Wishing for Clean Floors

Apart from the furniture we acquired via Ikea (boo, hiss) we have managed to get the majority of our flat together through ads people have placed in the lifts of the buildings we live in. Like Craigslist, it is cut and thrust and you have to be quick. When we first moved in there was many an ad, most of which we didn't respond quickly enough to. Now the ads seem to have dried up.

We were badly let down by someone in our 'community'. I would like to present you with the sorry tale, in order to give the context to my latest mission.

At the beginning of August, I saw an advert in the lift for many wondrous things, including a TV and a vacuum cleaner. I raced home and emailed to see if they were both still available. Joy of joys, they were, but pain of impatience, the owners were not moving out until the end of August. Still, we could last a few more weeks without it. A date was set for collection. Then, a couple of days before I received an email from the sellers to say that the TV was ready for collection - this tale is documented elsewhere on this blog. At the time, they said that they needed the vacuum cleaner in order to clean up before they left - fair enough - and we made plans to collect it in a few days.

A few days came and I eagerly emailed to arrange a time to collect (never have I been so excited and then so bitterly disappointed about an electrical device). No response. Never mind, we knew where they lived - aha hahahahahaahah - so we went round.

The sellers were a man and a woman - because I am still sore about it all, I am going to break my usual code and name and shame - Sae and Julio. Julio was, I think, Spanish and Sae was Japanese. She didn't speak a lot of English. I'm telling you this to explain what happened. Julio was still at work when we arrived and Sae stood standing in moving-detritus (clearly this flat had not been hoovered). I said we were there to pick up the vacuum cleaner. There was evidently a problem, but Sae was unable to explain what it was so she asked whether she could get her husband to email me. I said OK and left.

The next day, I hadn't had Julio's profuse apologies, or in fact any word at all, so I emailed to check if everything was still going ahead with the sale. It clearly wasn't but I still had hope. I didn't get a response.

Sae and Julio have now moved out and someone else has the vacuum cleaner which was so rightfully ours. This is supposition of course. I mean, it could have broken and they decided that they could not in good faith sell it after all. There could have been a genuine mistake and they sold it to someone else, due to poor communication. There are many possibilities, but not responding to my ultra polite email is rude, and therefore bad form in my book. As the colour of the carpet becomes more and more indistinguishable by the day, I have decided to take action.

My daily trail of Craigslist is proving fruitless - either they have sold out before I email, or I do not get a response at all. So today I set up a new email address with a clean floors theme, made some posters and have stuck them in prominent places in every building. Now, they can come to me.

Do I think it will work? Or do I think the carpet situation will get so bad that we will have to go out an spend full price on a hoover (only to find the day after that the second hand vacuum cleaner market is swamped.) I'll leave that for you to decide.