Court Jester of the Castle

By Al Shield

Al bought a house. Al bought a house that started to attract some very weird people like the local sheriff, an ex-criminal, charity collectors and a screaming banshee. Al bought a house that was full of things that didn't make any sense, like the possible swingers party/ opium den back shed and the mystery under house speaker. Al bought a house and with his budget of not much at all, attempted to patch things up with his next to zero skills in DIY, often making things hilariously worse. Al bought a house and along the way created an undead mower, fought against diarrhetic sparrows, waged war against mafia roses and glued himself together with liquid nails. 
And then Al had to sell the house in a hurry.

The hilariously true story of harrowing home ownership by a guy who came, saw and conquered absolutely nothing at all. Full of handy advice of what not to do when rolling up the sleeves and essential reading if you're in the position to finally stop renting and move into a place you can't wait to call your own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Al Shield
• Release date: Sep 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9798201227708

Book preview

Dedicated to my lovely wife Donna who suggested this should be my next book and to Baz my father in law who taught me more Do It Yourself tips and tricks than any reality TV show ever could.

Big thanks to Sheldon who was more than happy to be paid in beer, my brother Guy and mother Alison who were incredibly supportive when we were struggling from one place to the other and the team of helpers that rushed to our aid when it was time too – you know who you are.

Remember kids you’ll save money by doing it yourself, but you’ll often save a lot more hassle by hiring a professional.. 

INTRODUCTION

In all honesty, there wasn’t anything particularly special about the very first house I ever bought. No one famous had owned it previously, it wasn’t built over an Indian burial ground (although I swear it was cursed every time I tried to fix something in it), no one was murdered there (to my knowledge) and when we walked through the doors the first time the place didn’t suddenly explode or close the doors on us until the vengeful spirits inside had their revenge. No it was a nice old three bedroom house with a nice garden, it was close to my work and fitted my needs and my budget quite nicely. So with those basic boxes ticked you’d be thinking – what could possibly go wrong here?

What I wasn’t expecting however was how many amusing and occasionally frustrating stories it would bring to my already amusing and frustrating adventures.  Given that it was built in an age where a loaf of bread was around 5 cents, a leg of lamb was 20 cents and with $10 you could fly yourself half way around the world first class I knew that some work would be eventually needed.

What I also didn’t count on however was my amazing ineptitude when it came to rolling up the sleeves for some do it yourself action. If I knew what I was doing half the time this would be a very short book and not worth reading at all (I’d probably start my own DIY Youtube channel or something and live on my own luxury island from the proceeds). That coupled with plenty of weird things done by previous owners, the completely unexplained things we found and me trying to save as much money as humanly possible in the process, planets were bound to collide sooner or later. And they did, in record time.

(A quick note about my expert Do It Yourself skills – I didn’t have any. Dad was a terrible inspiration on that front having managed to kill a fridge with a screw driver when attempting to chip out some ice from the freezer and the pots and pans cupboard never closed properly again after he tried to fix it. Watching him in action back in the day, I’m quite surprised I didn’t end up a couple of feet shorter when I bought myself a circular saw. Luckily my incredibly skilled and knowledgeable Father In Law Baz wasn’t too far away in those times when I wanted to put my fists - and power tools - through the wall.)

While I had plenty of moments when things went correctly (not much point writing them here in a book about my misfortunes) I crashed, burned, fell through, cut myself on and almost burnt down plenty more and at my wife’s suggestion (thanks Donna) most of them are chronicled her for your enjoyment.

I hope you learn, love and laugh at my journey.

And when the time comes when you find yourself in similar situations I sincerely hope you don’t do what I do and instead consult a professional...

-Al Shield

www.alshield.blogspot.com (jump on my blog to find out what I’m up to next)

PART 1 – FIRST WE HAD TO FIND A HOUSE

It was now time to stop paying off someone else’s house and start paying off my own.

In my journeys and strange adventures through various radio stations across the country I have been renting places to stay for longer than I could remember (quite a few of them ended up being written about in my second book The Adventures of Almigo: Live from the Eldorado Flats they were that...er...interesting) and thanks to a some very supportive family friends, I found myself in a position with enough money for more than the minimum needed for a house deposit. It was time to get out of the rental trap and enter the mortgage one instead, joining that not really magical at all club of having a mortgage.

