of the markets only to be told we couldn't do a workshop -no they didn't seem to be full, they wanted us to enter sundays comp which we couldn't/didn't want to (we don't do our 1st body art in a comp!) -so they missed out on our fees. But never mind there would be the Face Painting to watch........well there was but only 7 entrants -the best 3 faces in my opinion are shown here as almost finished works.......

I think with some preparation we could have both held our own had we entered. The theme was the 'Natural World' which gave a huge scope -I would have loved to see the body art interpretations.

SO while our professional development had fairly well stalled we did meet some sellers of some nice paints which we purchased. We haven't been able to see many of the other paint brands so that was a plus for us. One of these sellers had just been down to the Melbourne convention and said it was wonderful and that the rumour was it might come up to Brisbane next year -fantastic news for us!! We also saw the resident market artist at work and agreed we were much better than her & she was charging $5 a face (but these are exy markets)!

For the rest of the morning we roamed the markets -child & manchild free- a much missed experience for these 2 mums and we did enjoy it to the full (till my feet were killing me). We sampled food, chatted to talented stall holders and made a few purchases, so it wasn't a wasted day at all - just not quite the day we'd planned......

We have the web address now and will be ready for next year!

one of my skills I can't put on a resume'

I am a master builder of wooden train tracks and now that the boys have a few sets the range is limitless.....(almost)
a word to the novice -don't take too much time with your creations, they probaly won't last till bedtime......

new projects

So after an 'interesting' week I find myself with some projects to fill my time - unfortunately I can't start them until "the house" has been emptied of its contents. We will have to repaint and recarpet but we have also decided it is a good time to repaint the exterior and possibly renovate the bathroom and possibly the kitchen and 'do' something with the yard. All this with the intention to up the rent returns.
We have long held thoughts of sub dividing the block but with a few quick www.site visits my bro-in-law (who has done some redeveloping) has put those thoughts to rest due to the size and zoning of the block. It may have been possible but not without lots wheeling & dealing with the council, so we have the options of doing up to sell or to raise the rent.... I still have some emotional attachment to the house so don't want to sell (yet) -this was the house I bought all by myself, my first home where I thought I'd be living out my days....
So soon I will be getting colour swatches & quotes...and disappointed at the cost of all my brilliant ideas. But at least I will have a 'project' again -seems to me I am happier that way.....

of course this all will be another diversion to getting the projects needing to be done in our family delayed, yet again.....

the aftermath

the lounge & into the hallway of our rental.

So this is the mess a place is left in after a murder crime scene...yes it appears to have been murder and the boyfriend has been arrested. Nothing I'd seen on CSI quite prepared me for such a huge mess with so many of the walls covered floor to door height with the fingerprinting dust. Added to this the dust has been walked into the bedroom carpets, the windows had been left open and the rubbish bins tipped out across the yard.
After an evening of stressing and coming to terms with it all I have asked the police about it to find that the justice dept. would pay for the clean up. However I have a feeling if we hadn't asked we wouldn't have been offered any help.

In all this week has been quite a learning experience that I don't need repeated. Some interesting stuff I would never have otherwise discovered but really probably would have preferred not to.
And we are still left with the question of who will ever rent the place again....apparently we have to advise potential tenants that there was a death in the house (nothing more but it wouldn't be hard for them to find out....). I think once its all cleaned I'll go to a new age shop and get something to clean the houses' aura or something.......

update on this mornings post....

Just got a call from CIB investigating the case....
wanting to know ownership & rental arrangements. The short story is once they've finished with it the insides will need a coat of paint due to fingerprinting damage.....I thought they only 'dusted'.

Anyway she was very nice and quite relieved when she didn't have to tell me about the death!

a death ... and many questions

On yesterday afternoons TV newsbreak there was a story about the 'suspicious' death of a 30 y.o. woman in Stafford. The suburb caught my attention as I bought my 1st home there and we now rent it out so when I glanced up at the TV I was stunned to see it was a picture of my old street then they seemed to be flashing up images of my own old house!
I rang the local police to find out for sure but of course they couldn't say anything so I got hold of a policeman friend of my sisters who checked and found out that yes it was my house that was the crime scene....

Oh this is now a terrible thing to happen to someone I had met - tragic for her, and I do truely feel bad for family (& partner if he is innocent)
but
this had led to a whole range of questions relating to the house, the rent, the investigation, the quality of real estate tenancy interviews, and will I ever be able to go into my much loved house ever again without a creepy feeling?????

I know its a bit ruthless but from a purely monetary side we want to know if he is arrested will we be notified in any way -the police won't care, maybe their families will want their stuff and will call for keys, but the only answer the rental board could give me was to wait until we think its empty then fill out the deserted tenancy forms and follow thru that proceedure. At least we are insured for the rent loss in that case.
What insurance probably won't cover is loss of income due to the fact there was a death in your property and NO ONE will move in! Even if we don't tell prospective new tenants about the incident the neighbours may get around to it and there may be rules which say we have to mention it anyway....
Any how long will it be a crime scene?

Our thoughts at this moment is to try to contact the surviving tenant in a few days to say something along the lines 'we are sorry to hear of your loss, if you feel you need to terminate your lease early we understand how you'd want to move out'..... at least that would give him the opportunity to move out -hopefully before the cops potentially arrest him! That at least would give us closure on the tenancy and a clear avenue to work out what we want to next.

On the side - I told a friend about this situation last night and he (somewhat too gleefully I'd add) reminded me that he had rejected these tenants for his nearby property which he'd been renting out at the same time as we last were..... well next time maybe we'll have a job for him interviewing prospective tenants for us as maybe gut feelings count for more than what the estate agents background checks do......

memory trigger

A dear friend of mine blogs - regularly, on varied topics, with wit and with love. This week she has added a music component to her pages which includes some songs from the Jesus Christ Superstar which led me down the memory lane to my childhood.......

One of my Dad's friends had what must have been one of the earlyist video players (we are talking about 1975ish here!) which he would bring to parties to keep the kiddies entertained. There were only 2 shows to watch, altho we never complained, a Muppet show and Joseph & his Technicolour Dreamcoat. I can still remember the coat of ribbons streaming off out of shot and there was the muppet lady sing 'I feel pretty' while turning into a monster....
JC Superstar was often on the music playlist outside blaring loudly while the oldies partied on, as was Elton John, Billy Joel, Simon & Garfunkel, Joe Cocker... and these tunes have stuck with me.
I remember the kids always wore denim, unless there was a pool in which case you had to bring a change of clothes or 2 'cos you always got pushed into the pool. At one party location there was a a real poker machine -one you had to pull on the handle- and over it was a blue ultra violet light which was a fav novelty. The kids were all allowed to run around in the dark and we got to stay up late then rooms were converted into dorms and we all bunked in together until our parents would drive us home (without seatbelts to save us!)
My Dad also had a party trick - to throw small bunches of chinese crackers at peoples feet...... I think that ended when someone's jeans caught a lite..... but those were the days when we could still have cracker nights in our own backyards.....
I remember many parties over the years....my parents must have had quite a fun group of friends (...guess they weren't as old as I thought they were back then!) and its actually nice to know they still are in contact with many of them. Still, I couldn't imagine losing any of my friends just because we continue to age (ever so gracefully!)

What For?

This will be somewhere to post the long comments....for when I don't want to clutter up other peoples blog comments....or if I have some stunninng thoughts that should be shared but a 3yo doesn't really care at all....mostly for me but I may open the door to others.....