How not to lose $120 ?

Well, the title of the post may be abstract and the amount of money quoted maybe not quite be a round figure to lose, the experience was quite bizarre and in the end, funny as well.

It all started on Sunday evening, a pleasant evening for a walk and thats what we did, I and my wife, went around the block and headed off to the supermarket to buy groceries and came back home to find the apartment entry door locked. Now, I know that it may be a common practice to lock your apartment block entry door wherever you live, but not at my place, simply because none of the residents have the key to the door. So, if it was locked, we call any of the other three apartments in the block and they have to come out and open the door. The intercom opening method is presently not working as well.

So, it was locked and we tried to call the other apartment, two of them, no answer. So I trotted off to the back door to try to get it opened. That door was half locked and I could not see the door properly because of the poor lighting there. In the midst of all confusion, I inserted the key to my own home into the keyhole and tried twisting it. (Now, I am still getting the punishment for that from my wife).

I could not open the door and then tried to take the key out, it came out, half bent. I tried to bend it straight, and it broke !!!.

Then came around to the front door, sheepishly explained everything to my wife and then called the last flat and that person came down to open the door.

Then we tried to open the door with the broken key, no luck obviously. Then, a flash of genius, I remembered seeing a locksmith’s number on the entry door downstairs, luckily had my mobile with me and it was a 24 hr service number. Praise the LORD. Called the locksmith and he will be available in 10 mins at my doorstep. Praise the LORD louder.

Then he explained that it was a weekend and after hours anyway, and the cost of the visit will be $120. That was not a problem, as Commonwealth Bank is around the corner. Got the money, the guy came along, opened the door after using just three (!!!) tools in less than 120 secs.

So, $120 for less than 120 secs. Now, that is some ratio of how I would like my income to be, not my expenses.

Washing machine case

Whenever you buy a washing machine, you always a get an instruction booklet about what to do and what not to do, how to use etc etc …

But, does that booklet ever say, don’t run the washing machine with me inside it ?

It did not, in my case…

The fact of the matter was that, when we moved homes, I put the instruction manual for each and every gadget (luckily, I had 99% of the manuals) inside its own box, so that there will not be a problem during reconnection. The same way for the washing machine too.

Only that, as soon as we moved in, we put our clothes into that washing machine for washing the next day, and the booklet got hid by the clothes. So the machine gave the booklet a thorough washing. As a result, all our clothes had pieces of paper attached to it. And, they don’t go away that easy, I had to wash twice to get those pieces of paper removed.

Whoever thought that the instruction manual could cause no problems is wrong..!!

Finding a new home !!

As I had mentioned in my previous post, I and my wife went through some sleepless nights when confronted with the fact that we had to move to a new home, contrary to my plans and expectations. In April / May 2006, after I got married, I was in search for a new apartment as I did not want to disturb my roomates, the search went on for two long months with no luck. I applied for nearly 20 apartments and got declined for all of them, with declinal reasons ranging from,

Rank 1 – Your application was not suitable.

Rank 2 – The owner has made a final decision and your application was not selected.

Rank 3 – No particular reason.

Rank 4 – We have just released the home for lease and we are expecting more applications.

At this point in time, I did not have my name on the rental agreement, I had it amended immediately.

With such reasons, naturally, I was blaming my fate and my luck in finding a home. Luckily, my roomates found an apartment that they can move into and I was glad to stay in the same home and in the suburb (which meant a lot to me because of the convenience). This happened in Aug 2006 and then my wife came from India and everything was going well, until Deepavali 2006. After that event, a SMS came from my ex roomie, who was on the rental agreement, informing me that the land agent wanted to see the home due to “Selling of property”. We did a quick clean of the house and agents came along to see the house, and informed us that we have kept the house in good condition, except for the bathroom, which had paint peeling from the roof. The agent was not unduly worried about it, as it was widely prevalent in Melbourne that due to cold conditions and us using hot water all the time the moisture sticks to the roof and that contributes to the paint getting peeled.

When I asked the agent on what the owner was thinking, whether she wanted to sell the home or not, he replied that it could go either way, sell or probably no sell as well. With my luck in house searching, I could only assume the worst. Then two other events happened.

The owners wanted to see the house, two ladies came along, saw the home, and were very appreciative of the fact that the house was in good condition, again the bathroom paint factor was discussed. No issues there. Just needs a little bit of paint work, I was informed.

The other event was that the Reserve Bank of Australia raised the interest rates by 25 basis points, which caused most home owners on mortgages to struggle with their repayments. It was widely reported in the media at that time, most mortgage holders are selling their properties to move into rental apartments, thereby causing a flurry of applications for every decent rental apartment. Where there was 7-10 applications for a 2 bedroom apartment, there were 15-20 applications. Apartments that came up for renting were quickly snapped up.

