System Failure 2

I have had to threaten 2 companies with issuing a summons through the County Court for failure to supply goods of a satisfactory quality in a timely way. Both sell double glazing windows & doors. 

The company who supplied the sliding sash windows for the original 1930's house have to replace some fittings which don't match, fitted with some rusty screws. The windows were installed & left filthy inside & out, frames & glass, with labels on which I can't remove & no keys to a couple of casement windows. Some windows were not properly sealed on the outside. They are on the second design for my front door which was ordered & paid for in September last year. My original front door is not draught proof or fit for purpose. The work on the hall can't be finished until the door is fitted.

The company who supplied the windows & doors for the new extension have fitted a side door which is the wrong colour inside & doesn't match the frame or their other windows. The windows had the wrong colour trickle vents which haven't been replaced & no keys. I have non matching handles on the windows & doors, some white, some cream. The company was paid to supply & install everything, but they didn't install the door. The frame for the door is damaged because the hinges were put in the wrong place & holes were left. The exterior frame was never sealed.

A Quality Control inspector is coming from the company I bought my kitchen from this week because of issues with chipping paintwork & an extractor fan cupboard which bowed because it wasn't strong enough. I had already had an issue with the wrong configuration of the oven housing cupboard.

I could go on. The number of trouble free transactions during this build could be counted on the fingers of one hand. I have spent hours, days, weeks & months chasing suppliers, who often don't respond. British manufacturing & supply is in a dreadful state. The building trade has always had a bad reputation, but it is now totally unfit for purpose. 

I actually don't blame the suppliers. It's the fabricators who are the problem. It is mostly down to the supply chain - difficulties sourcing materials & also a lack of a skilled workforce. The suppliers have justifiably irate customers on one hand & fabricators who seemingly don't give a toss, because they don't have to deal with the customer.

The customer is relatively powerless, at the mercy of companies who simply ignore the problem & bullshit & bluster their way through this mess. The customer is left just wanting the agony to stop & their build to be finished to a good standard & the builders to move on to some other poor client.

The building trade needs a good shake up. If Northern European countries can do it, why can't the UK? There needs to be proper quality control of both goods & tradespeople. The customer needs protection & enforcement of reasonable standards. Big builders have huge power & make huge profits. They are very effective at lobbying government, who do little or nothing to protect individuals like me who renovate old property.

My house will be very well insulated & fit for climate change. I have not had any financial support to do that. I won't live long enough to recoup the money. If I had known just how bad the building trade is I would never have started this because the mental & physical toll on me at 77 has been enormous.

It shouldn't be like this. What incentive is there for property owners to renovate old property. A conservative estimate is that 25 million homes in the UK need insulation.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/292265/insulation-in-dwellings-in-england-uk-y-on-y/

Chronic Pain

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61309962

26% of adults in the UK live with chronic pain - tick

24% of those take opiods - tick

I have had a lifetime of chronic pain. I have tried every prescription medication from opiods down. I have tried almost every alternative therapy.

I have had doctors who had no idea how to treat me & told me that "I was creating my own pain" and doctors who were patient, sympathetic, open minded & honest. Chronic pain is very difficult to treat. It's only relatively recently that conditions like Fibromyalgia & CFS have become accepted as mainstream. 

https://cks.nice.org.uk/topics/chronic-pain/

Thank goodness we are starting to get more research into pain, it's causes & treatment. 

My experience leads me to think that the causes of chronic pain are multi factorial:-

• Environment - I think we live in a toxic world. Air quality is poor. Agribusiness & industry pollute our rivers & waterways. We eat too much processed food. What we allow into our bodies is not good for them.
• Exercise - Most of us don't do enough. Use it or loose it. Around 1 in 3 (34%) of men and 1 in 2 (42%) of women are not active enough for good health.
• Serotonin carries messages between nerve cells in the brain and throughout your body. It plays a key role in such body functions as mood, sleep, digestion, nausea, wound healing, bone health, blood clotting and sexual desire. Lack of Seratonin is caused by:-
  
  • age-related health and brain changes
  • a poor diet
  • chronic stress
  • a lack of exposure to natural light
  • inadequate exercise levels
• Sleep - 36% of UK adults struggle to get to sleep at least on a weekly basis. Almost 1 in 5 have trouble falling asleep every single night. Nearly half of the UK have trouble falling asleep at least once a month.  https://www.formulatehealth.com/blog/insomnia-statistics-uk-how-many-people-have-sleep-problems. Sleep deprivation & fatige is often caused by chronic pain.
  
