No matter where you go – there you are.
It’s a small world. Never more do yo get that than when you shift yourself half round the world and keep bumping into people from next door.
2 years ago, I became friends with someone it turns out had lived right near Hereford (where I grew up) till they were 8 years old, when their family shifted from the UK to NZ. Which means for about 3 years of my life, we actually lived about 6 miles away from each other. Its one of lifes mysteries to me that we know know each other becuase we live in New Zealand.
Then while hiding away from the world during my “Evony Addiction”, one of my Alliance who lived up in Auckland had done his OE at the PGL Outdoor center Just outside Ross-on-Wye and about 5 minutes drive from where I was living just before we moved here.
Then just last week, the Physio at the gym asked me where I cam from. (It’s the accent – gives me away ever time!)
Now this is not an infrequent query, but fraught with the high possibility that I then have to explain where in the blazes Hereford actually is. I tend to go for “Near Wales”, because even here, with such large links back to the OK, most people are hazy on where anything is other than London.
So I said Herefordshire – and lo and behold he knew where I meant. Turns out he comes from Moreton-on-Lugg, a place I know pretty well, becuase thats where my first Boyfriend lived. Embarrassingly he looks to be about the same age as us, so he may even have known said boyfriend – but I didn’t dare ask!
I’ve yet to bump into anyone from the village I grew up in (Preston-on-Wye) – I’m pretty sure thats a really good thing though.
And it’s not just us ourselves – 2 lots of friends we made, quite independent of each other, turn out to have lived in the same village as each other back in the UK but at different times.
It’s a funny world.
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Answering some questions from Thomas :)
Cos it’s easier sometimes to write a new post.
This follows on from this post about my complaint to BSC Fireprotection
I for one would like to hear their side to this as there is always two sides to everything.
I would love to share that with you, but unfortunately the company doesn’t feel it needs to speak to me – so I cant tell you what they have said, other than what they did bother to say which was a polite version of “Sod Off”. And legally it turns out – BSC actually don’t have to answer to us, no matter how badly they behaved – and they obviously are fully aware of that.
In the complex in which you reside how many units are there and was there any others that had an issue?
There are about 140 units, and I’m not aware of anyone else having an issue. How many occupants need to have had a problem I wonder? Isn’t one enough? Hopefully I was one of the earlier units looked at, and they learned their lesson pdq. Many of the units are empty, as they are still owned by Century City – the developers- and are being used as extra Hotel Rooms for their Grand Mercure hotel which is at the front of the block.
Do you own or lease?
Both as it happens – which I did mention in the original post, and in a few other blogs. This unit, we are renting direct from Century City. We actually own one of the other units and have tenants in there on a fixed term lease till January. We are renting to “Try it out” and decide whether to move into our own unit next year, or whether we would prefer to sell it. We really need to live in the city now, but at heart are both country people, so it was worth renting to see if we could cope with the life of a city dweller.
Have you read the Body corparate small print?
Yes and no. Oddly, we were not given a copy of the Body Corp Rules when we moved in as tenants, which we should have been, but yes, I happen to have a copy of the Body Corp Rules because I’m a Unit Owner. It actually doesn’t make any difference to my rights, or the obligations of the Landlord or Body Corporate.
The web is a very powerful arena for public comment, but is very open to missinterpretation, as a Blogger you should be aware of this.
Yes I am quite well aware of that thank you. It also means that companies like this can no longer hide their shitty attitudes towards people – which is kinda cool.
If you are as you state a property investor, you should be fully aware of the compliances required on an annual basis and interuptions are the joys of living in a complying complex.
If? 
Yes I am thank you. I am also aware of the rights of my own tenants, and thus my own rights as a tenant. I’m also fully aware of what is right and what is wrong, and that if you treat someone the way I was treated – you should apologise at the very very least, and work your butt off to make up for it. What you do not do is ignore the issue, and make damn sure the people complaining then go lawyer up. Which is what we have done. Thats just bad manners, bad business and quite frankly – Stupid.
