When I bought my first flat I was 25 years old and on a modest salary. I remember my dad and I went to visit the flat, which was right next to Borough Market, and we went for a drink afterwards and drew up a list of pros and cons. It was a brand new studio flat and the fact that it was a new build was very much on the pros list; I couldn’t afford any unforeseen maintenance issues or to do any work to the flat. Luckily for me in the three years that I lived there I never did experience any issues or unexpected costs.
Fast forward to buying my second flat, where I currently live, despite a larger salary I was still very much aware of the fact that I was single at the time and I was pouring my savings into buying the flat so I still couldn’t risk buying somewhere with hidden problems or a boiler that was going to internally combust within the year.
However, what I didn’t bank on was shoddy work by the developers of my new build flat that led to a couple of home disasters within our block. Firstly, our balcony that looks out to brilliant views of London six floors up has large glass panels. A couple of years after we moved in the glass panels started to shift, which we didn’t even notice at first. It wasn’t until the summer, once we started to sit out on the balcony, that we really noticed that something wasn’t quite right because all of the panels were at different heights but we could see that it wasn’t possible for them to slip down completely because the decking overlapped the panels. It was only when we heard a huge smash one day and saw one of the glass panels from our neighbour’s balcony had slipped out of its brackets entirely and fallen down onto the street (thankfully no one was down on the street at the time!) that we really understood the extent of the problem. Thank goodness our buildings insurance covered the work necessary to make our balcony completely safe, as well as unsuspecting passersby.
Our little Bermondsey balcony – walk under it at your own risk 😉
The second home disaster we experienced within the first year of moving into the flat was in our bathroom (the one you never see on here because it has no window so I can’t take pictures in there;)). There is a huge mirror on one wall in the bathroom that reaches up to the ceiling. I love having the mirror as it makes the room look bigger and it’s always useful to have a good mirror somewhere in your house. However, what we didn’t know was that the developers had used the wrong clips to hang the mirror. Thankfully, we weren’t in the room at the time as this enormous mirror fell off the wall and smashed into a million pieces. Luckily, this happened within the first year of living in the flat so it was covered by the builders’ guarantee and they came and repaired the damage – we will never be able to remove that mirror now after the amount of extra adhesive they used to ensure it never falls down again.
We are currently experiencing our third, and hopefully last, home disaster. Our flat roof, which allows for our amazing terrace, has started to leak – eeek! The leak first became apparent on the fifth floor of the building but water has now started flooding into our neighbours’ flat to the point that they gave us a key this weekend when they went away so that we could change the buckets if it rained. We are keeping our fingers and toes crossed that the water doesn’t work its way into our flat, especially as we have only just finished redecorating, but at least we are safe in the knowledge that we have both buildings and contents insurance.
Our roof terrace has amazing 360 degree views of London but it has sprung a leak. I am praying it does not make its way into our flat as it is currently pouring into our neighbours’ home.
Have you ever experienced any home disasters? To help us all the lovely folks over at Together Mutual Insurance would like to offer one reader a year’s worth of insurance and £200 of John Lewis vouchers. If you would like to enter all you have to do is complete the form below. Good luck!
Katy x
P.S. Keep your fingers crossed the leak doesn’t make its way into our flat or you may never see my kitchen and living room makeover!
P.P.S. This is Otto with his confused face on trying to work out how on earth I went from standing next to him on the balcony to waving at him from the bedroom window, which is where I took the pics from.
*I teamed up with Together Mutual Insurance (@TogetherIns) to tell the story of my home disasters and they are currently offering 40% off home insurance.
