0707022200 Garage sale. Everything must go.

Garage sale on Saturday. We advertised our garage sale in the local paper, the add said "Saturday morning - moving overseas - everything must go." People turned up on Friday night and more people turned up at five o'clock on Saturday morning. I asked them if I could at least have breakfast first, they sat on the front steps and watched me through the kitchen window. The kids were woken up on Saturday at 05:00 and told to get out of bed so we could sell them - not them the kids, them the beds. A garage sale is one of the most degrading experiences. Our meagre possessions on display as if they were actually valuable - we sold some good stuff for a reasonable price and some I simply gave away rather than haggle. By twelve noon we left everything in the driveway with a "free to good home" sign. I see it this way: either I can take it to the tip, I can pay someone else to cart it away, or I can charge someone else to take it away. It was to my advantage even if I gave it away. We used the "proceeds" to all buy new shoes. Now the whole family have Converse "chucks"of various colours and styles. As a startling coincidence, my wife, daughter and youngest son have the same sized feet.

The next step in the move is to sort out our clothes- keep, pack and then give away.

Back to work tomorrow - I had Monday off to be inoculated against foreign diseases.

On June the first it became a law to have a smoke detector in rental houses. I was really dreading going over to our investment house because the kind and simple folk that live there always complain and ask me to do something. I left two smoke detectors and a fire extinguisher with a letter explaining the whole thing at their letter box. Sure enough, a few hours later I get a call that something else needs to be fixed. I can see why landowners always increase the rent.
I tried to be a "good landowner" and gave them no rent increases for two years - they currently pay the lowest rent in our town. A local real estate agent has said that I could expect about half of what I get again. One local real estate agent was criticised for asking for rent by tender. That agent is making a fortune. When the lease runs out, I am letting him manage the place.