Our Lawyers inform us that in fact, we now have to make our complaint to the Landlord, and the Body Corporate, as it is their failure to communicate properly with us that lead to this issue. They are the ones that then have the ability to hold BSC to account for failing to behave in a proper or professional manner. So what should have been handled as a simple complaint, is now going to get complicated and cause agro for a lot more people than it actually involved.
We DO have the right to refuse entry unless it is for an emergency, and we have the right to insist that we are given proper notice. As the Body Corp and the Landlords have several methods of contact for us, the fact that they relied on a “Note through the door” (which we didn’t get) really isn’t up to scratch. Interestingly, the Body Corp failed to inform us as Owners of a unit, or the Property Managers that run it for us, so we would have failed in our obligations to inform our own tenants and make sure they were happy with this happening. This is not acceptable. I take my obligations as a landlord very seriously, and I feel awful that our own tenants could be left feeling that we let them down.
All in all – I think this constitutes “a right cock-up”, but its the refusal of BSC to apologise that is resulting in it becoming a legal complaint for everyone.
Century City have been quite lovely and understanding over this as it happens, and will be giving me the extra security in the apartment that we have asked for. I really have no complaint with them over the way they have handled the complaint – and it annoys me that we have to send them a legal letter.
Look forward to seeing your comments as you will post, you can’t resist.
I’m glad to oblige, though I hope you had more in mind when commenting than trying to wind me up – cos that would be just a tad sad. Whether or not I could “resist” is not the issue – you have asked some questions, and it would actually be rude of me to ignore them. I hope I have managed to clear that up for you.
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When is your New Life no longer your “New” life?
I was browsing through some my Blogroll yesterday, and left a comment on the Domestic Executive Blog:
One of the best things about my new life here (which really after 5 and a half years I ought to stop calling my “new” life) is that I am NOT busy all the time. I can say to people – I’m flexible – when’s good for you – when we need to meet up. But I’ve also had to learn to say No when people ask me for favours. Because I found I was spending a lot of time “working” for people for free, and then not having the time to enjoy not working.
As you can see – while I was writing it – I suddenly wondered if I could any longer claim that this was my “New Life”.
At what point are you really no longer a Migrant or an Ex-pat, but someone who lives in New Zealand?
I reckon it might be when you stop complaining about the things that are different here, and start complaining about the things that other Kiwi’s complain about. Which are often the same things as it happens.
Maybe it’s when the novelty wears off. Which in my case it mostly has – but not entirely. I think there will always be moments when I think “Wow! I get to live here??? Really???”.
Either way – it’s not really my own personal “New Life” anymore – it’s just a better version of my old life.
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Why can’t Kiwi companies ever say “Sorry”?
Following the rather traumatic barging-in of 2 men into my home the other day – I wrote a rather impressively stinky email of a complaint to the company behind it:
BSC Fireprotection Ltd
PO Box 40-138,
Upper Hutt
I was not polite – because let’s face it – it’s hard to be anything like polite in circumstances like this. But look at the response I got from BSC FireProtection Ltd:
Thank you for your e-mail, as Century City Body Corporate arranged for this inspection I have passed your e-mail to them.
Regards,
What on EARTH can you say to such a pathetic cop out? Why is it that so often complaints here just utterly ignored? Its like talking to the Immigration Department all over again. A complete and utter refusal to even acknowledge that something has gone badly wrong somewhere, and a mindbogglingly arrogant refusal to apologise.
So, as this is very serious – its not like they got my order for some flowers wrong or something – this is what I have responded with:
The body corporate and Century City have already been informed.
However if that is the total sum of your personal concern and attitude to what you staff did to me – its hardly any surprise that they felt they could storm into someones home.
You should be ashamed of yourself for such a cop-out. Thats truly the most pathetic response to a complaint I have EVER seen. The Body Corporate did not barge into my home while I was in Bed. The body corporate did not laugh at me when I was clearly shocked and angry at being subjected to this. YOUR company did.
I expect a proper response – by the end of the day -or I will be taking this matter a whole lot further than the Body Corporate I can assure you.
