Ad Hoc Property Guardians and my deposit

I thought I was onto a good thing, maybe I was. You might have heard about property guardians, there was a bit of coverage in the newspapers last summer, but not so much now. If a property like a house or block of flats or offices or whatever is empty, and going to be empty for a while, then instead of hiring a security firm to keep squatters and vandals out, the landlord can hire a live-in property guardian.

The landlord gets someone taking care of the property, the guardian gets cheap accommodation.

I was a guardian with Ad Hoc, one of the two big firms in London. I was paying £50 or so a week and it was okay. Sure the properties were shit holes, but it was cheap and I was skint. The deposit was £300, my overdraft took care of that.

The first place I stayed at was a former council flat in Sudbury. It was freezing and didn't have the gas hooked up for about a month after I moved in last winter. The building was to be demolished in 'about eighteen months'. The other tenants were slowly being moved out whilst I stayed. I started to do the place up, got some bookshelves from Ikea, acquired a fridge freezer, even started painting the walls.

Alas, after three months I was given my notice and found a new place to be a guardian at. That council flat has now been demolished, I drive past the site every so often, the paint was barely dry.

The second place was a rather neat three bedroom semi-detached house in Wembley, right near the station. It had a huge garden, thick with brambles, but it was summer and I was 'between jobs'. There was no heating there either, no gas too, but the weather was fine, so I didn't mind so much. I think they said I would have six months there so I acquired gardening equipment and set to work clearing brambles and putting in potatoes and tomatoes.

Alas, after four weeks I was given my notice and again found a new place to be a guardian at. There's now about ten people living in that semi-, the living room and dining room been turned into additional bedrooms. I wonder if they've got to my potatoes.

The third place was a former old people's home. There were about twenty other guardians staying there in the various granny flats. My flat was on the ground floor and smelt bad. I knew better than to set up home there and kept most of my belongings in storage a storage locker.

Months passed, with such low rent, I was able to start tackling my considerable debts.

At some point, I don't know what came over me, but I grew weary of sleeping on the floor, sitting on banana boxes and not having anywhere to shelve my books, so I emptied out my storage locker and furnished my flat. Less than a week later we were given our notice and told to leave.

Sure, Ad Hoc were quick to find all the guardians new places to stay, offering empty properties round the A406 North Circular Road of out in East London, but the thought of living with the constant threat of having to move on was too depressing so I decided to move to the private rental market. You go to RightMove.co.uk, figure out how much rent you can afford and move to the best property that comes up.<

When I told the nice woman at Ad Hoc that I wasn't going to move into their next place she seemed disappointed.

It was a good deal while it lasted, £50 a week rent, in London, but never knowing how long I'd be at any property.

Anyhoo, its been about eight weeks since I moved out, I'm still chasing up getting my deposit back. I've been phoning them every week, it sounds much like the other guardians at that last place are still trying to get their deposits back too, but to no avail. They have my account details, their accountant has apparently been on the case for at least a fortnight, but still nothing.

They've got my £300 and they seem to be incapable or unwilling to give it back.

Should I have written off the deposit? Or just not have paid my last six week's rent? Is that the more civilized or sensible thing to do?

There's been no word about whether they're taking a cut of the deposit to clean and repair any wear and tear, but it's been eight weeks so that's a moot point now.

If they weren't going to return the deposit could they have not made it clear at some point in the past, or charged a higher rent. But no, just an endless stream of we're working on it, you'll having by the end of the week, the end of next week, etc. It's not so much that they're withholding it, just not competent enough to arrange giving me my money back.

**UPDATE**
Yay, I got my deposit back! It took eight weeks and three days, and they did take a small cut, for cleaning I guess which is fair enough.

Anyhoo, success!

Blogging elsewhere

So I'm ensconced in a new house,with a huge garden, and I've been avoiding looking for a new job by gardening. Well, I say gardening, what I mean is hacking away at brambles, making fences and digging holes.

Its thrilling stuff, so much so that I've started a new blog to write about my gardening adventures.

Its called The Wumble of Wembley


Please add it to your feedreadery things if you like it.

