Warmbrook Waterfall

 Last night, our current guest sent me a video of the local waterwall during heavy rain. I popped over to visit straight away, but by then the heavy rain had ceased and there was no waterfall.

This clip shows how useful photo's and video can be for us to help out our guests when they let us know there's an issue. The cottage is part of a small terrace of three cottages with a shared gutter system. A blockage in one part can effect others. Weather permitting, I'll pop over with the gutter vacuum system today to clean our gutters and the neighbouring ones. We have a 3.6 kW Predator with 32ft (10 metres) of poles to do that job safely with the busy road (B5023) outside of the cottages. Ladders are difficult due to the slope of the road and the danger from traffic. 

We purchased the system to deal with the gutters on our own Georgian house whose gutters regularly fill with autumn leaves and pine needles from nearby trees. We have a busy road outside, with sloping paths at the back of the property, which means ladders are best avoided. Some of the gutters are difficult to reach safely via ladders. We also have a pole camera system to allow us to inspect the gutters, before and after cleaning, from the ground. We found that it can be difficult to quickly obtain the services of a gutter cleaning company at short notice during stormy periods in the Autumn. We've used our system to maintain the gutters on a council owned local community centre situated on the edge of woodland.

Here, the morning following the "Waterfall", I was busy cleaning the gutters for the entire block of three terraced cottages, about 30 metres of gutter. The work took about two hours including setting up, vacuuming and then cleaning up after. Before starting work vacuuming, I took a video of the gutters. It turns out there were no blockages on our section of the gutter, but there were two in the neighbours' gutter system. The blockage was mostly cement debris from the roof tilings,some decaying leaves and a couple of rooted weed patches. Outside on the roadside pavement I'd laid out five traffic cones at the road edge to warn drivers of work in progress. During thirty minutes of working that section, two of the warning cones were knocked over by road traffic, but generally most drivers were considerate. I hate to think of what might have happened if I had been on an unprotected ladder.

Edit 2nd Nov 22

We've had heavy rain again this evening, and there are no reports of "waterfalls".

Dogs on holiday

 One of the advantages of our cottage is that guests can bring their pet with them. It avoids the cost of boarding your dog whilst you are away from home. This greatly reduces the stress on the animal of staying with strangers in a strange place while owners have deserted it. Your dogs are not exposed to disease/injury from other dogs at the kennels/home. 

How's your dog when you are on holiday?

Most pets are well behaved and don't cause any significant problems. We have extra work during turn around cleaning at the end of the rental, but that tends not to be a major issue, so we don't charge extra on the rental fees for an accompanying pet.

There have been problems in the past:

• A dog trader from Ireland rented the cottage and used it as a base to sell dogs to people in the region. We didn't find out immediately, but when we did he was immediately banned from any further rental.
• At one time this dog trader brought a dog cage into the kitchen to stop the dog causing damage when left alone, but rust engrained itself into the kitchen floor tiles. We had to use hyrochloric acid to remove that stain.
• There's been several "accidents" when dogs went to toilet inside the house. In this case, guests always clean up, but sometimes they are not successful and we have to take action to fix the stain  before the next guest arrive. On one notable occasion we had to have carpet professionally cleaned to remove the stain just a few weeks after an earlier cleaning..
• One dog brought a flea infestation to our cottage. The fleas migrated to the carpet and we discovered flea bites on our ankles after cleaning the cottage. Fortunately there hadn't been a follow-on guest that week, so we immediately returned and treated the house with insecticide and UV-C light. Checking a few days later showed no flea further activity, but we recleaned all of the carpets. 
• We were showing a new set of guests around the cottage at the start of the rental and their labrador dog lifted his leg inside the cottage and pee'd on the settee leg in front of me. They'd travelled a long distance to get to the cottage and hadn't taken their dog for a relief walk on arrival. We always have appropriate biocide/deodouriser and cleaning cloths on hand, so I was able to clean up without a fuss.
• One set of guests left a pile of dog poo on the carpet in the bedroom to greet us after their departure.
• Some guests have not bother to clean dog mess from the garden, so that is on our checklist.
• We've had a few guests shower their pets in the bathroom shower cubicle. We can always tell when this has happened as the shower drain gets clogged with a clot of dog hair.
• Some guests have used our expensive fluffy white cotton bath towels to dry off their muddy dogs. We leave dog towels in the pet cupboard in the kitchen for that purpose. In one case they returned the towels folded to the linen cupboard without laundry.
• We've had furniture chewed, door paint scratched by anxious dogs left alone in the house by the guests.

Our latest excitement is a Houdini dog. We have a fence around the garden, but she is really good at escape. As we find the escape routes we take action to close them. Most recently the bitch has found that by climbing a four foot drystone wall, she can wriggle through a bush onto the higher level garden. There's free range chickens that she likes to investigate.  Today I'm awaiting delivery of a roll of 6 foot high wire mesh fencing. We'll not be beaten!

Waiting to decorate the place

Our holiday cottage is due some renovation to the exterior paint work, and the interior could do with some freshening as well. I'd planned to undertake the work over the winter, but my NHS Lottery ticket came up in the shape of a cataract operation to restore my failing eyesight. The advice was to rest totally for the first month after the operation then nothing too strenuous over the next six months. So I had to put the decorating work on hold over winter. We also need to have a dry spell, not too cold overnight, so that the paint is given time to cure, but not too long, so that the layer of paint chemically bond.
  

I'd set some time aside to do this painting work a few weeks back, but just as I was gathering the equipment I had a text message from some unexpected guests telling me they arrive in 30 minutes. More on this story here. The last few weeks have been too cold for the paint to work properly, but finally we have a warm spell with no rain for a few days. Ironically we have some Easter guests in the cottage, so I don't want to disturb their peace. It is not a task that can be split over separate weeks.

Previously the external paint works had been done by our helpful handyman (not me), but he's not a decorator. The results were good, but the external stuff hasn't lasted well. When he went with my wife to choose the paints they chose external quality acrylic paint for the woodwork. It is easy to apply, but it just doesn't seem to last as well as solvent/oil based paints. I'm a traditionalist, and I've maintained sea water dinghies for a sea scout troop. I've found that marine yacht paint seems to last a lot longer than other paints. It is a bit more difficult to apply and get good results, but it does resist bad weather better without so much cracking and peeling. 

For the woodwork, I've purchased: 

• Teamac Marine Undercoat;
• Teamac Marine Topcoat gloss;
• Teamac Thinner 14

The lower wall on the street side of the building are a different matter. A couple of years ago on the advice of the adjoining building owner I repainted the brickwork with a cheap tile paint from Wilco's. The reasoning was it would match his place and colour scheme in the Conservation area. The paint has not weathered well and is flaking quite badly. It also suffers from roadsplash and salt from the winter road de-icing. The walls are also quite porous and allow the rain/damp through to the detriment of the plaster inside the lounge.  For the outer wall, I decided to invest in some good quality exterior wall renovation paint. I'll use a chemical stripper to clean off the masonry first, then several coats to properly protect the surface.

For the wall, I've purchased:

• Mathys Pegafix - Impregnation Primer;
• Mathys Murfill Renovation Paint

I'm just hoping I've got the colours of the paint right.  It looked good on my PC screen when I ordered the paints late at night, but they do look a bit garish in the can.  I've since purchased a proper paint colour swatch book for the colour schemes used by these paint suppliers. If the local authority moans I can always apply another coat of paint to tone down the colours.