Suandpete
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Posts
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Posts posted by Suandpete
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Our gite is available - one double and one twin room. We are just south of Thouars.
regards
Su
www.inchocks.co.uk
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Oops - just posted a response to this in the B&B forum and then found it here!
Su
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We have a gite so maybe things are a bit different but we certainly wouldn't turn a booking away and early on made a policy decision that we would rather fill up with one week bookings than have gaps - which isn't really likely (we have already turned away 22 requests for the summer holidays as we are full).
I think quite a few people are either taking 2 centre holidays or taking a while to get here and a while to get home (we are in Deux Sevres). Another thing about one week lets of course is that if there are any problems with the way a particular family treats a house it would be easier to sort out after one week than after two! I guess in the B&B world that wouldn't be a problem though.
Su
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Hi
Thanks for the suggestion - but I'm not sure just how effective that would be - where the return pipe goes back into the system (and we think it may be the culprit) it is around three to four inches in diameter - it appears that maybe as many as four pipes lead into it underground. I'll have a word with the plumber to see what he thinks.
Su
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Does anyone have any experience of trying to find a water leak which seems to be invisible? We live in a "Maison Bourgeoise" and have oil fuelled central heating. The system has just begun to lose pressure rapidly and this which can be remedied by adding water. Most of the pipes are surface mounted but there is a fairly large percentage of the "return" pipes which are under our marble tiled hall and old quarry tiled living room. It appears that there must be a leak - quite a considerable one probably 'cos if the heating is running we have to add water every 7 minutes! The plumber is going to try putting in to the system a fluid which may seal the leak but is understandably reluctant to start digging up all the floors. Our insurance will pay to find the leak but only if there is some evidence of the leak - ie damp showing in the walls or on the floors anywhere. The insurance lady pointed out that the water is probably just seeping away into the earth and may not cause a problem(!). I'm not sure that a pipe detector would work through the marble tiles and we do not even know where the pipe runs are. At present we are adding water in an attempt to make it show somewhere - but are of course very uneasy about doing it as we don't know where the water is going!
Any ideas anyone?
Su
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Thanks very much for that - we had Numeris as well and I guess it was obvious really - but thanks for pointing it out. I rang France Telecom this afternoon (for some reason it wouldn't allow me to do it online) and it will be done on Monday.
Cheers!
Su
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Since we went on to broadband and installed ADSL filters on our phone sockets our phones seem to have lost their ability to display the caller ID. Does anyone know if there is anything we can do to get the ID facility back?
regards
Su
www.inchocks.co.uk
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Last year was our first year of letting and we were full for 26 weeks in all but no one flew - everyone without fail drove here in their own cars from UK. We are around 45 minutes from Poitiers and the majority of our personal visitors fly Ryanair - however not one of the holidaymakers did. We used to holiday in France with a company called Francophile (not sure if they are still around) and they specialised in Tuesday and Wednesday changeovers and always seemed to be able to fill their properties.
regards
Su
www.inchocks.co.uk
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Hi
Just sent you a private message
regards
Su
www.inchocks.co.uk
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Hi
Yes, I logged in okay and on the owners maintenance screen it shows correctly - but not on the availability window on our property in Chez Nous. Very frustrating!!
Su
www.inchocks.co.uk
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We have just started using the Chez Nous availability screen (with the new style calendar) - and while it was fine last night, today it seems to be showing the whole year as unavailable. Is anyone else having this problem or is it just us? The one helpful person I have found there is "out of office" today and so I will contact him tomorrow - however I was just curious to know if this is a common happening.
Su
www.inchocks.co.uk
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I have noticed rolled joints of pork described as saumuré which appears to mean cured - or possible salted. Has anyone ever used them to roast - I would be interested in knowing if they are tender or maybe a bit dry? Are they salty? Or do they taste different to ordinary roast pork?
many thanks
Su
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Both my husband and I receive government pensions and can confirm that there is an arrangement between France and the UK where all government pensions must be taxed in the country in which they were earned - so unfortunately (or fortunately) you do not have the choice.
Su
www.inchocks.com
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I have a feeling that I replied to you a couple of months ago when you posted just before your move. There are loads of people in the immediate area and probably even more within a 30k radius. If I remember rightly you have had your house for a while as a maison secondaire. We are happy to meet with you and exchange info about the area. Please either e-mail us or send a message to our inbox.
regards
Su
www.inchocks.co.uk -
Does anyone know what the French for smear test is please?