Its got to be said though, it probably won't last long, I'm going to be evicted again in a few weeks, so I'm trying to make the most of it whilst I can.

Its damned inconvenient being made homeless. Being skint and unemployed isn't helping either.

The last of the Potatos

My third crop of potatos:-

The smallest so far, and probably the last of the year, I think they were maris piper in the end.

I made them into mash to go with my sausage beans 'n' mash dinner.

The growing my own spuds thing was a fun adventure. I dunno if I'm going to have a garden to grow them in next season.

Spuds

It was about a year ago I had a clear plan. After the thousandth drawing on my Naked Chicks On Post-It Notes website, I was going give it up, buy myself an X-Box 360, with games like Project Gatham Racing, where you get to race round Edinburgh and Stockholm, and Grand Theft Auto 4, where you drive round another city and shoot people too. I'd get the sort of games they play on Penny Arcade. I'd retire in the evenings, to play computer games, safe in the knowledge that I'd done a hard honets day's work.

The plan went to shit when I was made redundant, and since then the future has been too uncertain to make any plan, any aspirations, all put on hold. My self-esteem has gone through the floor. I spend days gazing blankly at job vacancies that require qualifications and experience that I don't have.

I think back to what went wrong, how and why. How did I end up being unemployable?

I could have sworn I was a productive and intelligent member of the human race, but compared to the hundred other applicants for every job, I am a non-person.

My Housing Benefit has been cut, which salves my soul slightly cos I was uncomfortable getting handouts from the state. My Job Seeker's Allowance is gone too, I've reached the end of my contributions based benefits, so now I have no income at all. My car needs a handful of fixes to pass its MOT and my rent is due next week.

I read blogs and blogs about how the UK's going down the pan, and there's nothing I can do about it, I can't even pay for my own existance.

I just wanted to slave away all day, building manufacturing databases, making production just a little bit easier, adding value to a pile of components, making stuff that people want and would pay honest money for. I just wanted to be able to come home from work, and put on Project Gotham Racing and race round cities I used to wander round five years ago.

...

This morning I harvested my potatos

In the supermarket they would cost about 20p.

This is what I have been reduced to.

My children

It has been weeks and weeks since I wrote about my potatos. Last time we saw them, they looked like this

Fine looking specimens, but my, how they've grown now.

So I had a bit of a grub around and dug up some of their tubers.

Some of them are very small, but on the whole I'm quite happy with them.

Aye, maybe its a bit early to harvest them, and if I left them a few weeks longer they'd be bigger. But I understand that you get get two or three crops a year out of potatos, so more will grow back and it's loosened up the soil a bit and I still left two plants undisturbed so there'll be more later in the summer.

And these guys are the best looking potatos I've ever grown. They are my children, I shall eat them, nom nom nom.

The various flies on my potatos plants

Hi, its been weeks and weeks since I last blogged about the various foodstuffs I'm growing in my garden, maybe I never will again, other website do that sort of thing far better. Anyhoo, the other day I noticed my potatos had some greenfly on them, and on closer look, there were other wee beasties too.

So I took some photies.

Green


Brown


Black


White

I'm not sure if they're doing my potatos any good, but will they harm my yields?

Return to the Lost Continent

I see from PopUrls that the Great Pacific Garbage patch is now twice the size of France.

The Telegraph article covers the usual ground about the sailing chap who heading home decided to drive his boat across the North Pacific Gyre, and how its all the fault of modern society using plastic.

Some interesting facts in the article from the Algalita Marine Research Foundation

Floating beneath the surface of the water, to a depth of 10 metres, was a multitude of small plastic flecks and particles, in many colours, swirling like snowflakes or fish food. An awful thought occurred to Moore and he started measuring the weight of plastic in the water compared to that of plankton. Plastic won, and it wasn't even close. 'We found six times more plastic than plankton, and this was just colossal,' he says. 'No one had any idea this was happening, or what it might mean for marine ecosystems, or even where all this stuff was coming from.'

So ended Moore's retirement. He turned his small volunteer environmental monitoring group into the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, enlisted scientists, launched public awareness campaigns and devoted all his considerable energies to exploring what would become known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and studying the broader problem of marine plastic pollution, which is accumulating in all the world's oceans.

