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We've used Steve the spindoctor for a few jobs on washing machines and dishwashers.
Reliable and reasonable.
We're in Peckham think he does most of SE London
https://londonspindoctor.com/

Thanks - it’s really for our buyers who are First Time Buyers.
Good you can trust someone after your house issues!

Just got Jesse round to look at sorting my leaking extension roof.
Been given run around by a few others.
Jesse was here v quick for quote and says he can put fibreglass sealer on it on Monday which should solve it.
Hope he does cos I gave him a deposit for the materials...
Did he give you a guarantee for the work?

Fun viewing today.
Checking the loft/roof of a house we were interested in. Agent half took down loft ladder which was in 3 parts. I pulled it down all the way but when straight it didn’t touch the stairs so was in mid air.
When it did touch the top stair though it wasn’t fully straight...
It’s ok the Agent said, the vendor mentioned it wasn’t working properly.
Going up was fine...going down though one of the brackets snapped!
I didn’t fall and got down fine but it freaked my wife out.
It meant the ladder wouldn’t fold away again either so we had to leave the broken ladder sticking out of the hatch!
Agent wasn’t happy but what if I’d been seriously hurt?
Anyway we’re not buying it as it’s way overpriced and we’re wary of the area we’re now looking in. It has houses which are leasehold with nominal ground rent and zero service charges but 2 landlords: Dulwich Estates and Southwark Council both of whom want paying if there’s any changes to the house...

[edit] can now see photos

Try this chrome extension for rightmove
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/property-tracker/abgkpdjomdmemeefdefalbeogkmlmand?hl=en-GB

Yeah i'm probably worrying too much

Think I may have just scuppered our house sale and our chance of a straightforward move.

Vendors put in an offer £20k below our "in excess of" price yesterday. It's our first offer after 2+ weeks.
Extension roof sprung a leak over the weekend in the torrential rain. It's been fine since start of the year.
Called roofer round for quote. It's an easy enough fix as he thinks the drop isn't big enough from the coping to the roof level. I'm guessing it will cost around £3k.
Today in our counter-offer I was upfront with vendors who hadn't spotted it and said either we can fix it prior to completion or you can and we'll take some extra off. (They may have plans for the house we don't know about)
They want pix and quote (understandably) and are now asking lots of awkward questions.
Don't want to drop sale price any lower.
Suspect it may be best to get roof fixed ourselves and start again but getting bit late in the stamp duty holiday window.
Also the sale is being handled by the EA's most junior seller so I'm not confident they can talk the vendors round.
And sadly we'd just started to believe we could get a decent place in the area we want after all...

You can borrow my Lidl bike stand - I’m in Peckham.

Fake grass is everywhere

We have a Dyson V6 as well which is on its last legs. We'll doubtless replace it with another one.

We have an iRobot Roomba 600 series.
It's good at cleaning carpets and you can let it do its stuff in various rooms but if you can get a programmable one as they'd be much more useful IME.
You do have to clean it almost after every hoover and you have to clear some stuff out of its way.

Handing this rental back tomorrow. It's the XDrive 430d M Sport gran coupe.
It's been fun but the ride is really harsh and my kids don't like it.
Run flats don't help I'm sure.
The auto box is much smoother than my Mini's though and I was getting used to heated seats...
Whoever was using it before me must have really caned it 'cos it was showing an average of 16mpg when I got it!

I had my G32 engine (Ford escort CVH 1.6) bored out to 1.9 and had diff cam put in so it was quite quick.
It swapped ends on me a couple of times!
I think they were originally designed for the Zetecs but there was a supply issue or something.
Some owners retro fitted Zetecs - but that was beyond my skills.
Gearbox was always a weak point though.

That bike-engined G20 sounds great!

I had a G32 which was great fun.
Love the G12 - although I’d never fit in one.
The only time I ever saw a G12 on the road was whilst I was staying with my in laws in rural Japan. Still not sure it wasn’t a dream as I never saw it again but they are popular over there.

My old man built his own kit car: A ginetta tora which used a Hilman Hunter as its donor.
He loved it: We were less keen with the homemade back seats and chipboard that dug into the back of your legs on long journeys.
It looked something like this

Southwark - she said there's just £10 ground rent per year and no other charges so not much point buying freehold.
We're not going to buy it so didn't push further but the privately owned houses there are a mix of L/H and F/H

True - I guess if you've found a place you really like and plan on staying there for a while then buy now and don't wait.
However, if you're in a maelstrom of indecision and changing plans every other day (can you feel my pain?) then renting for a bit will give you some flexibility.

Went on an interesting viewing yesterday. The seller is a "property investor" and is retiring and selling off some of her houses.
She freely admitted that her place (leasehold/ex council/need of updating) was not worth what she was selling it for but said the market is "crazy" at the mo. She has already had a few offers and will probably go with one of them.
The house is in a great location (North Dulwich) and places don't come up for sale much in the area - she said the fact 3 are currently on the market underlines her point.
She suggested the smarter move would be to sell now and rent, and wait to see what the market does.

Her property is on with Strike. She said they are good for sellers who are happy to do a lot of the work themselves. Not so good for prospective buyers as they will bombard them with financial services requests and spam... I'm awaiting that joy.

Just finished reading through about 50 pages of this thread as we've now entered the madhouse ourselves: Put house on market at the weekend; first viewing last night; same viewer wants second look this morning.
Haven't moved in 11 years and had forgotten how relentlessly stressful it is.
It's compounded by the fact that we don't want to move as we love our house, we've got it just how we want it and both kids were born in the kitchen so there's a strong emotional attachment.
We love living in Peckham too.
However we can't guarantee our eldest (year 5) will get into what we consider a decent school so we're seizing this moment to sell up.
We can't decide where to move to either.
We like a school in Twickenham but houses are crazy prices there and are smaller than ours. We'd have to max out our budget leaving us with nothing to spend on the house itself for a while. On the plus side though, most have been done up to a decent standard.
We're also considering Sutton/Cheam area for schools. We can get a cheaper and bigger place but the area's a bit dull compared to Peckham and the decor of the houses there are generally a bit shit.

Bars and stem are Deda - brake levers Tektro/Condor

update 25/09: sold

I love it. It handles well and is easier to park than the Skoda Octavia we had previously. The ICE is good and links up with iphone and android no problem. Interior is solid and everything works and is intuitive. It's v comfortable and even if I drive for several hours I'm not tired afterwards.
There's ok space in the boot although it's MUCH smaller than the Octavia. I had to get a 470l roof box for our summer trip around the west country and Wales.
The rear doors are quirky: They don't feel like they close terribly well but work fine.
And although there's restricted rear view you soon adapt to it.
We went for the basic Cooper, if you can I'd go for the Cooper S and it's not the quickest.
I've not had much luck with it though - in the past few weeks have been driven into by a lorry requiring a new rear door and other work, and had a road rage incident with a Neff van who scratched the front wheel arch surround...
I was previously a bit snobbish about the BMW minis as I've owned "proper" mini coopers and my first car was a Morris Mini Clubman but they kind of keep the flame going.

^Could make some great t-shirts out of some of them.
Got any Tonka Sound System ones? Brain Club in Soho?
I've kept a handful from the early 90s