Category Archives: Home & Garden

Cheap Property Inventory

Business, Home & Garden, Property

Renting Property in the UK

If you are renting out property in the UK then there are quite a number of things that you need to do and rules that you need to comply with before you can rent out your house or your buy to let property.

Although you do not actually have to have a property inventory carried out, it is a good idea to do so to protect not only yourself but also the tenant.

If you have a letting agent managing your property then they will likely either have a company that will carry out the property inventory for you or be able to do it themselves. However, this can be quite expensive and can cost in the region of around £100 or more to carry out a property inventory when the tenant moves in.

If you are looking to maximise your profit then it is possible to carry out your owncheap property inventory.

Why Do You Need A Property Inventory?

Under the current rules you must place the tenants deposit in a registered deposit scheme. Under the rules of this scheme, if you want to claim back any money from the tenant after they have vacated the property, for example if they have caused any damage or removed any of your property, then you must have proof of why you want to claim the money from them.

The best way to do this is to have a fully completed property inventory that is signed off by both the landlord and the tenant when the tenant moves in.

Not only should the property inventory include any property, fixtures and fittings etc that are left in the property, it should also include a condition report stating (preferably with pictures) the condition of the property in the event of any dispute about damage.

Cheap Property Inventory

So, if you want to save some money then you can do the property inventory yourself. However, it is good to go through a standard format to make sure that you cover everything that you need to and make the property inventory thorough and one that will stand up to any queries that may arise when the tenant vacates.

So you can find a cheap property inventory at shops like WH Smith. They have them available for around £20 together with other forms for landlords. Or you can find them for less than £10 on Amazon. There are currently a couple on offer so check out this cheap property inventory for starters. It includes templates for the property inventory plus guidance notes for the correct way of completing that and the statement of condition of the property.

How Can I Replace My Broken Fridge Door Handle?

Home & Garden

If you have somehow managed to break your fridge door handle, whether that be by pulling it a bit too vigorously or snapping the plastic connector when changing the direction that the doors are facing, you may feel at a loss as to how you might replace the broken handle. However, fear not, as you can actually buy replacement door handles for your fridge for many popular makes including Bosch, Beko, Hotpoint, Ariston, Whirlpool, LEC, Zanussi and many other popular makes.

You can check online on some of the sites that sell electrical spare parts or else you can check on places like eBay and Amazon. Spare fridge handles only cost around £20/$30 to replace so they are really not too expensive to get your fridge looking like new again.

Click through either the US Amazon or the UK Amazon links to see more options on replacement fridge handles.

  

How To Get Cheap Furniture

Home & Garden, Shopping,

When times are tough it is vital to save as much money as you can when buying goods. One way to do this is to buy second hand rather than buying new. There are many bargains to be had buying second hand furniture in particular and for large pieces people are often happy to get rid of furniture for a low price just so that they can get rid of it, particularly when they are moving house and they have no room for it in their new place.

So, if you are looking for furniture then think about going for a second hand set. For example, you many see the exact model that you like in a shop and then you can pick and choose the pieces from that set from either online ads or from somewhere like eBay. eBay is a great place to pick up furniture second hand as you can set up an alert to advise you when someone puts something up for sale that you might be interested in. You can also set up a geographical limit so that the furniture is within reach of you picking it up.

I have a great example of this myself where I picked up an Ikea Malm wardrobe for £10, a fraction of the new price. I set up an alert in eBay to warn me whenever anyone posted an ad that included the terms ‘Ikea Malm Wardrobe’ within 20km of my address. I had to wait a few weeks for one that sounded perfect for me but I got it as the only bidder for that knock down price. Ok so I had to go and pick it up but that was worth the trip.

you can often pick up complete sets of furniture but you may need to have a little bit of patience to get exactly the pieces that you want. On the flip side of the coin I had to get rid of a piece of bedroom furniture a few years ago and someone actually came from about 200 miles away to pick it up as it was exactly the matching piece that they needed.

