Rhonda Bracey: At Random

I think I have discovered the ideal tradesperson (my new handyman)! Why? Well, here’s a list for starters:

• arrives on time (never more than 5 minutes after he’s told me, or else he’ll phone and let me know that he’s delayed and by how much)
• cleans up after himself
• protects my floors etc. with drop cloths
• explains what’s important on my list and what’s not
• explains in plain language why some issues are happening
• takes extreme pride in his work
• notices other things and fixes or lets me know (e.g. was checking something in ceiling and noticed a pinhole elsewhere in the roof, so fixed it there and then)
• charges a reasonable hourly rate
• works at a good pace but not so quick as to be rough-shod and not so slow as to eke out the hourly rate
• looks me in the eye when speaking to me
• tells me if something is beyond his capabilities (e.g. plumbing work other than minor stuff) and then offers his recommendation for another tradesperson (but only if asked, so he’s not trying to fob off others on to me)
• treats my house like his own (e.g. takes off his shoes when inside – without asking)
• can turn his hand to most things (though he’s quite young, he has built his last two houses himself)
• does a good thorough job.

Notice that ‘does a good job’ is not the first thing on my list, so while that is very important, all those other things add up too, and any one of them could have relegated him to ‘so-so’ status.

He’s an absolute keeper for future handyman work around the house and I’ve already recommended him to others. He’s only recently gone into business on his own, so I’m more than happy to give him my business now and in the future.

Update December 2022: He’s definitely been a keeper! Everything I wrote 9 years ago about Tony remains the same today, and even though he now lives about an hour away, I still get him to come and work through my ‘Tony list’ each year (typically just once a year unless there’s some sort of emergency) to keep our house in good condition.

So I’m looking at the Google Play store for a relaxing ambient noise app to see if I can mask my mild tinnitus at night when trying to fall asleep, and I come across this review:

Too funny! No, I haven’t downloaded/tried the app yet…

(Text for those who can’t read the image: 4 stars: Maybe too effective. This app works great. My body is now trained to quickly fall asleep to certain sounds. However, I inadvertently activated your app with my car’s hands-free system today and before I realized what I’d done, I had fallen asleep at the wheel. I awoke in the duck pond in the park. Nobody was hurt, and it isn’t very deep, but there’s an extremely hateful goose patrolling the pond that won’t let me exit my vehicle. It’s like a little honking Cujo. Will rate 5 stars if you bring bread to appease this goose.)

We had to go to Perth a week or so ago to do some legal business. We parked on the edge of the city and caught the free buses into and out of the CBD (all TransPerth buses as well as the CAT buses are free within in the main city blocks — a brilliant strategy introduced by the State Government many years ago).

The bus we caught into the CBD was all decked out in Christmas paraphernalia, which brought a smile to everyone’s faces. The female bus driver had gone to a lot of trouble to decorate her bus. And she was really good with the passengers too, calling out to ‘The lady from the airport, your stop is the next one.’ to a tourist who had just arrived in our city. What a great introduction to Perth for that person.

Once we were in the city and had breakfast, we waited in the gardens at the Central Park building for our appointment time. It was a gorgeous day and the all the trees in Central Park were well laden with leaves and a surprising number of birds. Here’s the view from the park bench we sat on, with the soaring Central Park building dominating the sky.

I live in a beautiful part of the country. Close by are farms, farmlets, a large estuary, etc. Work has been going on to run power and install a street light at the intersection of the main road into our subdivision. I wondered if there was more to it than that…

And at the end of last week I found out. On my drive into town, I saw several earthmoving trucks and vehicles on the farmland opposite the newly installed street light, and noticed the cattle were all gone (the horses and the camel went ages ago). A temporary road has been constructed into the farmland and it looks like a new subdivision will be going in there. I checked the local shire’s minutes on their website and found that the land is being divided into six lots, presumably ‘special rural’ lots with small acreage. (Update: I found more info on the application for subdivision on the Shire’s website and each lot will be 5 to 10 hectares — that’s about 12 to 25 acres for those who can’t convert hectares to acres! Further update (Dec 2013): There are five blocks with ‘For Sale’ signs on them, all around 5 hectares, and priced ‘from $690,000’, though I can’t find them listed on the real estate agent’s website yet.

I know I shouldn’t be a NIMBY as somewhere along the line the land where I live was also once farmland, but it’s a shame this beautiful farmland will be subdivided. Where do to the cattle go now?

Here’s some photos of the area I took back in 2010:

And here’s a photo I took on Friday showing the first stages of the development:

I hope they’ll keep all the ancient peppermint and tuart trees…

Update February 2014: Well, I bet the developers aren’t happy! Within about two to three weeks of the ‘for sale’ signs going up, the local shire/State health department put up this notice about 20 metres just before the southernmost driveway into these lots (there might be one at the northern end too, but I haven’t driven that section for a few weeks). Nothing like putting off prospective buyers!

Yes, we live in a high risk area for mosquitoes, and you’d have to be Blind Freddie or living under a rock not to know that; it was one of the considerations we had when deciding to purchase here. But this really spells it out for any prospective purchaser, particularly someone from another state or country who may not know that the entire south-west corner of Western Australia (including Perth) is subject to mosquitoes carrying Ross River Virus, especially areas close to still water, such as the estuary that these blocks front on to.