Gas Chaos

I SPENT NEARLY £20 ($31.45) trying to ring the Gas and electric people to get new accounts activated. The gas is already on pay-as-you-go meter, which is £16 ($25) in arrears, so they have to clear that by sending an engineer round. The electricity is already running, but I want the meter changed to pay-&-go. The phone call took so long that my free minutes, free credit and top-up credit were all eliminated before anything happened.

The old landlord's man kindly said he would move me. (Last time it was two mini-vans full of stuff. Gigantic clothes-drying racks, bookshelves, enough bedcovers and duvets to start a Turkish hareem, etc...) I said I'd be ready by Monday morning and he said OK.

There's STILL repairs that need doing. There's a window opening on to the landing with no key, and it's unlocked. The back door (opening to a balcony 30ft up) is also unlocked with no key but it would take a pretty enterprising theif to get in by that one...

Ukh and the shower doesn't work! Have to get one of those pluggy-into-the-taps ones from the pound shop.

The television is surprisingly good, you get FOUR TV line-ins. Freeview, Freesat, Polish and Abyssinian. There are some German and French channels on the Polish satellite (very educational. Means you can watch exotic home shopping presentations at 4am and convince yourself you're not completely wasting your time. (Completely being the operative word.))

Do you think I need the front door lock changed? The door itself looks fairly secure. A Yale-type key to a dead-bolt with catches all the way up the doorframe. I had assumed the previous tenant was a disabled

old person, due to the sit-down shower, but on examination that shower is very old. And there are DSS letters on the floor for whoever lived there before. Last thing I need is hoardes of people banging on the door at all hours thinking this is still a crackhouse (well it could have been one). I'm too paranoid about home security. The front door keys I've got seem suspiciously unworn (as if somebody has kept hold of the old keys). Can you copy window lock keys? Do you think they might have kept the key to the bathroom window so they know it's break-in-able? Will the council fix it? He said they'd do the balcony door, but this was before I knew of the gaping security breach at the front. I've got the number of some tenancy support lady. I suppose I have to ring her on Monday. That's why I need to move in quick, because I need to be there for repair men, gas meter bods, paint deliveries etc. I'm starting to wonder whether lemon yellow was a wise choice but too late now... Well that's me. I'm off. Have a crazy weekend, kids...