Su -
LAST EDITED ON 27-Jul-04 AT 12:53 PM (BST)
I usually get mine over the internet - from www.zubial.fr , I guess it's swings and roundabouts - some sizes are cheaper and some dearer - but for our dog for Frontline Combo they seem to be around the cheapest.
Su -
We're about 20 mins or 28K north in a village called St Varent.
There are quite a few Brits living nearer to Parthenay - there is a group called the GT (Get Together) group which has several hundred members living in Deux-Svres - mostly British but also French, Dutch, Belgian etc and a relatively large percentage of their membership is in the Parthenay area.
Are you thinking of moving to the area? Whereabouts? It's lovely here today....
Su
www.inchocks.com -
I read somewhere that if you plant marigolds they attract hover flies which eat the aphids. So we now have marigolds dotted all around the veggie garden - not only does it look pretty but more importantly actually works and the aphids have virtually disappeared.
Su
www.inchocks.com -
When we first saw our house it had been on the market for several years and the sellers were pretty keen to get rid of it so we made an offer substantially lower than the asking price and it was eventually (grudgingly as they had paid tax on the valuation) accepted. We did everything totally above board and paid whatever fees and taxes were asked of us.
Totally out of the blue 2 years later we got an 8 page letter from the Hotel des Impots basically comparing the price that we had paid per square metre with three other houses of varying types which had been sold within a pretty big radius of ours and over a period of several years; they also compared the price we had paid with the price our sellers had paid and factored that up for inflation.
They included a full A4 page quoting their rights under a wide range of laws and asking us for an extra 1000 euros in tax which would have been due had we paid the amount they say we should have! Of course we have appealed - with the help of a letter from the notaire and a lot of help from our agent who has done a detailed comparison of our house with the others quoted and pointed out that there is actually no comparison.
We have not yet heard the result of the appeal - but it just shows that even after a number of years they are still going back over old paperwork and checking prices etc. Apparently they have up to three and a half years after completion to charge this money if they think it should have been paid - so beware of paying what might seem to be an artificially low price! What is annoying is that the clear implication is that we paid some money under the table and we certainly did not!
Su
www.inchocks.com
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LAST EDITED ON 12-Jul-04 AT 03:36 PM (BST)
I'm interested in what other people do about clean linen when guests are staying in a gite for 2 weeks. We make the beds up prior to the arrival of the guests and leave clean linen in the cupboards for the second week. I considered going in to change beds during the middle weekend but thought that it might be an invasion of privacy - although I would of course do it if asked. I have however been surprised that so far this season only one set of guests have actually used the second set of linen - everyone else has preferred to leave the sheets on the beds for two weeks. How do you approach the "bed-changing" problem?
Su -
Hi
We have been here (Deux-Svres) for over 2 years now and have done most things - registered for health cover, obtained cartes de sejour, done tax returns etc and have never been asked for parents or grand parents birth certificates. We only needed ours for health stuff (CPAM) and Cartes de Sejour.
regards
Su -
LAST EDITED ON 24-Jun-04 AT 02:23 PM (BST)
Hi
Please don't take this the wrong way - I am not trying to infer anything about your "enquiry" - however we are also in our first season of renting out our gite and we received the following e-mail yesterday which we have chosen to ignore as we believe it to be seriously dodgy.
"Good Day,
I am david banks. I am the P.R.O of CAPITAL SYS.
I just mailed to let you know that we are interested in renting your cottage for some of our international employees coming over to france for a course programme for a peroid of 5 months.
I assume your cottage to be in a favourably good conditon.
We intend to rent any nice single or double room or any room size that is at your disposal.
Also,We want you to know that we would want to know your price range .Since we wouldnt want to bargain for anything more than the said price range.
Also we would want you to know that we intend on paying you through an french check.Our partner who resides in france will give you the cheque as soon as the neccessary negotiations have been concluded on between yourself and I.
I would love to know if your cottage is still available .
Thank you and have a nice day."
Hopefully it has nothing at all to do with the people interested in renting from you but I thought it would be as well to post it on here so that others can be warned.
I hope that the rest of the year goes well for you.
Su
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Once again this year we have too many courgettes (already!). I know that if I allow them to grow into marrows they can be stored for a while - but has anyone got any bright ideas about how to deal with a glut of courgettes? I understand that they don't freeze very well 'cos of the high water content - has anyone ever tried?
Su
Re-addressing mail
in Finding/Owning French Property
Posted
We have received some post for someone who has moved on to another part of France. Does anyone know if we can simply cross out the address and insert the new one as you can in UK. - or would La Poste have a problem with that?
Su