General Chat

My brother left my sister and I the house in Somerset, he had been left it by our grand parents. It was considered to be a suitable home for him as he was severely disabled. Injured as a child in an accident on a farm owned by relations in, well, the part of Somerset now under water.

When he died age 48, my sister wasn't interested in keeping the house so I bought her out. She bought a flashy BMW with the money. Now long gone to the great car dump in the sky. The money I used had been left to me by my Mum who had died just age 62, of Altzheimers.

The house means a lot to me, we spent a lot of time there as children with our grandparents as mum was showing signs of her illness from a very young age. But believe me I would just as soon have her and my brother back here with us fit and well.

I am also sorry that this thread has been dragged off course from Sharrons original question which was about the devastating flooding and awful weather, around the country.
M

Morning everyone:)

We had a frost this morning, and the river is still down....yehhhhh

MaryAnna.....hope all is well with you..did you get the high winds the other night, we had them Fri night and the water board men coming and going, which meant head lights shining through the curtains, just as we got to sleep at 1am....but obviously doing their job.
We have to open the windows to let fresh air in and we have a humidi thingie (when windows shut that is), but that come with the territory in these houses. We are ok though, but one neighbour must be in an awful state, they have been flooded on ground floor for a couple of weeks now :-(....they know we are here if needed.

Take care everyone:)

jude x

Just seen Johns post......made me laugh too, very good John ;-) ;-) :-D :-D


jude

Hope Maryanna's sister in Chertsey stays dry and safe. A poster on another thread has said that their mother is staying with them having been flooded out in Staines.

And before anyone starts on the apparent 'wealth' of Surrey home owners - property prices vary across the country. What would buy a 3 bed detached in one part would only get you a one bed in a more expensive area. For many people their money is tied up in their home - you can't eat bricks and mortar.

Even Renters would be financially hit - the loss of their goods and chattels; everything that makes a home including photos, the finger painting made by Little Johnny at playgroup etc. They can never be replaced.

Once the recent heavy rain has moved down stream, we are at last promised a quieter weather spell for next week.

Just been out for a walk to see the state of the streams and Thames and was surprised to see an E A truck go through the village, Did they take a 2 second divert to se the state of the River Meadows (well down at the moment) no!. Did they stop to check the height of one of the small rivers under the road bridge, - no! So presumably they didn't check the other one which is hitting the lower bricks under the road bridge - that one is making me nervous!

I have two homes (one in Valleys of Wales in a craigy and mynyddy area, other in North Wales about 200m from sea) and together they are not worth as much as a slightly above average house in a luxurious area like Staines under Thames.......

I am intensely jealous of people with a house worth more than £250k with a household insurance policy up to date that includes compo (new for old) for returning a house under the Thames to above it.


Oh!! :-0 :-0 Just seen DET's post. :-( :-(

Not been to Staines have you John?

Wales has been hit badly as well though, hasn't it John ?

We have some friends who live in Porthmadog, they had terrible winds there a few nights ago. Lots of structural damage.

On the news they keep showing one of our sons' seafront halls accommodation in Aberystwyth,

There was never weather anything like this in the four years he was there, he was learning about flood defences as part of his course too !!

The disruption and cost to places like those businesses as well as homes as well as The Devon Coast and the South coast, Somerset and around the Thames, is going to be shocking. Let's hope most people have adequate insurance, but I know that we most certainly do not have new for old, my husband wouldn't pay out for those premiums. But I think in the long run we are all going to have to bear the brunt of some of it, whether we have been affected or not.

M

Hi Maryanna, please don't feel the need to justify yourself to anyone because you don't have to. Least of all to Graham who at the moment is presenting himself as bad mannered and incredibly rude about someone he knows nothing about. I realise that he probably has a lot to contend with at the moment but that is not an excuse for such nastiness on an open forum, or anywhere else.

The expression sour grapes comes to mind. I wonder if Graham was to inherit a second house if he would refuse this bequest.

Good luck to you Maryanna and to everyone else who is effected by the flooding. I previously lived on the fens in East Anglia where flooding is always high risk.