• Neurological pain - Fibromyalgia is a chronic and widespread musculoskeletal pain and fatigue disorder. It is a long-term, body-wide pain in muscles, ligaments and tendons – the soft fibrous tissues in the body.It is a disorder of the central nervous system. A growing amount of evidence suggests that the pain in Ostoarthritis also has a neuropathic component in some patients. It is often the result of nerve damage or a malfunctioning nervous system.

For sufferers of chronic pain there probably is no cure. But you can manage your life & pain. You need to take responsibility for your own body, treat your doctors as partners not Gods, be pro-active, pace yourself, use distraction technique....Above all enjoy the life you have. 

 

 

Disability

Differently abled, incapacity, special needs, handicapped, crippled, impairment......all words which have been used as descriptors. All are fairly negative. All are now frowned on to describe the 21 or more different categories of disablement. There is a move to use the term para - ability instead.

I'm interested because I'm watching, with interest, my 77 year old body failing to function. It is very easy to focus on the things I can no longer do - walk far without pain, sit or stand for any length of time without siezing up completely, hurry or run at all, carry anything, climb stairs or an incline, kneel or bend down, sleep well, turn over or get out of bed.....

I have always been very physically active & energetic. I recall with shame that I didn't adjust my pace of walking to my father as he got older & slower. Not being able to do things is not only limiting it is frustrating & actually quite worrying because I can see the deterioration. It would be easy to be anxious about what the future holds living alone.

I have a daily struggle to get my feet into or out of my pants & trousers. Putting shoes on & off is equally difficult. I'm convinced that my feet have grown further away from my hands! I am resisting getting a stair lift, "use it or loose it", but carrying anything up stairs is a challenge.

I want to be positive about this natural deterioration in function. I'm old. Focussing on the things I can do is more important. Doing things that are enjoyable, but don't have a cost, like reading, swimming, using the computer is very important. 

There is nothing more boring than someone who is negative & dwells on things they can't do anymore, or things that have changed for the worse. We have to acknowledge what is, accept it & do the best we can within the limitations.

However, I'm not a saint & I would really like to be able to climb a mountain again!

Tax shouldn't be Taxing.

I pay tax. I have all my adult life - PAYE. Income tax applies to most types of income, salary, profit & pensions. There are State benefits which are income that is not taxed. Income tax is the government's main source of revenue and is collected by HMRC on their behalf. The government uses the revenue from income tax to provide funding for public services such as the NHS, Education, Welfare & Roads. So far so good. I'm happy to pay for vital services & help people who aren't as fortunate as I am. The fact that I don't have children in the education system doesn't mean that I shouldn't pay for the service. Currently the biggest spend increase will be on net debt interest.

There are also approximately 100 other taxes in the UK - Corporation Tax, Capital Gains Tax, VAT, Stamp Duty Land Tax and Inheritance Tax – they affect us at some time in most walks of life. There are other not so obvious ones that still affect our daily lives: petrol, beer, Insurance Tax, Travel Tax......There are anomalies, biscuits and cakes are deemed as necessities and are not subject to VAT. Chocolate covered biscuits however, are luxury goods and taxed at 20%. Toasted sandwiches are fixed with a 20% tax charge but toasted bagels and baguettes are exempt.

 

https://www.statista.com/chart/4520/where-do-uk-taxes-go/

We have been printing money we don't have, euphemistically called "quantitative easing". We used to have gold reserves to back printing money, but we sold half off between 1999 - 2002 costing tax payers approximately £7 billion. The money was invested in foreign currency deposits. I'm not a financial whizz, so I don't know how good or bad this decision was. All I know is that if I pay for something on my credit card I need to have the cash in my account to cover it.

