Well that's us celebrating 6 months since the (then) housing officer turned up at our door and the ball began rolling on our "really urgent" house repair job. To be honest it's actually 2 1/2 years since they were meant to actually carry out the repairs but I thought I'd be kind.  Anyway,  as a sort of  tribute to the incredible efficiency, general competence and all round professionalism of Wheatley Homes and their obviously top quality and well trained staff (and for those of you new to this whole sorry saga) here is a timeline of the story of us asking for a leak to be fixed.... Enjoy.  Oh and I've cut down on the sarcasm this time around for a change.    This statement may not be accurate. 30/05/24 – After nearly 4 years of waiting – and thanks to our local MP - repair work begins on the house. A new toilet is fitted and a large piece of wood is nailed to the kitchen floor. Alongside this a huge hole is left in the bathroom wall and paneling is removed...

Huzzah! After over 2 months of telling them that it's full and that the kids (especially Cassidy) are slowly going stir crazy because they can't go in the garden the skip has finally been uplifted! Regular readers will remember that we were given it in March to help us get ready to move in April (to the house that we aren't allowed to talk about) but like everything else pertaining to our move/repairs it ended up just getting ignored no matter how many times we asked/begged for it to be picked up. The main reason it couldn't be moved was truly bizarre - it seemed that because someone in the street had put rubbish in it (as always happens) it couldn't be moved till the guilty party had taken the rubbish out. Housing even sent letters out to the neighbours ordering them to remove the unauthorised junk. Seriously, the letter about misusing a skip was more of a priority to them than actually picking up the thing, so in the meantime the girls haven't been able to hav...

  Trying to get straight answers re: housing, disability and the equality act from our housing association (still) be like:  

Not done a house update for a few weeks because everything is going so well. Not really, it's still a bit shit.     I think I may have hit the I really can't be bothered being civil with housing point right now (to be fair it has been going on since February), we've gone from them being very nice since Social Work got involved to in the last week them phoning SW (our allotted worker is on annual leave) because we hadn't rung them back straight away to now adding seemingly random policy rules to our promised move. A house (not ours) for illustrative purposes. We seem to have gone from "we'll find you a suitable property" to "if you don't accept the first property you're offered that's it because you only get one choice" which under the circumstances seems a wee bit churlish seeing as not only had we already accepted a property that we were subsequently told we shouldn't be offered (and are snapped at when we mention it, I just lo...

A quick real life catch up as it's been a wee bit mad here at the moment. First up, apologies to anyone who missed my dulcet tones on the radio Tuesday , turns out they'd overbooked the amount of English males they needed so I unfortunately got dumped from the panel. I did managed to randomly add a few comments near the end but due to timing they skipped the punchline. Story of my life.  As a (self congratulatory) aside the visuals I produced for the inaugural  David Byrne themed Byrne's Night in Dumbarton seemed to go down a treat!       And on another bright note it looks like there may finally be some progress on the whole house situation that wont have to involve legal action and/or government intervention. Or any more Autistic meltdowns.  Which is nice.     I can't say too much right now except that having such a high stress level every day for almost 4 months certainly takes its toll. My head feels like someone has set a huge bag of firework...

Been getting a fair few responses to the whole housing debacle of late so thought I'd post an as in-depth as possible version of the situation in one handy place save people having to read multiple posts (which they still can if they want). So buckle up and here we go: We've been waiting on house repairs for around 6 years now, what started as a small leak just before lock down turned into a huge leak which left us without a flushing toilet for a year (which was finally fixed at least) and a drop in water pressure which meant that we can't use the washing machine or shower. About 4 years after the original repair report - and after being contacted by our local MP housing did in fact attempt a repair (that's when they fitted a new toilet) but the plumber they sent out hadn't realised that the main water supply was behind the washing machine and because no one had told us to move it couldn't actually do anything apart from tear out some kitchen panels, smash a...

  Just a quick update - hot off the press, well phone - regarding the ongoing housing saga .   Me, right now.     It seems that because we were waiting to order new beds etc for the girls till the move and the fact that the house is full of bags/boxes (because we were meant to be moving, yes I keep mentioning this in the hope that someone from housing reads this...or can even read) we've now been reported to social work (again) and the housing association are insisting on yet another meeting about forcing (sorry 'persuading' us) into a temporary move (to the house we were meant to move to that Cassidy is now dead set against going to).   A move that we've told them (multiple times) just isn't workable. Doing the work around us as much as possible with a week or so in an apartment/air B&B (which would be easier for Cassidy) isn't even being considered by them and any reasonable adjustments for disability (a legal requirement as far as I can tell) aren...