I was subjected to a Home Invasion by your staff. Do something about it.
I think a letter from my Lawyers may suffice to persuade BSC FireProtection that they perhaps need to take this a bit more seriously. In the meantime, the Apartment owners have been told that I want a chain on my door, so that never again will anyone be able to just barge in when they feel like it and amuse themselves at my expense.
I’ve already let the Body Corp know, because not only are we tenants in this building, but we own one of the apartments here. So my Body Corp fees are actually going toward paying these idiots wages. If we lived in our own apartment, we would have no issues changing the locks and beefing up the security, but as we live in a rental we don’t have as many options. But I sure as hell am not putting up with that lamentable response!
What the hell is wrong with these people???
And theres me thinking I would be able to sit back and relax for a while !
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Wellington life; the three minute commute
When we first emigrated to Wellington, the new apartment with a new job were pretty close. Two sets of lifts, two sets of pedestrian traffic lights and six minutes later I’m in the office.
A far cry from the typical 2 hours drive each way, which in some cases took me more than six minutes to walk from one end of the car park into the office. And lets just ignore the 4+ hours it took to get into central London using a car, train, underground & my feet.
Contracting means I’m floating around town a lot now, a different office different months. Right at the moment I’m in an office on Tory St. While we live in an apartment on…
Tory St. 
I’m timed the commute, from leaving my desk, getting into the lift, walking across the road, back into a lift and getting in the apartment door it takes 3 minutes.
Which is kinda nice.
It means I can pop home for a coffee break, some decent lunch or when I’ve forgotten something.
Or when Avalon is about to throw the Laptop out of the window. 
So it’s not far off working from home, I don’t get to wander around in jeans & t-shirt though.
Avalon and Hubby: Making the most of city living!
Our First “weekend in the Wairarapa”.
Filed under: Beaches in New Zealand, Cost of living, Life in New Zealand
Well, this is it – we are now officially City Dwellers, having taken our first Saturday morning (well, afternoon actually) jaunt out of town for the weekend. So this is how it went.
Friday Night:
We decide at 8.40 pm to go to the 9pm showing of Eclipse at the Reading cinema, and are sat in there by 8.55 with coffee and Diet Cokes. No “ah yes but it’ll take us 90 minutes to drive, 10 minutes to park, then we have to come back home”.
Saturday Morning.
Wake up at 9.30.
Realise we don’t have any eggs for breakfast, so rather than nip across the road to Moore Wilsons, decide that we will use our “eat out” budget to spring for bacon and eggs at Mr Bun’s. (Cheap and cheerful). Throw a few things in a suitcase, and pop off for breakfast.
Finish breakfast at 10.30, head back to the flat and work out how to fit a suitcase, two laptop bags and a handbag in a tiny car. Thankfully, because I couldn’t be bothered to get eggs from MW, I also didn’t pick up a 5.5kg frozen turkey that I was planning on buying to stick in the big chest freezer ready for Christmas.
Leave at about 11.30, feeling that possibly we haven’t really got this who “weekend” concept quite right. We are heading for something more like “Afternooners” or “4pm-ers” at this rate.
We finally made it back home by 1.30pm, and only that by not stopping in Greytown with the other hoards from the city for lunch. Passed a few other convertibles there I can tell you!
So here we are – in the peace and quiet. Not having to listen to the bars and clubs over the weekend. Getting our fix of open countryside and greenery.
Possibly off to the beach tomorrow!
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Me and the MX5: The Finale
Filed under: Cost of living, General Budgeting, Life in New Zealand
Well, let’s just say at this point that Motors: Mazda: MX5 has been listed as a favorite on my Trade Me account as long as I have had a Trade Me account. This is basically becuase when I first started getting into Property Investing, I happened to pass by the Mazda garage in Wellington (as you do – honestly its on the route to Moore Wilsons). And I thought I would pop in to look at what they had in the showroom – so that I could build a “Vision Board” of where I wanted the investing to take us.
And lo: they had this really swanky new Dark Purple (so dark its almost black), shiny MX5 that was just screaming at me to buy it.