The thing I do object to is that the money that is taken from me is used for things that I do not agree with & is wasted by an incompetent Government. A Govenrment that says it does not have a "magic money tree", but finds billions to spend on the arms industry & wars whilst taking money out of the overseas aid budget. Replacing the Trident nuclear weapons system will cost £205 billion.  A government which hands out contracts worth millions to dubious companies providing useless PPE for the Covid epidemic. A government that is not scrutinised & regulated effectively.

When I read that the obscenely wealthy can evade tax through admittedly lawful, but immoral tax dodges I'm afraid my blood boils. It's called Corporate tax avoidance. Complex financial structures, which take profits offshore and the use of tax loopholes means some of the biggest companies in the UK can get away with paying next to no tax. Just so you comprehend what I'm talking about, a £billion is one thousand million pounds! Accumulating this amount of wealth is often, but not always, hinged on the legal exploitation of people or resources. By paying workers low wages, without comfortable working conditions, companies, and by virtue their owners, can maximise their profits. In 2018, the top five tech companies operating in the UK collectively made tidy profits of £8.1bn. They paid just £237m: an effective tax rate of 2.9 per cent. Corporation tax, paid by most UK companies, is 19 per cent. Tax avoidance is legal, tax evasion is illegal.

https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/money/ethical-money/billionaires-rise-time-super-rich-pay-fair-share-tax-1208626

I have been told, but can't veryify, that big UK Accountancy companies like Ernst & Young, Deloitte & Touche, Arthur Andersen, KPMG, Price Waterhouse Coopers, actually advise HMRC on tax legislation & then advise companies & individuals on ways to evade paying tax. If that is true it is utterly unacceptble. Tax is so complicated very few people actually really understand it.

Governments have been saying for years that the tax system is broken, over complicated & needs complete overhaul. But no one has done it. Currently it is discriminating against people on low or no incomes & favouring the extremely wealthy. 

Why are we tolerating that?

 

 

 

System Failure

This last year has been a revelation in many ways.

Currently I am waiting for 8 outstanding complaints, some escalated to formal, to be resolved.

• An Amazon seller sold me a supposedly new plinth heater which didn't work.It has a bent casing, broken fan & rusty screws. I didn't know he was an individual seller not a bona fide trader. He admits he bought it for himself & then decided he didn't want it. He hasn't sent a refund label & isn't responding. Getting Amazon to do something about it has been very difficult & wasted huge amounts of time.
• Thames Water got my bills wrong for my rental & the house I've bought. They also tried to debit my account for a monthly payment of £23,537.00 which resulted in my bank sending me 4 warning texts about being overdrawn. It's not resolved & almost caused me to have a heart attack!
• I notified Oxford City Council that I was moving out of the rental & into my house. They have sent me a notification for the coming year council tax for the rental & my own house tax still isn't right.
• The company who supplied my side door haven't done the inside the colour I ordered. I have no keys or trickle vents for the windows, which were delayed by months.
• Another glazing supplier has put some wrong fittings in & used rusty screws. The front door which I ordered months ago still hasn't arrived.
• The gutters & dreainpipes, supposedly matching the metal cladding on my extension, are the wrong colour. The drainpipes actually go on top of the cladding, so it is really obvious.
• My mobile supplier seems to be unable to get me reliable mobile reception in my house or outside it. I live in a city with no tall buildings around me.
• I am still waiting for delivery of fittings for my wardrobes which were ordered before Christmas.

Why are big companies, the building trade & utilities, so broken? Is it really simply the result of a devastating financial crash, Brexit & Covid resulting in a broken supply chain & huge staffing issues? I am really beginning to wonder. I do understand the underlying transport, raw materials & staffing problems. But organisations have had years to adapt & re-organise. The fundamental problem seems to be communication in the 21st century, which has the most effective communications ever. There is also an underlying staff training & skills problem, which hasn't been resolved.

The other revelation is that I have coped with all of this & more. I have taken each problem & eventually found a way to resolve it. But it has taken a massive toll on my time, energy, health & finances. 