So, set up your alert with your  key words in and wait for Ikea to notify you of available pieces. You don’t have to go for the first one that you see as there will likely be more, so have a bit of patience and you are likely to be able to save yourself a lot of money.

Another Hosepipe Ban

Home & Garden,

Another Hosepipe Ban in the UK

It seems that more and more often the UK introduces hosepipe bans in various parts of the country to help save water. This year many people have been surprised by the introduction of a hosepipe ban once again as it has seemed like there has been a lot of rain recently. However, after two very dry winters it is the long term water stocks that are running dangerously low and this has led to low river water levels as well as low levels of water in the reservoirs around the country.

As from 5 April 2012 hosepipe bans were introduced by the following water authorities in the UK:

  • Thames Water
  • South East Water
  • Sutton and East Surrey Water Authority
  • Southern Water
  • Anglian Water
  • Veolia Central
  • Veolia South East

Fines For Using Hosepipes

Although it seems that it might be difficult to police, there will be fines in place of up to £1,000 for anyone who flouts the hosepipe ban. Some businesses, disabled people and sports fields that are used for national or international events are not included in the ban. This will help the Olympic venues for one thing.

Although it is unlikely that Water Authorities will send round employees to check if anyone is using hosepipes, people are being encouraged to use less water as a moral responsibility. There are plenty of ways to save water including the following:

  • Recycling any water that you do use – for example bath water can be used to water the garden
  • Taking baths instead of showers
  • Not running the tap while brushing your teeth
  • Installing water saving devices in the home

Get a Water Butt


If you have a garden that needs a lot of watering, or you are growing your own vegetables then one of the best ways to have the water that you need to use on your garden is to install a water butt. A water butt is a large plastic tank that collects rainwater that is diverted through the guttering system.

Water butts are pretty easy to install and the sooner you get one set up the more water you can accumulate during the rainier Spring months.

Water butts tend to come in two sizes – the smaller ones hold around 100 litres of water and the larger ones around 200 litres. A decent water butt will cost you around £50 and you may also want to have a stand so that you can easily access all of the water down to the bottom of the butt. Most water butts have a tap on that you can open to get the water out but you can also get a water butt pump to make it easier to distribute the water if you have a larger garden. See the water butt on the left and click through on the link to get lots more options on buying water butts.

 

Can I Wash a Sultan Huglo Ikea Mattress Cover?

Home & Garden,

So I asked myself this question recently. I have a nice Ikea Sultan king Sized bed but I had a lodger sleeping on it for about 4 months over a very hot summer and I didn’t feel too inclined to sleep on it after that without being able to wash it.

The instructions on the Ikea Sultan Huglo mattress cover say ‘Clean with uphostery shampoo only’. Well for a start with I don’t have any upholstery shampoo. Secondly I felt it needed a bit more than just a surface clean and thirdly I think they just put this to protect themselves.

I searched on the internet to see what the consensus was but there was not a lot of information about washing my mattress cover. I did find one person who said they they had put a similar Ikea mattress cover in the wash and it had come out OK. So I bit the bullet and decided I would wash it.

Now as I say, I have a king sized bed and the mattress cover was quite large and I figured that it would not actually fit in my washing machine so what I did was to wash the Ikea mattress cover in the bath. I dumped it in there and turned the shower on to soak the whole cover. Once I had done that I ran the bath water and put a bit of washing powder in. I kept turning it round in the tepid/warm water until i figured it was cleaner than it would have got with the upholstery shampoo.

Once I had drained the worst of the water off, I hang it over my outdoor clothes dryer to dry. Now given that I live in a place where the temperature at that time was about 40 degrees Celsius, it dried within a few hours. However, if you live somewhere cooler, be prepared to wait somewhat longer!

So, in conclusion, I think that you can wash your Ikea mattress cover if you do it carefully and don’t stick it on a hot wash or put it through the dryer. No guarantees though!