Well reckoned it was about time for a house update as I'm sure everyone is chomping at the bit to read the next exciting (nay maddening) installment.     Since last time we actually heard back re: my complaint but just not within the 2 working days promised on the website as it took 5 in total (not counting the weekend obviously cos I'm kind). And the reason for the delay? It appears that no-one bothered to check their junk mail folder. Yes I know. To be fair we did get a phone call (which Rho took as I was out getting the girls) followed by a - requested - hard copy which is as non-committal and 'we better not admit to anything in case they sue' as you can get. Examples of this include: When we pointed out that this entire (6 year) situation has been caused in part by the frightening turnover in housing officer staff with a lack of continuity/follow up paper work left we were told bluntly that any complaint over 6 months old is invalid. Which was nice. When we express...

 Thought I'd post a (very) quick house update for those following the whole sorry story .... Well, after finding out that we're no longer moving permanently (which was the actual reason we agreed to a move rather than doing the work around us due to the kids complex needs) we've heard nothing else since.   I did get in touch with housing (a stage 2 written complaint seeing as we can't actually submit a stage 1 as we don't have a housing officer since the old one went AWOL) that, according to their website would at least be acknowledged within 2 working days. That was Tuesday 14th, it's now Sunday 19th and we've still not heard back. Could it be that they're inundated with repair complaints or is it just a lack of actually caring? I wont say incompetence as I'm not that bitchy. So we're sitting here nearly 3 weeks after our initial moving in date (1st April), just over 2 months since we were threatened with a 'forced move' and just over 2 ...

  Not usually so serious but currently experiencing the first, oddly unsettling throes of that fabled condition called Autistic shutdown - my eyes are closing, my arms and legs are heavy and I'm lurching 'tween feeling like crying and vomiting.  This whole housing situation has completely broken me and I really can't see anyway forward, hate having to ask Rho to deal with this shite.    

  Been a wee bit quiet on the whole house moving front at the moment, partly due to having absolutely no idea what's going on but mainly due to the fact that there's probably going to be pretty harsh legal consequences to how it's been dealt with by the housing officer so reckoned it was best to keep quiet and make notes in the meantime. However all that seems to have changed a few weeks back when we received a phone call to tell us that the housing officer had left their job suddenly for a new one (who knew there was a huge job market for sociopaths?) and that we needed to get a meeting regarding the house move as she'd not done the job handover or put anything in place. Obviously we then kinda assumed that we wouldn't be getting the keys on 1st April as promised and wouldn't be able to start moving stuff. But as a plus point we now don't have to deal with what was probably the most vindictive, manipulative and downright rude person I have ever encountered ...

Finally got to see what should be our new house today....Autistic stress levels were off the scale - for me obviously, the girls and Cass (especially seeing as he doesn't want to move) did brilliantly   Luckily the house seems perfect so it's a go!    Girls loved it and Cass didn't run away (which is a win) - it needs a load of work done so looks like we've got around a month to get fully packed and moved which is good!    Not too sure who this Captain Howdy that Embeth was talking to in the bathroom is tho'....    

A distinct lack of meaningful posts of late seeing as we're in the middle of packing up the house for our move as Cassidy frantically tries to unpack everything whilst shouting "FIX IT!" in an ever higher voice. The mad thing is when you take into account that so far we've only had 4 half days to do it (girls are at college 3 days which we have to take them/fetch them from plus my 2 day hospital appointments couple with dance performances and stuff like cooking, laundry, shopping etc)  we've actually done not too bad. 40 boxes packed and a skip half filled and no major breakdowns, tho' Cass is getting there and I'm not far behind. Our house right now.   Anyway we've decided to take the girls out of college this week so we can try and fire thru' the rest of the job and finally attempt to clear the terrifying cupboard in their room. A job I'm dreading and excited about at the same time. As an exciting aside it looks like we may finally get to see...

Well it looks like we're definitely moving house. We have a skip and a delivery of boxes and are just awaiting a timetable for the actual move so are currently juggling hospital, college and the usual stuff with packing everything away.     The first lot of (packed) boxes are getting picked up for storage tomorrow so  hopefully Cassidy hasn't ripped them up and put everything back by then as that seems to be his way of preventing us going to the new house. As you can probably tell he is not at all happy at the prospect. More later.