Blutack

Blutack. That’s what we found today. Blutack.

No, not in the stationery drawer or holding up a student poster, but behind a curtain hook plate which was also fixed into our living room wall with Araldite. This is yet another piece of evidence of how much the previous occupants of our house were complete bodgers. We’re decorating the front room at the moment, and are coming across several of these little niceties, including the cable TV boxes and cables clumsily stapled to the skirting board, holes in the plasterwork cunningly stuffed with newspaper and lining paper cover - a very disappointing Christmas present - and other bits I won’t go into. But the Blutack is the best (i.e worst) one. I mean, who repairs wall fixings with Blutack?

We had the same thing upstairs in the back bedroom: one of the predecessors’ spawn had knocked a hole in the wall, which the parents filled with Blutack. Of course, removing the wallpaper to recover revealed loose plaster all over the wall, and a 1-day job turned into 2 weeks involving a skip, plasterer and 20 rolls of lining paper.

I hate bodgers. Why spend 3 quid and 3 minutes doing a crap job when you can spend 5 quid and 5 minutes and do it properly? Fortunately, my feelings of injustice are not impotent as the next-door neighbours are still good friends with ‘The Bodgers’, and I use each of these little finds around the house as an excuse to go next door to tell them about my DIY exploits. By the way, in case you feel sorry for ‘The Bodgers’, let me tell you that when they moved out they asked us - in perpetuity - to forward their mail to next door ‘ in case any still came after redirection’. It turns out they’d moved to a bigger house (in a cheaper area) but neglected to tell the school authorities, so they would still be eligible to send Jack and Chloe (not their real names, but something equally fashionable) to the ‘good school’. Ok, so you and I would play the system too, but I don’t like people trying to us me as a pawn in their little subterfuges.

Of course, I returned the school’s letters back to the school with ‘moved house’ written on them.

January 6, 2008 | Filed Under Life, Posts 

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