Under Siege 2: This Time It's Worse

I've been warning people for week's about this so don't act all surprised. Yep, we're back under siege from builders. This time round we've had to strip out the contents of half the house. This sorry saga dates back many years and involves some subsidence in the porch of the house we rent. There has been years—the claim dates back at least twelve years—of arguing between our landlord and his insurance company over what damage the subsidence had done. They finally resolved the situation earlier this year but it was decided that it made more sense to complete another long-outstanding job first—replacing the windows—before they got down to fixing cracks in the house and redecorating.

That's a very short version of the story. No mention of trees that had to be cut down, the men from Birmingham who travelled down to do measurements every six months to see if the house was still moving, the broken garage door caused by someone who came round to price up replacement windows in 2001 (!) and who turned out (a) not to actually be a representative of the company they said they represented and (b) had no car insurance. It's a real sorry saga.

Anyway, we spent much of last week packing so when the removal men arrived to empty the half of the house that's being worked on there was already a lot packed and ready to go. I'd squirreled away a lot of the reference books that I think I'll be needing over the next month or so but most of my reference library has disappeared into storage.

Saturday morning: the removal men turn up with a huge 17½ ton truck. They've allocated us four large containers and have enough boxes to move your average family.

We are not your average family. We are nerds and geeks and one of us collects books, comics and magazines and works from home. So everything you would find in an office is here, too. And, as they very soon realised, those shelves of books... every one of them was double stacked because I've got three times as many books as I have shelf space; so two thirds are stacked two deep on shelves and the third third is in boxes and—guess what—a lot of them also had to be moved.

After about four hours of packing a bit of panic was starting to set in: not only were they running out of boxes to fill but there was a question hanging over the containers. They'd probably hold all the boxes, furniture and whatnot going into them but would they exceed the two ton limit for the fork-lift that was used at the warehouse where the containers were being stored.

They were packing and loading solidly for eight hours—not the biggest job they've ever done by a long shot but a hell of a lot more than they were expecting from three rooms and two hallways. Usually I'll complain to anyone within earshot about having to have so much of my book collection in boxes. On Saturday it was a huge relief.

The guys doing the work were incredibly professional, I have to say. If we ever have to move, at least we know where to go to get the job done. If they ever want to come back.

Sunday was a bit more peaceful and relaxing. I even managed to get some work done.

Monday, today as I write this, the siege really began... and it wasn't half as bad as I'd expected. A couple of guys turned up this morning to start working on the cracks and redecorating. They gave us a schedule of what they'd be doing and what rooms needed to be completely clear. All very smooth. Another bunch of workmen turned up about mid-day and started erecting a scaffold around the back of the house (one of the cracks being fixed is inside the chimney) and they've finally gotten rid of the skip that has been sitting outside for three weeks.

So far I've only missed two reference books... a case of "Oh, I know where I can look that up... oh, no, I can't!"

We shall see how calm I remain over the next few weeks, especially once I loose the TV (tomorrow) and start sleeping on a sofa-bed in a room where I'm not allowed to smoke. Eek!