The world's navies and commercial shipping fleets make a significant contribution, he discovered, throwing some 639,000 plastic containers overboard every day, along with their other litter. But after a few more years of sampling ocean water in the gyre and near the mouths of Los Angeles streams, and comparing notes with scientists in Japan and Britain, Moore concluded that 80 per cent of marine plastic was initially discarded on land, and the United Nations Environmental Programme agrees.

And then also in the Telegraph's article there's a bit of coverage of David de Rothschild's Plastiki, plastic boat project which the Guardian covered last week.

In a few weeks, the heir to one of the world's greatest fortunes, David de Rothschild, will set sail across the Pacific - in a boat, the Plastiki, made from plastic bottles and recycled waste. The aim of this extraordinary venture is simple: to focus attention on one of the world's strangest and most unpleasant environmental phenomena: the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a rubbish-covered region of ocean, several hundred miles in diameter.
...

"I want the Plastiki to make a statement that it's our lack of reuse, uses and disposal that it is at fault, not the material itself," he said.

The eco-warrior has also designed his mission so that it copies key features of the voyage of the Kon-Tiki in which Thor Heyerdahl - a hero of de Rothschild - sailed across the Pacific to show how ancient South American Indians could have colonised Polynesia. As a result, de Rothschild originally set his launch date for 28 April - exactly 62 years to the day when Heyerdahl set out on his epic journey across the Pacific. However, teething problems with Plastiki recently forced him to postpone departure until later this summer.

Nevertheless, de Rothschild insists his craft will sail in the next few weeks and could one day revolutionise the use of recycled plastics in general and the design of boats in particular. Much will depend on how his craft behaves once the Plastiki expedition is under way, he admitted to the New Yorker recently. His craft should perform well, but could break up, he said.

Not really my cup of tea really, I'm not into the PR side of things, I just want a floating, self-sufficient island, like what Richie Sowa's Spiral Island built in Mexico

I'd heard of this floating island thing before when researching the Lost Continent of Mu, but this Ecoble article is neat cos its got a diagram of how the plastic bottles he uses are assembled.

I reckon if there's bottles floating in the North Pacific Gyre, then an island built there could accumulate it's own mass. According to the wikipedia page for Spiral Island
the roots of the mangroves growing on it, help hold it all together, so once you reach some large mass, it'll have its own self-propagating structural integrity.

Also, I wandered along to the Reprap website earlier today. A Reprap machine is like a cheap 3D printer that prints out solid parts from plastic and can self-replicate about 60% of its own parts. If you get one of these, solar powered, sitting on an island, with a stream of nurdles drifting to it on the currents, you could get it to churn out its own plastic bottles.

Money Saving Idea #1 Grow your own garlic - week 9

Its a bit of a mixed bag of success, growth and stagnation this week.

Young Darren looks like he's lost the will to live. One of his leaves was all withered and brown and fell off a few days ago, there's a new leaf thats come up to replace it, but he's looking abit lame compared to his cohorts.

All four of The Twins are in fine form, with the chap on the right looking particularly tall and strong. I'm almost tempted to re-pot these chaps.

Sharon's also doing well, almost as tall as The Twins. She got one long leaf and with shorter ones on either side like two little arms, the hussy.

Out in the garden, the baying mob of garlic planted in the soil are looking grim. Some wee beasties have been nibbling at them, and there was a spider's web bridging them when I went out to have a look earlier today. None of them are as big as the chaps on the windowsill. Is there something wrong with the soil?

Moving away from garlic now, to my potato plantation. Steve Potato is looking okay, kind of small but healthy on the edge there, he could do with more soil coverage but alas he's too close to the paved area, its his own fault, I feel no guilt.

And finally at the back, Dave Potato is doing swimmingly, with three sprouty bits and all manner of leaves. I have high hopes for Dave, one day he'll feed the whole family.

Shrubbery Security

People steal plants, Be it for personal use or for commercial gardening projects. It's not likely to be an opportunistic crime, but kind of planned. It doesn't take much, you just see the plant you want, and it its small enough, you grab the stem and pull it out, taking care not to damage it too much.