I was in Wuv.
Slight sticking point – it was $50,000.
And it was brand new – which means as soon as you drive it out the dealership its worth a lot less than you paid for it. Not great odds for anyone planning on making squillions in the property game. Besides – didn’t have $50,000 sitting around burning a hole in my pocket. But dammit – thats the car I wanted, so it went on the dream board, and I have been keeping an eye out on Trade me for 2nd hand ones. One came up a while back, but still with a price tag of $35,000 which is still too much for me.
Ho Hum. Of course now that I need to buy a new car, the swanky purple one isn’t available – at any price, but I have been watching and planning. I was hoping to be able to spend about $20,000 but in the end the pennies just weren’t there. So I decided to buy a cheaper version – and I can always spray it when I have some more money.
2nd hand MX5′s can be had for between $3,000 and $45,000 – so I thought I’d better be at the lower end. I test drove a few in the 8-10k range, but in the end decided I wanted an Automatic. Basically because most cars over here are automatics, all ours were, and I’ve just got used to them. Besides – my original 2 MX5′s were as well.
On Friday last week, I called a guy in Levin who was selling an 1999 MX5, automatic, British racing green (no pop up headlights). Asking price $7995. A quick price check said that was very reasonable – I looked at one a year older for $11K, and one a year younger at $14k. We drove over to take it for a spin, and I loved it! It was in good nick (needs a good clean inside), but the roof is sound, it drove well and everything worked. Experience says theres not likely to be a huge amount that needs fixing – they are not cars that are run by complicated computers so they tend not to be expensive to fix. And the big expense which was a new Cam Belt had already been done and there was a service bill to show it.
All it took was a call to the bank manager, who had been warned this might be coming, and she put the payment through straight away. The guy was comfortable enough from talking to me to let me take the car straight away, and within 10 minutes I finally had my long sought after dream: an MX5.
We then drove a little north to Foxton Beach, grabbed fish and chips from Mr Grumpy’s and coffee from the Simply Balmy Cafe and had a late lunch at the beach sitting in my new car with the hood down. I couldn’t stop grinning.
In fact – I still haven’t stopped grinning every time i get in the car.
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Me and the MX5: part3
Filed under: Cost of living, General Budgeting, Life in New Zealand
Well, we managed with one car for the first year, sharing it between myself and hubby, mum and dad. The fact that we managed that long without a car each and 3 spares was a minor miracle. Never before has my family coped with so little vehicular choice.
Being countryside dwellers for so long – we are into the habit of having to get around under our own steam. Theres kinda point relying on public transport when theres only one buss a week into town, and the train station is 10 miles away. Its no different here in NZ – public transport doesn’t start till you get to Carterton, and thats 15kms away.
But when mum and dad came back for there second 6 month stay they decided to go buy themselves a car. They went out one day – and came back with an old Jag XJ6 – basically a Tank with bigger comfier seats and a fuel consumption to match. Cheap to buy – small mortgage needed to fill up at the pump.
So we managed for a few years like this, then when they came to stay full time, my brother also bought a car, as he was now going to be living separately from the rest of us, and needed to be able to get about.
It was at this point that I made the comment over of coffee or two that if there were any more cars to be bought by this family – it was damn well going to be mine. Any deviation from this plan would be met with a major Grumpage alert.
At which point the Jag decided to die on us having failed its WoF and being about to cost considerably more to repair than was spent buying it. This was a few weeks ago. So I jumped and suggested that maybe now was the time for me to replace my MX5.
Obviously there are a lot of changes to our lives right now, with Hubby changing jobs and us moving into the city. So I figured that we could use a small car, and mum and dad could keep our big, fast, blacked out car with the big boot. Much more useful for the country life, and lets face it – a small car in the city is much easier to park.
Only problem was – how the hell do we buy a new car when we have little money and a credit card bill we cant pay in full?
