Everything I hate about this house

I need to have a whinge every once in a while about how crappy this house is, because we desperately need to move somewhere bigger, but:

• Both of us only have Centrelink income at the moment, which is unlikely to look good on a home loan application.


• The housing market is pretty hot right now. Even if we sold this house and had a decent amount to put down as a result, how can we know any of our offers would be accepted?


• Yes, we've thought about selling and renting somewhere, but we have cats, one of which uses the lounge room as her toilet. It's hard enough to find a rental at the moment if you DON'T have pets.

So most of these things could be fixed, yes, but it's not worth it when we plan to move as soon as we're able to. A lot of these things would cost hundreds or thousands of dollars to fix. Which is hundreds or thousands of dollars LESS we'll have when it comes time to buy a new place.

1. 
   
   
   
   1. It's too small. Six people and all their stuff just doesn't fit in a house that's no bigger than 90 square metres (about 970 square feet).
   
   
   2. We only have two electrical circuits that actually work.
   
   
   3. The back door is literally falling apart.
   
   
   4. No garage.
   
   
   5. No front fence.
   
   
   6. Not enough covered space outdoors to hang washing during winter.
   
   
   7. The light circuit freaks out whenever a light globe blows and shuts off.
   
   
   8. The light fixture in the dining room (which we actually just use for computers) doesn't even work.
   
   
   9. There's a possum who lives in the wall between the bathroom and the dining/computer room.
   
   
   10. Louvred windows in the kitchen, bathroom, laundry, and toilet.
   
   
   11. Enormous concrete double sink in the laundry, which should be awesome except...the drain is blocked, so we just pile stuff on top of it.
   
   
   12. The heater can't be set to more than about 18 degrees (64 F) on the coldest nights (when it gets down to freezing or just below), or it'll throw a fit and shut off completely.
   
   
   13. Gravity fed hot water system.
   
   
   14. It's always either JUST too hot or JUST too cold getting the shower temperature just right.
   
   
   15. Separate hot & cold taps in the bathroom. So you either freeze your hands when washing them, or start by freezing them and then slowly work up to burning them.
   
   
   16. Tiles falling off the wall in the bathroom.
   
   
   17. Paint peeling off the bathroom ceiling, because there's no exhaust fan in there.
   
   
   18. I had to convert my built in wardrobe into a second pantry because there's not enough space in the two cupboards in the kitchen.
   
   
   19. Speaking of the kitchen, when we had 3 fully working circuits, I had two power points in there. We had double adapters on both to take it to four (one for fridge, one freezer, one for the microwave, one spare). Now that the third circuit has crapped out, I have zero power points.
   
   
   20. Because of where my Thermomix is, I have to run a cable from the dining/computer room into the kitchen.
   
   
   21. The kitchen cupboard doors keep falling off, because they've fallen off and been put back on multiple times.
   
   
   22. We have to run an extension cord from Caleb's room into the laundry room in order to do laundry, because - you guessed it - the two laundry power points are on the third inactive circuit.
   
   
   23. Oh, and we have to run another extension cable from Caleb's room to power the fridge and freezer.
   
   
   24. Because of the electrical circuit situation, I can't do washing at night or early in the morning when the bedroom heaters are on. Well, I could, if I wanted to trip the circuit.
   
   
   25. Everything about this house screams 'afterthought.'
   
   
   26. The side fences are falling down.
   
   
   27. The house faces southwest, which is great when the cool change comes in - the fresh breeze blows through the whole house. Well, it does the same thing with all the windows and doors closed when we have a cold northeast wind in the winter. And it's FREEZING.
   
   
   28. The oven door doesn't shut properly, thanks to a toddler who used to climb up on it and bounce. It's also coming apart.
   
   
   29. Chuckie & Micah's room has a sliding door, which Elijah knows how to operate, so he gets in and plays with stuff he shouldn't.
   
   
   30. This photo. See that corner with the bench space, next to the oven and the sink section? Do you know what's UNDER that corner bench? Scroll down to find out...
   
   
   
   

 

NOTHING! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! What a complete waste of space.

Things I DO like about this house:

• It's a great location. Close to public transport, shops, playgrounds.


• It's a good sized block.


• The neighbours are generally quiet.

So have we thought about knocking down and rebuilding? Yes, but...

• We'd still have to rent somewhere for about 6 months, which would cost a lot of money, and see above about the cat with toilet problems.


• We'd either have to have a LOT of money saved up to put down on the building costs, which takes a long time, or increase our loan to the point it's too big a percentage of our income and/or takes too long to pay off.

So yeah. We're kinda stuck right now. And it sucks.