Wendy x

(Owner of two homes as a result of bloody hard work by my late husband and myself, which will eventually be inherited by our children)

"a luxurious area like Staines"

Dear John do tell me where the luxurious houses are in Staines I will rush to the estate agent and register ... obviously you know the area well. FYI it is impossible in most of SE England to buy a family house for under £ 250 K and it sure won't be luxurious. In Fulham you'd be lucky to get a 1 bed flat for that. The owners of these luxurious houses are currently doing their best to commute on what is left of the railway service so as to pay huge fares, huge mortgage and heavy taxes so as to ensure the flat broke principality of Wales can go on living in a style way above what its GDP justifies. No wonder the name of the country is in itself a term of abuse in England.

Like many people the last two months have caused myself and family a lot of hassle (flooded roads) , lost rental income (flooded property), fear ( sea gone crazy ) and a lot of lost income. It just does not seem worth posting here where either (a) people understand the issues all too well or (b) they ain't got a clue.

The problems with low lying areas such as the Somerset Levels, the Fens and parts of Yorkshire seem to be beyond the ken of Westminster politicians and TV nature media people who just want to turn half of British farmland into a bird sanctuary. Farming is not a sinful activity.

:-0

Oh dear :-0 :-0 When I was in my 20's and bought my first place (a flat in somewhere called Harrow-on-the-Hill), I bought it because it was cheaper living on a windy and exposed hill than living on leafy and lush banks of luxurious Thames.

I thought Staines under Thames was just as beautiful as Kingston under Thames and Marlow under Thames, but apparently not. Isn't Windsor Castle and Eton College in Staines?

How I envied those who lived on banks of Thames and had the choice of driving, training, tubing, sailing, even flying down the river to their hugely salaried jobs in West End and City. I have tried hard to curb my envy. And I seriously hope they all are safe and warm in this catastrophe and are able to rebuild shattered houses and gardens over next few weeks. Whether they have one, two or three properties.

Four years ago I was homeless. Sleeping rough. I didn't have a roof over my head. So I am not having anybody with 2 houses telling me they are hard done by. The environment agency and the fire brigade are currently pumping water out of neighbours houses, while they are staying in temporary accomodation. So don't expect me to come on here laughing and joking about it. Some people don't know how well off they are.

This is what bugs me.

It is far from rocket science to work out which areas are prone to flood risk. Ancient areas liable to flooding used to be able to manage the problems for themselves ( Fens, N Somerset) until powers and funding were taken away to the gormless EA which just follows EU diktats and BBC Wildlife programs.

Despite half the UK population trying to find living room in the crowded SE quarter the obvious solution of building down town flats with businesses and services on the ground floor has been largely ignored. As well as using land more efficiently a downtown flats/biz mix is much more rational for transport.

Instead the UK has built a sprawl of ticky tacky housing all over the floodplains of SE England, the Severn Valley and further north the Trent, the Ouse and the Humber.

There has been next to no additional investment in water management, drainage, education or transport road/rail/bus. The inevitable result has been flooding and slow overcrowded journeys to work.

All of this might just self correct itself if market forces were allowed to go their way for building on the flood plains and areas such as the Fens and Somerset given back their ancient powers.

Yes, that means no affordable insurance, crash in property values and a big rethink about how and where to build. It won't happen because the banks could not take the loss on their mortgage loans.

Instead the government is about to enter into a stitch up with the insurance companies. The govt - (having failed to costruct the flood management defenses it promised to the insurers) - now proposes a new scheme to cap insurance fees for flooding.

Only in order the keep rates "affordable" new build, commercial property, rental and "upmarket" are excluded although they will nevertheless have to pay more. Quite what the "new build" exclusion will to the value of land banks and house construction targets heaven knows. Most likely it will be dropped.

I don't really see why householders all over the country should pay extra ins. simply in order to underwrite flood risk which in many cases is not a risk at all but a foregone conclusion.

If all else fails I suppose the UK could buy back Normandy and Picardy - the region is more or less empty and the bankrupt French govt could do worse than to sell out to the English rather than the Germans as per current policy. Wales could get Brittany which would be just on both Wales and Brittany.