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Me and the MX5: Part2
Filed under: Cost of living, Getting to New Zealand, Life in New Zealand
So we arrived in New Zealand, and oddly enough, as these things tend to pan out – I did not end up buying a new car straight away. Mostly this was because we started out living in Wellington City, right in the middle of the CBD and could walk almost everywhere. And as we were fainting with shock over the true cost of living, we decided that being sensible {shudder} we would leave the expense till we needed it.
I even on occasion succumbed to using Public Transport {Shudders}.
We made the most of it, there was a good bus service to Eastbourne and Days bay, or we could take the ferry over and get breakfast at the cafe and bum on the beach. But it was awkward for food shopping, because we weren’t as free to shop around. And lets face it – its a right pain in the patootie when you have to lug carrier bags full of food across town!
But then of course we decided to buy a house in the Wairarapa, and couldn’t put off buying a car any longer. Hubby would need it to get to work, even if he was using the train, and where were buying – will – there wasn’t a Tescos within walking distance. Nope – for country living – a car is a necessity.
So – MX5 it was then.
Ah nope!
Dammit but we needed a “sensible car” {Shudders}.
We ended up buying a “Station Wagon” which just sounds so hideous to me. Estate Car is so much more “English”. There were a number of reasons for this. Its was big, comfy, and very very fast. The fact that it was black, had blacked out windows and black lights glinting blackly on a black background also helped.
It was also only $9000, though we did have to spend another few $$$ on it afterwards. This was also at the time that my family were coming over for their first 6 months trip, and we figured it was big enough to fit all 5 of us plus a lot of luggage, which saved us a considerable amount of hassle and expense on getting them from Auckland to their new home, as we were going to take a few days holiday to do the trip and see some sights as well.
So that was that – still no MX5, all the money for a car spent on a fast, black, but decidedly non-convertible “sensible” car.
That was 5 years ago….
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Me and the MX5: Part1
In a previous life – I went through a divorce. And as many people do, I went out and spoiled myself afterwards with a completely unsensible and frivolous spending spree and bought a convertible. So about 11 years ago I bought my first wonderful British Racing Green MX5 – with pop-up headlights.
I had so much fun.
Then as luck would not have it – a bumble bee spoiled all my fun, by stinging a young lad in the arm while he was hurtling round a corner in the Forest of Dean, and he drove right in to me.
Which hurt. A lot.
So that was a write off, but the insurance paid out, and I went straight back to the dealer I had bought it from, and bought another one. That was my second British Racing Green MX5 – with pop-up headlights.
I had some laughs with that – as it had a disturbing habit of spinning wildly out of control at the most inconvenient moments – like just as I was going round roundabouts, and ending up facing the wrong way. So as this was just as me and new hubby were getting married and buggering off to NZ for 5 weeks on honeymoon, we dropped it back to the specialist dealer, and asked him to try and figure what was wrong.
When we got back – on a stupidly early flight into Heathrow, we detoured to Ilford to pick up the car. Apparently no one could replicate the madcap spinning – but they changed the wheels anyway, twiddled with the suspension, and prayed a bit. Thankfully – that seemed to do the trick, and I didn’t die mangled in a spinning car.
Of course at this point – we decided emigrating to NZ would be laugh.
Well, I wasn’t going to give up my lovely car, so started looking at shipping costs. Most companies were looking at charging about the same, and basically we were looking at hiring a 40ft container instead of a 20ft container, and boxing the car in.
At which point the gits at LTNZ (Land Transport New Zealand) threw a bureaucratic spanner in the wheels: we were not allowed to import the car becuase it didn’t have a Frontal Impact Standard Pass because it was 2 years too old.
But – I thought – the car obviously passed a frontal impact test in as much as a Transit Van driving at speed frontally impacted my last MX5 and I didn’t end up squished on the road. How much more frontal impact can you get than that????
Well – we reckoned this was those economic scams designed to stop scummy migrants from not spending more of their hard earned cash in New Zealand setting up their new lives.
Bah Humbug!
So I had to sell it.
When the guy came to buy it – I couldn’t watch as he drove it away. It was a few weeks before we were leaving – and I was gutted to be saying goodbye to my car. I swore I would buy another one as soon as we got to New Zealand….
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