There are ways and means to prevent people stealing plants, this is a step by step guide to one of them, using chicken wire.

Tools you will need

• Wire cutters
• Leather gardening gloves
• Sledge hammer
• Claw hammer
• Spade
  

For each plant you want to secure you will need

• 1.5m x 1.5m chicken wire
• 300mm length of 1.5mm wire
• Three 2' wooden stakes
• A handful of wee hooky staples for the wire
  

1. Whilst wearing the gloves use the wire cutters to cut a slit from the edge to the middle of the chicken wire square

And gently curl round the base of the plant, taking care not to scratch the stem with any sharp edges.

2. Whilst wearing the gloves use the 300mm wire to stitch the slit in the chicken wire square back together, starting from the stem side, don't worry if the stitches don't go all the way to the edge of the square, this is not important.

3.Fold back the edges of the chicken wire by about 6" and dig a shallow trench round the edge of the square, it should only be around 6" deep, and will be filled in shortly.

4. Put the three stakes under the chicken wire as shown in the photo, so that there is one on either side of the stitched edge. If it is a rhododendron, the rootball will be about the size of a football, so try to put in the stakes so the do not interface with the roots.

In time the roots with grow out and engulf the stakes.

Remove the gloves and use the sledgehammer to bang in the stakes so that only two inches or so protrude from the soil.

5. Use the claw hammer to put staples in to hold the chicken wire against the stakes, you may need to use more than staple.

When the chicken wire is securely stapled to the stake, you may hammer the stakes so they are flush with the soil.

6. Fold the edges of the chicken wire into the trench and then bury them with the leftover soil.

If you're in the mood for mulching, cover the whole shebang with about two inches to hide the chicken wire.

There is some debate about how much of a security measure this is. Will it stop people from stealing plants, will it just cause people to damage the plants when they give up. Should you leave some of the chicken wire and stakes visible so any villains can see there are security measures in place and it'll put them off. Will any plant thieves actually have wire cutters, rendering the security measure pointless? Since they didn't have spades to start with, any other tools are unlikely.

Money Saving Idea #1 Grow your own garlic - week 8

Darren's got to be one of the most weedy and ill looking from my brood. He's all crumpled and sad. I've tried giving him love and affection and water and more love, but its having no affect, he's just the garlic version of a cripple. Maybe he peaked too soon, maybe I put to much pressure on him to succeed. I am a bad father.

On ther other hand, the other kids are doing swell.

The Twins have multiplied, each tub somehow having two sprouty chaps growing, and although they started kind of slowly, they're all tall and strong now.

Sharon, that blessed little hussy is doing, dare I say it, better than the twins too, she's sheltered away on the other side of my windowledge, although not quite as tall as the twins, she seems more wholesome and friendlier.

Out on ground level in the wee bit of dirt we call the garden, there's a herd of garlic who are doing okay, their leaved have been nibbled on a wee bit by passing insects, but I'm thinking as they have more root space, they'll survive and thrive and will feed me well in the months to come.

The potatos are doing great too, the wee sprouty chaps who I saw the other week have grown and grown. They're all healthy, and no signs of nibbling, although I am concerned that these chaps are going to need more rioot space, and at some point I'll have to transfer them out of the box and into the ground with nibbly beasties.

Ah well.

Money Saving Idea #1 Grow your own garlic - week 7

Garlic - Darren - 26-MAR-2009
Originally uploaded by manc_ill_kid

I've gone off young Darren a wee bit, he's seems a bit peely wally compared to his brethren. He's doing well though, I'll give him that, seven weeks old and still healthy.

Nearby The Twins are growing fine, although the one on the right seems to have spawned with another wee shoot coming up next to him.

Much the same can be said about young Sharon, the hussy, she's mighty tall and strong now and has likewise acquired a wee chum just poking up through the soil.

Exciting news down in the garden. My flatmates have been weeding and planting and mulching, putting a new layer of top soil over everything, but there's a small colony of my ground-based garlic still going strong. At last count I had twelve sprouty dudes. That's like a few months worth of garlic when I pick them.

When should I pick them?

