Southwark you are my bane

It's all fun here at Bobble Towers - I have subsidence. Well, not me personally, *eyes bottom*, but our building. Prepare for a rant...

We bought our flat in October, our first flat, the object of much London dreaming. Finally, we can afford a flat! Bubb worked his socks off to get a mortgage on his own as I am a lowly student with no income, but we did it. Nearly in Zone 1, by the Jubilee line, perfect. We have big plans, totally rip out the crummy 60's interior and do £20K of work (that's how we could afford to buy so centrally; it's a fixer upper). Now it's all on hold. Good job really the builders have been absolutely arse in not giving us quotes within, oh, two months of asking them.

We got a letter from Southwark Council this week - who are in my bad books for losing three times now a 'we've moved in' form containing a certificate from my college with my student status so we can register to pay council tax - THREE 'effing times I tell you. I just want to pay my council tax and not get taken to court - informing us that 'major works' will be taking place this year including "internal works" to our flat and the flat next door to deal with subsidence of the car park and paths outside.

This work involves injecting foamy stuff (see I'm technical) into the ground under our building to fill a void that has developed. To get any detail or dates or what they actually need to do in our flat we must go to one of their offices, miles away from where we live that is only open 10.00-16.00 on weekdays. Bubb took a morning off work on Wednesday to get the low down...

It turns out they may not have to come into our flat, they are 97% sure they won't but we won't know for another two months(!) for sure. The actual work will take place between June and September for a period of six-ish weeks. If they do need to come into our flat we actually have to move home, that's right EVERYTHING, into temporary accommodation.

So, we are in limbo. Do we do any renovations, or start anything, on the off-chance the council need to drill into the foundations through our newly laid floor and underfloor heating? Everything hinges on what they need to do. To say I am pissed off is mild. I am fed up with not being able to start... I want to have a kitchen that actually works and has cupboards (I have none), I want a bathroom that works and has a bath (I have none).

I thought owning your own home was supposed to make you happy. No more crappy, swindling landlords. Now, I just have crappy, inefficient freeholders who lose every bit of paper we send them and have poor underpaid call-centre workers answer their phones.

The final thing - that really irks me - is if this work has been "in-train" for two years why the hell didn't it show up on our expensive survey? Who hid what from whom?

In other news college started again this week and I have my own body weight in reading. I am already starting to panic about the workload, it's insane.

I need a gin.