Paolo

[quote user="Jo Taylor"]So the agent friend, I'm afraid, is misinformed.[/quote] Having dealt with them here, and renting our house in England, this is not a shock. Paolo

Jo, The primary source is the agent, and her friend who was also an agent. Whether that changes when dealing direct with the owner I'm afraid I don't know. Paolo

[quote user="SusanAH"]Paolo, do you know that law apply to all French rentals regardless of what currency the security deposit is paid and where it would be paid into?[/quote] No I don't know, but if you are taking payments in the UK I wouldn't worry about it as it is the norm there to bank a security deposit. A UK personal cheque isn't really worth anything if it is not banked. Paolo

Sometimes you come across a very clear warning sign of trouble ahead, but only see it in retrospect. You have done well to get out of this one. Keeping a security deposit for a rental that cancels is devoid of logic. In any case, as an aside, I am told by a rental agent here that it is illegal to bank a security deposit in France unless there is a need to do so in order to pay for damage/breakages. So banking a deposit for a non-existent rental is even more illegal. For the amount, it isn't necessarily excessive, it just depends what is in the house and what value the owners place on it. But once you hit 1000 euros security deposit it does put renters off. Paolo

I understand that the problem with Wanadoo is that it is an 'open relay' ISP, which means spammers can freely use it to send their wares. Some ISPs systematically block anything from Wanadoo.  A bounce message can take several days to arrive, so if you were responding to a booking enquiry for a gite or B&B, that is not good for business. Paolo  

Does this fix actually cure the problem of Wanadoo emails not being delivered? At the moment I am sending a duplicate by gmail, which is not ideal. Thanks Paolo

Miki, Thanks. I knew you'd tell me what I need to know, in fact hearing the word Toussaint I suspect I asked you the same question last year! Kingston is not that welcoming to me since we moved to France in November. Our friends from there are lined up to come and see us here this summer. Nothing to do with the pool and free booze, of course. Sadly I have not been on Living France for quite a while, I hope you don't mean the regulars have jumped ship? Paolo

I am sorry to post such a boring question, but I have been asked this and naturally thought I would get a definitive answer here: October 28-30 is All Saints Day (is it?), so will this make it difficult to get a car rental since it is a holiday, and will there be shops open on the Saturday? Thanks, Paolo  

I think you have been too soft on them. I would have told them to write their own text. There is another consideration here. Google doesn't like duplicate content. If two pages have the same text, Google only returns one of them in a search. The other is effectively invisible. Whether it is your site, or your neighbours' which is blanked, this is a compelling reason for them to change their text. Paolo

Thank you for the helpful replies. Is a waste recycling centre the same as a dechetterie? I haven't seen compost there. Or is it something else I have not yet encountered? Paolo

We are going to plant a 40 sq m patch as an organic fruit and veg garden. I could do with some advice on where to find some well composted manure - the soil is not too bad but it could do with a lift. I suppose I could buy it in bags from a garden centre but that would be really expensive for 40 sq m. If I call a stables, the manure would be too fresh wouldn't it? Any ideas on where to start calling would be most welcome. Paolo

Hear, hear. Dick, if I am not mistaken, that cheeky, good-looking, tousle-haired boy in your avatar who no doubt went on to charm many a lady, is carrying...a great big bottle of booze. It's not exactly relevant, but the juxtaposition of that and the young Greavsie above it made me think of the great G.B. Paolo

The other thing that makes Livebox special is that it is not just a modem, it give you wireless connection to the internet, so (if your walls allow it) you can wander around in the house or garden with a laptop and be on high-speed internet. I believe that in rural France there is no choice if you want ADSL and/or wi-fi ADSL - it has to be Wanadoo and Livebox. Paolo

I had a similar Livebox problem. It frequently went dead and disconnecting and reconnecting the power reset it. Then it just stopped altogether. I had 8 sessions with the Wanadoo helpline. I am not French but in England I would pass for fluent, and I had trouble understanding what some of the operators were saying - they rattle out technical terms and assume you know what they mean. And each time you call you have to go through their checklist of questions - what operating system are you using, are you using a USB cable, etc. even though they say they are noting all these details on their system. Anyway, eventually I had the bright idea of re-installing the Livebox CD, and hey presto it now works again. So I would recommend doing that if the lights don't stop blinking. Paolo

Thanks all, I think I will head off for Darty tomorrow (got waylaid today - doesn't that seem to happen a lot in France?) Paolo

Blimey, just checking back in case anyone else needed thanking for replying, and look at all these posts! We moved to Provence on Thursday and the washing is piling up - it doesn't seem to dry very quickly outside, but then again it was left out in the rain last night. Two toddlers = lots of washing. Dick - we moved from Kingston after 5 years there, so I can't say I am from there - no trolley-bus memories I'm afraid (wasn't that in the time of Victoria?) My wife was born and bred in Kingston and she can't remember trolley-buses either (there's an awful lot of things she can't remember though). Here's another boring question - I reckon every big chain or hypermarche is driveable from here - where would you choose to buy a tumble dryer or fridge? Back in England I would have toddled down to John Lewis because I don't like aggressive sales staff who don't know anything about what they are selling. Paolo

I thought that might be the case - thanks! Paolo

Are all the shops closed on Toussaint? (Particularly a place that sells tumble dryers). Paolo

Ah, not so easy then. Thanks Nick, I will have to bring it with me and see what happens. I am trying to cut down drastically on what we take with us as we are moving to a smaller house, but it won't take up much room.

Nice easy one for you lovely people... I know my English TV won't work in France, but what about my newish Sony VCR/DVD player? Will I be able to watch both SECAM and PAL recordings on it through a French TV? Cheers, Paolo

Thanks all, that is really useful stuff. All I have to do now is find my birth certificate.... Paolo

Does anyone know of a check-list of things to do before you move to France from the UK? I haven't found one on these forums, but I'm sure there must have been one posted or linked to in the past. We have a list but I am confident there are things we haven't thought of. Thanks, Paolo

I would get the most basic phone you can find. All these other things phones can do nowadays they don't do very well, and you tend to pay through the nose for them. Consequently it may be hard to find a really 'bad' phone. There was a Guardian front page (!) humorous article about this recently: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,1573892,00.html Paolo

I used Dreamweaver but it is pricy. I believe Frontpage has its limitations because it uses templates, but that may be fine for your needs. You can tweak those templates if you learn a little html, which is not as scary as it sounds. For hosting I tend to use www.ipowerweb.com. It is cheap - $8 per month including domain registration - give you loads of memory, and a good visitor stats package. Even cheaper is www.godaddy.com, which I think was between $3 and $4 per month. Domain registration there is about $8 per year. Paolo

Me again! If I buy a used digibox with Sky card (blue with a yellow house) from ebay, whose owner has upgraded to Sky+, will this work OK in France and not need activation? All I want are the 5 UK terrestrial channels. Cheers, Paolo