Archive for: UK

We finally have our house….but…..

Today we woke with the anticipation of getting our house keys. We had been told that it could be anytime between 12 and 5pm, so we decided to do something whilst we waited – shopping! Shopping seems to be all we do at the moment, but it has to be done. We ended up buying a few practical bits for the house such as a kettle and coffee maker.

Whilst we were in the mall, we decided to order our new phone line from Bell. Well, we had heard all sorts of things about Bell on the forum, but after all our experiences so far in Canada, this was the worst.

Everything we have ordered or brought so far has been sold to us with the utmost courtesy and been overall a pleasant experience, even down to ordering our SIN cards. Bell was another matter.

First you have to take a numbered ticket when you enter the shop, just like being at the Tesco cheese counter. You wait or them to shout your number and then the fun begins.

We explained that we needed a phone number for our new house and she asked for three types of ID. I gave her my passport, temp Ontario driving licence and credit card. She then said she would have to type everything in the computer to see how much deposit we needed to pay. After several minutes and a couple of questions later, she said we needed to pay $200 deposit. We asked why so much, she said because the computer said so! We asked what happened to this deposit and she said we keep it till we know you pay. You can claim it back after a year if you have paid on time.

Not happy, but what the hell, I told her to take the money from my credit card. She said they didn’t accept credit cards. So I said we would pay in cash and wait for it, they don’t take cash. Who, in God’s name doesn’t take cash? She said we had to get a money order and bring it in.

Not knowing what a money order was, we asked and she said “you get it from the post office and bring it back to us and we fill it in” So, now all was crystal clear!!!!

We then asked how much the phone would cost. She said it depended on what service we wanted. Well, we knew that so asked what services they offer, she said she would go through them when we came back with the money order as there was quite a few.

So, off we went to the post office and very easily obtained a money order, which we now know is similar to Postal Orders we get in the UK. The man at the post office told me how to fill it in and was most helpful.

Back to Bell. Saw a different assistant who slightly more pleasant, but still had the Little Britain “computer says no” attitude. Had to show all ID again and wait for ages for the paperwork to be completed. Eventually she got to the service we wanted. We were given a choice of voicemail and/or caller ID. Wow, what extensive choices.

Eventually we were given a contract to sign and a form with our new phone number on. Trouble was the phone number may be changed, they cannot promise that the one they gave us today will be the one we end up with. So, logically I am thinking why bother to give us a number at all, why not just wait till it is competed?

We asked when the number would be available and she said they could not fit us in till next Friday. Hubby asked if someone would therefore visit. She said no, they activate it remotely. One has to ask the question as to why you have to wait a week for someone to flick a switch.

After this delightful experience, we were notified that we could collect our house keys, by now it was 3pm. We went to the lawyers and had a chat with the British secretary there and had a laugh about Bell.

Then it was off to our new house. Had a wonder round and reacquainted ourselves with the place. I was surprised that generally the house had been left quite grubby. The fridge had not been cleaned out, nor had the oven or washer & dryer. The floors had not been washed either. Also, although they had kept the front garden reasonably tidy, the back was very unkept. Perhaps we are expecting too much, but when we left our house in he UK, we cleaned it from top to bottom, weeded the garden, cut the grass and generally left it in very good order. Also, because the sale is likely to take a few more weeks, we have arranged for a neighbour to come and keep the gardens tidy until the sale goes through. I suppose we are the stupid ones.

All was going great with then house until we turned the tap on in the kitchen. It poured for a few seconds, then stopped. Hubby guessed that the water had been turned off, but when he checked, he could not find anything to indicate this. Everything else in the house was working, including the air con, which we were very grateful for. Try as we might, we could not get the water to work.

So we headed back to the hotel to get contact our realtor and ask her to contact the vendor to ask where the water stop tap was. She could not get hold of them straight away, but after a couple of hours she came back to say they had not turned off the water. However, they suspected that there may have been an interruption in electricity supply which may have turned the pump off. We were given instruction on how to turn this back on.

