Augean stables? Don't get me started.

[avevale_intelligencer]

So, yesterday, I embarked on the clearing of my alleged work room (where I should be doing my alleged work).

As some of you may know, this room was used as a refuge for a while by a heroically incontinent stray cat, and at some point he peed on something electrical such that whenever I tried to switch anything on in there, the main fuse went POP and everything in the house went off. At which point I rather gave up on it and shifted my base of operations downstairs, since with Jan needing her computer on basically All The Time there was no opportunity to do proper testing. I've got her to agree to a five-minute shutdown at some indefinite future point to enable me to see if the problem is in the single wall socket, which will entail an electrician (who may in that case be willing to double my socket availability, woo hoo). I'm treating the three multi-gang extensions that were on the floor as probably compromised beyond recall. I mean, you can't wash them out. Also ugh.

Anyway, the room has been lurking there like Dirk Gently's fridge ever since, and I have decided enough is enough. Since I can't emulate Dirk (call up a slightly dodgy friend and ask him to find me a new room) it's a case of getting in there and cleaning it up as best I can. So far I've found the floor, which is horrible, and picked up what seems salvageable and thrown out a bunch of stuff which was not. Next on the agenda (when I've recovered a bit) is getting rid of the poo itself; Jan thinks I need to take up the carpet, but even if I could afford to replace it there's too much furniture in there that I don't have anywhere else to put. I'm seriously wondering about cutting round the edges with a Stanley knife and doing without.

Heigh as they say ho. Whatever can be done shall be done. And then, once I know I have reliable electricity in there, I'll see if my main computer is still usable and start rebuilding my work setup. Maybe once I've done that I can get back to some serious writing/art/music/whatever.

Wish me luck.

Comments

[dickgloucester.livejournal.com]

Good luck!

[eoforyth.livejournal.com]

Good luck! I think that's going to be a lot of work.especially if you need to clear workspace for an electrician (I can't remember if I ever knew where your plug socket is)

Clean ups around here make a start, actually look like we are getting somewhere... then fizzle out. Ah well, things are better here than they were, (although both the dishwasher and the washing machines have just died, so we shall see) and decorating and the like has been accomplished.

If you realise the carpet has to go, you can indeed cut it up piecemeal and wiggle it from under things like table legs (cut close to shelving and the like and no one will know what is hiding underneath). I don't know what your flooring is like, but you can do like we do and use plenty of mats

[eintx.livejournal.com]

Luck, lots. :)
And while you are at it: Did the keyboard wire turn up?

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Lots and lots of wires turned up. :) One of them is no doubt the keyboard one, and it won't have been cat-sabotaged. I just need to work out which it is, which shouldn't be too difficult.

[eintx.livejournal.com]

Yay, cool!

[themis1.livejournal.com]

Good luck - and well done for making a start!

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Great to hear you're getting on with this. I don't envy you dealing with ancient poo.

My planned week of holiday in April didn't happen, you may have noticed. I've put a request in for a week "ASAP", but I'm not holding my breath. =:o{

The good news is that I have a week firmly pre-booked for late June.

[aunty_marion]

Cutting round the edges (and then taking it out to shoot it) was what we did with Keris's kitchen lino back when we cleared the flat after he came back from Germany. And then I spent most of the afternoon sitting on the kitchen floor putting self-adhesive lino tiles down.

Leave the floor bare if you think you might trip over loose mats; otherwise, or if it's disgusting underneath, maybe - again - lino tiles? I can't remember what you have as flooring upstairs under all the carpet - is it concrete or wood?

[lastalda.livejournal.com]

Well done for tackling this! And lots of good luck with getting through it all!

We once had to remove a glued-on and peed-upon carpet from the kitchen of the flat we were moving into. (Why people, especially people with a not-house-clean dog, would put carpet into a kitchen in the first place, is still beyond me.) It was no fun at all, so I very much sympathize.

If the floor underneath is useable at all, doing without the carpet sounds like a good idea, and cutting around the heavy furniture should work (depending on how easily damageable the ground beneath is).

[willibald.livejournal.com]

As you can use other sockets upstairs there is probably nothing wrong with the house wiring, more likely a short in the socket itself.

Replacing/upgrading the socket is no more difficult than changing a plug as a double socket uses the same wiring as a single one. Plus if you don't mind the socket being proud of the wall or skirting board, you don't need to enlarge the hole in the wall for the new box, just fit it over the existing one. This is a ten minute job (although for me ten minute jobs usually take a minimum of two hours).

Adding new sockets to the ring is more complicated and may have to be done by a qualified electrician so that the work can be certified to conform with modern building regulations.

Does Jan work downstairs? If so you should be able to turn off the upstairs sockets at the consumer unit (fuse box) so that she can keep working while the socket is being changed.

I would offer to come and do it for you but I have no idea when I could get over or if Dawn could travel that far.

[eintx.livejournal.com]

Heaven. Don't touch the electrics!!!