Anyhoo, the other exciting developement is that one of my potatos has sprouted. Two little chaps sticking their heids out. Joy! I'm going to have to think of names for them, or just one name cos its from the same potato?

Money Saving Idea #1 Grow your own garlic - week 6

Garlic - Darren - 19-MAR-2009
Originally uploaded by manc_ill_kid

Looks like young Darren is still growing. He's a bit darker than his peers, but I see this as a sign of strength.

In the years to come I'm going to have to do a family tree of all the different garlic bulbs I've got and what happens to their offspring, so when I start selling 'Gilmour's Organic Garlic' you can order exactly who you want.

There's going to be a lot to chose from. I was a bit worried the other week, that some of the bulbs I'd planted were duds, but they're all going hunky dory.

The twins have now sprouted and are looking all healthy and everything.

And young Sharon, even she's looking good

Money Saving Idea #1 Grow your own garlic - week 5

IMG_6461
Originally uploaded by manc_ill_kid

Young Darren Garlic going from strength to strength, bless him. Look he's got two wee arms now, waving about, see how he's curled his right hand into a fist, he's going to be a champion.

Wondering how I'm going to know when to pick him, like at what point is he good to go? And if I pick him now, are his cloves going to be alright?

I'll give him a few more months anyway.



The Twins have finally shown some signs of life to be be honest, they look a be peely wallie, all browny green and soggy. Not that I'm rascist or anything, but they don't seem as strong as Darren. And Sharon, she's even worse, I'm not even going to show you what she looks like.

The potatos are still underground, I have faith in them, they'll stick they wee heid's out when they're goo and ready.

Here's the flickr slide show of Darren from the day I planted him

Money Saving Idea #1 Grow your own garlic - week 4

Garlic 05-MAR-2009
Originally uploaded by manc_ill_kid

Its Thursday, time for another update on my crazy adventures in growing my own food. Following on from last week's explosion of planting thing...

Darren seems to be growing fine, but his siblings, the twins, still haven't poked their heids out yet. I think the poor wee souls are duds, they hadn't started sprouting when I planted them. Ach weel.

The potatos seem to be growing well, though I'm loath to dig them up and have a look. And still no sign of growth with my sweet peppers.

So, just Darren Garlic then.

Money Saving Idea #1 Grow your own garlic week 3

Garlic 26-FEB-2009
Originally uploaded by manc_ill_kid

Its Thursday, so its time for another gardening update.

This is the wee chap on my windowsill, I shall call him Darren, he is my imaginary son. He's garlic, but I still love him.

The way he pokes his wee leaf out, its so cute.

I've decided to grow him a family of other plants so he doesn't get lonely, you know, to give him people to play with.

This is the sweet peppers I'm growing from seed. I made these stuffed peppers yesterday and wondered what would happen if I planted a load of the seeds in one pot. I hope they take.

This is Sharon, she's also garlic, Darren's sister I guess, she's not as grown up as Darren. I hope she takes as well as her brother has.

These are the twins, they're the same age as Sharon. They don't have names yet. I'm growing them on the other side of the yard, I dunno how much sunshine they'll get there, but other plants seem to grow, so they should be okay.

This is my potato trough. There are two potatos buried in there, Neil and Andy, I've named them after my old scout leaders. They've been growing for about two weeks now. I wasn't sure if they'd take or not cos I just planted them cos they were growing rooty bits in the fridge. To check, I dug up Neil.

He seems like a happy potato.

Money Savid Idea #1 Grow your own garlic week 2

Garlic 19-FEB-2009
Originally uploaded by manc_ill_kid

Quick update from on last week's self-sufficiency venture.

Just the merest hint of grown, the wee chap's poking his heid out.

Money saving idea #1 - Grow your own garlic

The other day I was stealing a clove of garlic from a flatmate when I noticed it had sprouted a wee green sprouty bit. I feel a bit guilty always stealing garlic, so today I pinched anothe clove and have planted it.

Hopefully it will grow into a whole garlic bulb and I may never have to steal garlic again.

So by planting it I'm saving my flatmates money cos they won't have to buy so much in the future.

I'll endevour to post regular updates of how its growing, aye.

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