We had planned to do this tomorrow, but hubby had itchy feet, so off we went back to the house. We followed the instructions, but still no water. The lever we had been told to move, didn’t seem to do very much. However on one occasion, we did get water for about a minute, then it turned itself off gain. Every time the lever got switched to on, it almost immediately turned itself back off again. Eventually we gave up and came back to the hotel. We will have another look tomorrow, but may have to call out the pump man to take a look.

Oh, the fun of owning a new home!

Stress, stress and more stress

Yes, you’ve guessed it, I am stressed!

This morning we had received an email from our shippers, Excess Baggage (EB) to say our goods to follow had arrived and to contact Air Canada (AC) on a certain number to arrange collection. Great we thought.

I phoned the number given, but was informed it was “out of service”

Then I had to phone EB in the UK to ask for the correct number. I got a new number.

Phoned new number and told the man who answered that I wanted to arrange collection of my shipment. He asked for the waybill no which I gave him. He said, “You have already collected these boxes”, “No I haven’t” I replied.

He checked the number and it related to a shipment of 24 boxes weighing 889kg for a company based in Toronto and the boxes had been collected the previous day. Our shipment was 15 boxes weighing 440 kg!

He gave me a web address to input the waybill no into to show that it was incorrect – it was! I thanked the AC guy and said I would check with EB again.

So, another phone call to the UK and spoke to a guy at EB and explained the problem. He said that the waybill number was correct; I said it couldn’t be because when I called AC, they said and proved that it belonged to a completely different shipment. He said he would need to check with their shippers and would come back to me in a couple of minutes.

Twenty minutes later, no call, so phoned them once again. Spoke to a woman who said that the guy I had been speaking to was on the phone dealing with my query and would call me back soon.

Half an hour later, still no call, so phoned again. The guy I had been dealing with answered the phone and said he had been trying to phone me (yeah right). He said the waybill number was definitely correct.

At this point I was starting to loose my rag and hubby was going bananas. I explained again that something was wrong because when I called AC with that number they had it tracked to a completely different consignment. SO WHERE WAS MY BAGGAGE????

Again, he said that the number was correct and that was all he could do. Now I really did loose my temper and asked how I was supposed to collect baggage from Toronto with a number not belonging to my goods and with him obviously not giving a toss about the problem. I demanded to speak to his manager – was put on hold.

I was on hold for 10 minutes and eventually got another woman on the phone. I explained that I had been on and off the phone to various parties for the last 75 minutes and that I wasn’t prepared to wait any longer on the phone and that they should sort out the problem and leave a message on our hotel answer phone and back this up with an email. She said she would and I ended the call.

Now I was so stressed, I had a thumping headache and we still had loads of things to do.

We jumped into our new truck and went to a couple of furniture shops and looked at sofas etc. We then set off for Kingston as we had to pick up our cards and cheques from the bank and also register for health cards and SIN.

Went to HSBC bank and met woman who had our cheques waiting, however she did not have our temporary debit cards which we need in order to use the cheques! After some debate she said she would try and get them issued. More stress! Eventually we got the cards and was on our way. Our real ones will be sent to us once we have our house.

Then went over the road to the Service Canada place to get SIN numbers. Handed in our paperwork and ID etc and she completed the forms and said that our SIN cards would follow in 6-8 weeks. We explained that hubby was self employed and needed to be able to work. She said she would rush his through and that if we popped in on Thursday she would issue him number (the card would still take 6 weeks). Got receipts and left. No problems for once.

Next we went to the place to register for our health cards. Again we were seen pretty quickly handed in the paperwork and ID. Guy completed the forms, took our pictures and samples of signatures and gave us receipts. Another very easy process. The card will be delivered in about three months as in Ontario the health card does not click in until after three months.

After this we drove back to Belleville and had dinner, then returned to the hotel.

First thing we did was check the phone for messages – none! So out comes my laptop and hey presto an email from EB. It says that we need to call some woman in Toronto tomorrow. Will just have to wait and see what tomorrow brings.

Sorry to waffle, but aagggghhhhhhh!