My point in Blogging about this is that it shouldn't happen. No system is perfect, but people have a right to expect that when problems arise they will be dealt with speedily & efficiently. I can't tell you how utterly fed up with phone menus, irritatingly repetetive music & messages telling me to hold every 12 seconds I am. It is like Chinese water torture - it can literally drive you mad.

 

You just have to remember that the person you ultimately speak to is hardly ever the one who is responsible for the problem. 

 

Upheaval & Disruption

 I am living in a state of chaos with my builders. My house is permanently in a mess & dusty. This is not what any sane person would choose to do. I have been at the end of my tether. For example when I couldn’t cook a meal because neither the hob or oven worked. Or because my landline wasn’t live & there has been a mobile transmitter problem since February which means I have no mobile in my house or outside. Add to that it took 20 days to get my wifi working. Project managing this work means I need good communications.

Then there is the completely random way trades people arrive to work or not. They are all working on other jobs simultaneously with mine. The scheduling & organisation of work seems disorganised & unplanned. New fittings aren’t properly protected so are damaged. Builders rubbish is everywhere in the house & garden instead of being disposed of or stored in a yard when not needed. Individual trades people clear up properly at the end of the day, but not everyone.

On top of that the number of faulty or damaged goods is unbelievable. It isn’t just a broken supply chain. The side door & the bifold doors are the wrong colour. The fittings on the sash windows are wrong & have been put on with rusty screws. 

Actually living here is an eye opener. I can see how messy it all is. There is no organisation. Individual trades people are very good at their job, but there is no overall planning & organisation. To a great extent that must have contributed to the massive cost & time overruns, stress & sleepless nights.

I just want it finished & to be able to live a normal life. I have been patient & understood the constraints. But I have had enough. I am competent, but I really don’t have the physical or mental capacity anymore to    be able to do this for much longer.

Moving Again

In theory I should be in my new house. In practice I have been staying with my daughter for the last week & it looks as if I'll be there for another week.

I moved out of my rental on the 4th, which was relatively fine. But when I got to my house I discovered that all the rooms were still filthy & full of builders stuff. There wasn't enough space to put the contents of the 3 bed rental. The bifold doors which had been promised on the 5th weren't there. Neither were the fittings for the wardrobes also promised for the Wednesday.

The builders were working with the team doing the cladding for the extension, because there had been a mix up over who was doing the battening & boarding under the metal cladding & the bifold doors finally arrived 6 months after they had been ordered & paid for. Unfortunately they are not all cream for some reason that I haven't yet discovered! 

The decorator developed a serious health problem at the weekend so was unable to work. The carpenter couldn't work for almost 2 weeks & then got Flu. Most of the remaining work inside is down to them.

So space had to be hurriedly cleared before the removers arrived & then I lost the will to live trying to decide where everything could go in the limited space available. The dust was so bad it affected my breathing. In the end once the removers had gone I was utterly exhausted & had to leave.

My lovely cleaners went to the house yesterday afternoon & did an amazing job. So today I've been able to unpack 6 boxes with kitchen stuff & bring my computer to my daughters so that I can access all my files etc. I've been able to do a bit on my phone & iPad, but didn't have all my passwords for everything. My life is on my computer. It's how I communicate for everything.

I don't know if the transfer of utilities & council tax has gone through. I do know I got a letter from Thames Water saying that my monthly direct debit would be £26,537.00 - No that isn't a typo! Thames Water have also overcharged me at the rental & at my house. 

I have tried to be understanding & patient over the last 10 months given the circumstances with Brexit & then Covid. In terms of the supply chain I don't blame the suppliers of things like windows & doors. It's the fabricators who just don't fulfil the contract. The suppliers are between a rock & a hard place, between the customer & the fabricators. In my case I actually think I am due compensation for the unacceptable delays & mistakes. 

The outcome is hugely increased costs & delays, much disappointment & frustration, & finally utter annoyance that so many people just don't communicate effectively & do their job. British workmen have had a bad reputation for a long time in comparison with the Germans & Scandinavians for example. But currently the system is not working at all.

This is not the time to be renovating a house & building an extension!

 

Mine has been so far outside my comfort zone I've forgotten where that is!