whiskeyomega wrote:
Finally my husband has said that we have to move house.

Currently we have a two bedroom bungalow in a very rural area . Septic
tank, no mains gas and an extension ( one room) which has a flat roof
and a large garden - an acre or so, all electric which he also hates.

There is little or nothing going wrong with these things right now. We
have had problems with the septic tank in the past ( well a blocked
drain but that was sorted - surely you can have blocked drains on mains
drainage too?)

He says another place would be cheaper and we cant afford this one. He
maintains loads of things are wrong with this house but I don't see any
of them when I look around. We have rising damp apparently but its
condensation.

I don't know how much our house is worth but not a lot given its state
of repair - old bathroom, ( avocado suite if you remember those) and old
kitchen and mostly old storage heaters and rather damp right now as a
result of no heating. The guttering leaks at all joints and the double
glazing is so old it probably needs re doing too.

We don't have a mortgage and no real money worries to be honest.

He wants to move into town into an old peoples unit ( one bed and no
garden) which would cost about £80,000. It would be leasehold and
maintenance fees are about £500 at the moment.

We would also have to have a water meter and we would still have
storage heaters as they have no mains gas allowed there either - I think
that was for safety reasons for the elderly.

He is 59 and retired early recently.

I am 50 and still working.

I don't want to move. I would rather try and sort our house out. I
don't have the skills for this though. I do know my neighbour who is on
a water meter pays £254 a quarter for water and there is no reason to
suppose we would use less than her. I currently pay £250 a year in
rates for water ( our septic tank means we get reduced rates - we
wouldn't get that with a water meter in SW water) .

Is it bad news to have a house with septic tank and storage heaters and
no mains gas and a flat roof on an extension? Or is he being bloody silly?

Bloody silly is not strong enough. To move into a geriatric unit at 50
or 59 is madness. Life will be utterly depressing. To give up life in
a pleasant rural area to live in some geriatric urban squat it truly
madness. At 59 your husband is young enough to learn how to fix
whatever needs to be fixed and he needs something do do anyway.
Vegetating in a geriatric squat will probably kill him in less than 10
years. Dig your toes in and kick his arse.

Your septic tank should probably be pumped out every three or four
years, perhaps longer. That is not a big deal. Replace the guttering
with uPVC. You just glue this stuff together. Buy a ladder and kick
the useless bugger up it. It is a bungalow for Christ's sake not two or
three floors.

R

Just want opinions really. Thanks.