We are all in it together but some of us are in to up to the neck.

:-D

Graham, my point is that however live treats a person it is no excuse for ill mannered rudeness and this is something you showed yourself to be guilty of.

I haven't seen anyone on here 'laughing and joking' about the terrible effects of the flooding so I'm not sure where you got that idea from.

Absolutely right, TS. Also you can be very happy with no roof over your head, you can be very miserable and envious of someone who has a caravan. And if you are extraordinarily wealthy, you can be as miserable as sin. Graham might still be rude if he won £67m on the lottery. And envious, because people like the Duke of Westminster and Prince Charles were a lot wealthier than him and yet had done nothing to deserve all that wealth.

Rollo's post amused me. I had just been doing some reserach into the Jewish fliught from European pogroms in late 19th century. How they lived in places like Hackney. And also a town in Shropshire called Shifnal - a railway and stage coach town of 4,000 pop.

In both cases the families lived on 3 or 4 floors - and usually one floor was the workplace. It might be a shop, a saddlery, a tailors. But there were streets exactly like Rollo described. And if houses were built on the flood plain they were often called River Cottage, Mill House, Mill Cottage, Ty Melin, Glan yr Afon. And the residents were gamblers - if they lived in those houses, they took their chances in inclement weather.

And no one seems to mention this is the biggest flood since 1607, and may become even bigger that that one. It seems to me that the Government, teh agencies, the emergency services and the local authorities are coping rather well. And so are householders if you can believe the news. Resilence is incredible. Community spirit is amazing. And, as usual in these situations, heroes come to the fore.

Just have to say how I agree with bot Wendy (TS) and with John's first paragraph.

Nobody on here has been laughing and joking about the state of flooded areas anywhere, we have all be extremely supportive. I wonder if Graham was a supportive in 2007 when we in this area suffered catostrophic flooding, power cuts and water shortage. I hope so.

And it must have been a worry being homeless too, but I have not seen anyone saying they are hard done by having two houses. Actually Maryanna didn't even have to tell us that, it was, as she said, just her story.

If you are flooded Graham and in danger of losing property and belongings then we all sympathise with you. But being nasty and personal to one or more of us is not the way to go.

Graham I am amazed and find it hard to believe how rude you have been to Maryanna. I too have been homeless and lived on the streets, now I own outright my own home IF mother hadn´t lasted as long as she did or we had done things differently I would have had TWO homes 1 in Spain and the other on the Isle of Wight.

Being homeless doesn´t make you rude or give you the right to abuse somebody else who through their own hard work and parents hard work plus their sense now own 2 homes. Their fear and worry for those homes are as genuine as anybody else.

Maryanna you didn´t have to explain and I feel for you that you felt you needed to.

NOBODY here has laughed and joked about the hardship that people are going through with the floods and storms.

I am struggling for words at the rudeness of Graham ..the last time I heard somebody being that rude was my Mother and I got told then to let it go as it was the dementia. !

Graham is only 17. And wet through. Have some sympathy :-D ;-)

I totally agree with Uzzi.

John there is no need for that I am sure.

Sarcasm is the lowest and most ill-informed form of wit.


However, this does bring up a good point. It is sometimes easy to forget whilst mopping out our parlours and endeavouring to rescue the finely crafted pieces of artisan pottery that we have just purchased from Bid TV that there are those worse off than ourselves and maybe we should consider the homeless at times like this.

Graham

Thank you for going some way in explaining why you have such strong feelings but please don't blame everyone else for your problems.

Many of us have gone through very hard times. We almost bankrupted ourselves by buying a tiny cottage so we would have somewhere to go if we lost our 'works' house. For which (thanks to HMRC) we had to pay a hefty maintenance charge (i.e.rent). It is only due to an inheritance that we have been able to purchase our current home. (Yes - we were lucky)

Some 'second homes' are parental property that has failed to sell. Often these properties are not in very good condition because the parents were unable or unwilling to have their homes 'mucked about with'. We could not have let out my mothers house - in fact it was demolished.

Our 'other home' WAS available to others in an emergency but we didn't let it out because it was our own emergency accommodation.