But, in the meantime, I received no notification from my land agent or the owners as to what was the status of the apartment, but still we had initiated our home search, and the same luck continued. All of a sudden on Nov 14, we received a letter from the estate agent asking us to move out, within 60 days of receiving the letter as the owner has a made a decision to sell the house. The holiday season was fast approaching and there were no apartments on the market, again we had a few sleepless nights.

But Lady Luck did appear on the horizon, we looked at an apartment on Nov 18 and was approved by my own estate agent within the next two – three days.

“Veettai katti paar, kalyanam panni paar” (Build a house, conduct a wedding), that statement in Tamil is not in vain.

Back Again !!

Yes, I am back in the blogging world after having disappeared in Sep 2006.  If any of you are wondering what I was doing in the meantime, I can only summarize it as having an extended honeymoon with my wife, who arrived in Australia in the first week of Sep 2006.  So, I cannot be entirely blamed for disappearing !!

This past week saw me and my wife huffing and puffing while moving into a new home.  I never knew that I had accumulated so much stuff in the 3 years or so at the old place, the books alone came to three cardboard boxes.  I used a movers service, who charged one arm and half a limb for the three hour work that they did.  Of course, I should appreciate the laddies who easily picked up my writing table and carried it to the new first floor home.  I remember the day when that table was brought it to the old home, it is heavy.  This was also the first time that I saw a chap carry a washing machine all by himself up the stairs.   So it was worth paying the arm and half limb to them.

Life is never devoid of surprises – I was asked to move out of the old home during Nov third week as the landlord was wanting to sell the property.  Now I have walked miles around Melbourne looking for new homes as soon as I got married and in all places, got declined for no apparent reason.  I had a 9 month rental history, savings in the bank, my credit rating was good (I have my credit card providers hounding me providing me more credit every 3 months or so) and still did not get approved.  Whilst talking amongst friends about these problems, lots of answers came up, how agents check the rental history and so on and so forth.  When I was asked to move out, I was naturally quite pessimistic about getting another home, given the previous experiences, but the saving grace was that my current land agent was willing to find another home ASAP.  There are business reasons behind it, but I don’t care, as long as I have a roof over my head (with two bedrooms) I am happy.  And surprisingly, we found a home right in our current suburd of Glen Huntly near to the Railway station.

I will write more about the moving in process and the various hassles we faced when we moved in.  But for now, I am back in full flow, I guess..!!

Ooh Aah Ouch !!

This was how I felt after lifting my old fridge along with my friend Karthik, who happens to be a body builder. It was an old Westinghouse, I had used it for nearly 2.5 years myself. It was very roomy, nearly 300 litre. But the compresser was heavy and was very difficult to lift. The ironic thing was that after lifting it for 3 steps and resting and lifting again, we found out that the fridge had roller wheels !!

In case any of you are wondering whether I drained the water before undertaking the exercise, I realised that I did not do it fully, and there is (was) water all over the kitchen floor and some on the carpet as well. And boy, it was stinking as well. So there I was, lifting the fridge, pushing it to the naturestrip in front of the apartment block to be collected by the council garbage removers next week. After that, I am still not able to lean or sit properly, might be tomorrow before I can bend my back to a extent. For the fridge removal, I really had to bend my back, literally !!

Sometimes I wish I was back in India where you can get help to do all this for you, but the dollar dream goes on, yet to provide to act as a soothing balm for the back pain.

Housewarming at Sydney

Over the weekend, I was in Sydney, attending the housewarming ceremony for the new home of my co-brother and sister-in-law. Below is a snap of the milk boiling, marking the completion of the house warming ceremony.

Marriage !!!

Why would someone not write any post since March 10 and be away from the blogging radar for such a long time ? I cannot remember when I did such a disappearing act previously. The truth is I got married on April 3 at Coimbatore to Deepa Subramaniam. I have since returned to Australia whereas my wife of three weeks is back in India awaiting her visa to come to Australia.

Pasta Saapidareegala Pasta ?

Pasta has become my favourite for sometime now.  I dont prefer the pasta at a restaurant or hotel, I prefer the one that I cook at home.  I have just perfected my recipe and I find that it is very good tastewise.

Warning : After reading the recipe, the following conditions can occur – drowsiness due to eating, can develop a pot belly, can develop an aversion to other dishes etc.

Ingredients : 2 chopped medium sized onions, 3 cans of diced tomato with olives, pasta shells as per requirement.

I am vegetables freak, so I usually have mushrooms, and some vegetable salad as a side dish and with some Coke to drink.

Method : In a big pan, pour some oil to fry the onions and mushrooms till they are brown.  At the same time, boil the pasta shells.  After the vegies are fried, pour the tomato paste into the pan and mix well.  The tomatoes should be mixed well with the vegies until all the tomato loses its fragrance and blends well with the vegies.  Then mix the pasta shells with the tomato and vegies and add some spice and salt and you are done.

Cooking time is less than 20 mins, and so far I have a diehard fan of that pasta in my housemate.