But of course we just had to find the right place first.

My list of what it needed was pretty small: 

Three to four bedrooms

Close to work

Off street parking

Close to other things. Shops would be good. A pub would be better.

A shed would be nice. I’ve always wanted my own shed.

Some kind of garden that isn’t 90% concrete.

Not currently falling down. Or on fire.

With so few things on the list surely we could find something that fit the bill sooner or later? And so the adventure began as we scoured the neighbourhoods, the local papers and the real estate sites on the internet for anything that may come close to fitting the bill.

(Make sure when you build a list of things you’re looking for in a house you account for possible future changes too, say the next five years or so  – planning a family? Make sure there’s plenty of bedrooms and space. Got a car project that isn’t currently running? Look for a place with a decent work space and a shed. Don’t want to spend a lot of time and money having to fix things? Don’t buy a 50 year old house..)   

It wasn’t long before a small list started to build of potential places.

TAKE SOMEONE WITH YOU WHEN LOOKING AT PLACES

I’ll be pretty honest – when I have my heart set on something my brain usually clicks off and I completely gloss over glaringly obvious faults. Like car buying for example – there could be a nest of vipers dead centre on top of the engine block yet if it was a car I had lusted over for a while my mind would just think ‘Hey a free bunch of vipers!’ and I’d hand over the cash before arriving home with a fantastic collection of fresh snake bites (and a quick trip to the emergency room for some anit-venom shortly after).

Thankfully I wasn’t searching for houses and attending open for inspections alone as my lovely girlfriend at the time joined me in my search and often pointed out those things I well and truly missed.

Me: Interesting house that one. I liked the size of the bedrooms and the hallway looked pretty good. What did you think?

Her: It stank.

Me: The kitchen wasn’t half bad either and I reck- Wait... what?

Her: Couldn’t you smell it? Someone smoked a pack a day in there for the last 20 years. It’d take forever to get the smell out! There’s no way in hell you should think about buying that one.

I couldn’t smell it (brain and obviously senses now well and truly in off mode as I was that excited about checking out potential houses) but as a former smoker she could and the free tobacco seasoning all over the walls wasn’t really appealing to either of us so I crossed that one off the list as soon as we got back into the car.

Top tip: Take someone with you always. Especially someone who makes decisions with their brain over their heart. Even better, take someone with the necessary experience in renovations, home building or just general DIY who can point out everything that needs to be fixed and roughly how hard it’s going to kick you in the bank account when you do.  

SOMETIMES THE HOUSE YOU WANT IS ALSO THE HOUSE SOMEONE ELSE WANTS TOO

There were a few of houses I was keen on (one was built in the last five years too which would have been very handy) but I was buying at time when the Government were handing out first home buyers grants making it easier for newbies to enter the home ownership world and suddenly I found myself competing against a lot of unseen interest. So any of the following could and did happen when I rang through to enquire about a house I fancied having my Mazda leak oil all over the driveway of:

-Someone had put in an offer way out of my price range

-Someone had bought it that very day. Literally they’d walked through the inspection, figured ‘Hey this one looks great!’ and made an offer then and there. Either they desperately needed a house or really didn’t like thinking things over.

-It was under offer but for ‘x’ amount more...no. If we wanted to stretch to this price we could do a deal- er...no.

Top tip: Look at many, expect to lose out on a few/most. Whatever you do, don’t have your heart set on a particular place lest it’s suddenly snapped up from under you. Plenty more villas/ houses/ bungalows /caves/shacks/caverns/underground lairs whatever in the real estate sea.

THAT’S NOT A HOUSE, IT’S A CAVE

It’s amazing how many houses we checked out that had all the curtains drawn and the lights switched off. Now I’m far from a real estate expert but surely that ‘previously owned by vampires’ look went out in the 1600’s and nowadays we’d like to see each room warts, cracks and all. A closed off vibe doesn’t exactly conjure up visions of a happy family, pillar of the community or neighbourhood watch house either – unless there’s