Things you discover when you move back in with your parents

Or, yet another cladding scandal.

Is there anything more dull than a collapsed property sale? But as Tolstoy said of unhappy families, they are all collapsed in in their own ways. As for mine - to sum up, the long shadow of Grenfell Tower continues to loom over the UK housing market. As it should: one of the aftershocks of that avoidable disaster being that huge attention is now paid to the state of the potentially flammable cladding plastered over buildings, even those of just a few floors high.

But, as a well publicised side-effect, the remedial work required as a result can keep many people trapped in unsuitable homes they can no longer sell - more than one friend of mine has been caught by this, waiting for expensive and slow building works to be carried out. It’s essential to get the crucial ESW1 form, which shows that your property is judged to be safe and - in the eyes of mortgage lenders - sellable.

And so the saga continues, with a new twist cropping up this year: an engineer at Tri Fire, one of the firms producing these important fire safety certificates, is now alleged to have forged hundreds of them. As this has been uncovered, it has meant that potentially hundreds of London flats can no longer be assumed to be safe, or sellable. Mortgage lenders generally and sensibly won’t let you buy a home without a ESW1, and are running a mile at the whiff of all this. And guess whose lawyer spotted in her final checks on the day of exchange that said (alleged) forger had signed off the ESW1 form on the very flat in question?

Not the headline you want to see when you google your fire safety assessor

Yes, moi. Still, it was lucky my lawyer rechecked the certificate at all, given it was received before the scandal broke. (The engineer’s lawyer has “strenuously denied” any allegation of fraudulent activity).

It could take a YEAR to get hold of a new certificate, the sellers have apparently been told, as relayed back to me. Of course, there is now a backlog and these forms were not quick or cheap to get in the first place, depending on extensive investigation of building’s cladding. Even without getting into the possibility of any remedial work on the cladding that might emerge through fresh investigations.

And so, short of divine intervention / surprise good news about this missing certificate in the next few days - here I am in limbo / my parents’ spare bedroom, once more braving the London housing market - from afar, which makes it an … interesting search. But no matter. “Your parents must be loving having you to stay!” exclaimed one ever optimistic friend when she heard of the property delay.

Well, yes and no; and vice versa. But at least everything is copy (I can put that in my Substack, I tell myself yet again.)

Here’s what I’ve learned:

1. Make your own meals, was the advice on one sister, who also boomeranged back to the family home recently, as she and her young family waited to get into their own new house as the sale dragged on. This she was - rightly - emphatic about. Cook for yourself, like an adult, or risk feeling like a grumpy teenager waiting for dinner happening a sensible time (a prompt six, imo, but in no one else’s). Also, note that:

2. No one really eats anymore, anyway - at least not how I remember. Long gone is the stuffed fridge of my childhood dreams when my parents were feeding three growing children; now it’s full of snacks for the grandchildren (do not eat the cheese strings, tasty as they are - they are off limits) and HAM. I had better not get into my dad’s eating habits in a public forum, so let it just be said that when the protein-heavy Atkins diet was all the rage 20 years ago he told his horrified GP that he’d adopted it by eating a full English every morning, minus the toast.

3. Likewise: do your own washing, obviously, and all the other things that you did in your own home.

4. You don’t need that much stuff - but you’ll miss it. Did I mention that most of my possessions have been in storage for almost a year now? That was supposed to be for just a couple of months, but stretched out as the property search continued. So, instead of my own curated and decorated flat, I have a wardrobe and a small chest of drawers filled with what I need day-to-day, and a garage full of miscellaneous stuff that I have basically slammed the (garage) door on. Still:

5. All those minimalist lists of how to dress yourself from your own wardrobe without buying more assume that you’ve got quite a lot to hand already. YOU DO NEED STUFF TO LIVE COMFORTABLY AND CLOTHE YOURSELF. Sorry for shouting. A repeated feature of the last year has been planning an outfit for work / a wedding / anything else, then realising I have no idea in what county said essential item is.

6. I did however strangely enjoy the trip to the immaculate warehouse to dig my winter coats out of the storage container at vast expense (everything about storing your stuff costs a bomb). In another life I would have had a great time being busy and important on a forklift, I was convinced. I do love a hi-vis.

   

   This is indeed heavily edited, I did not go to the warehouse with a smoky eye (next time)

7. A lot of your identity comes from where you live, as much as what you do and all the other stuff we’re told to not tie ourselves to. (But then what? Just define ourselves by something so nebulous as our ever-changing characters, nay, souls? Anyhoo.) So it is discombobulating to be transplanted to a new place, out of your usual routines. Who even am I when I am not stomping around London sighing at tourists on the Tube, and spending £10 on coffee and a Danish?

8. As a plus, it’s a joy to get to hang out more with my family, especially my nephew and two nieces. I tell you, it is the closest I will ever get to feeling like Taylor Swift on tour as: “Emma!” a two-year-old shouts, bustling over to throw herself at me. (“Emma is my best friend,” she has confided to my sister - putting me in a select crowd of half a dozen.)

9. Your parents’ social life - OK, your mother’s, she is running the show - is a thing of wonder to behold. Dancing, dinners, tickets to everything in town. “I haven’t been out all week,” complains my mother on one quiet Tuesday night. (“Well, I like having you,” she said, in learning I was writing this post. “So put that in your pipe and smoke it.” She didn’t read this in advance: “I’ve got an urgent appointment at the hairdresser’s.”) And yet…

10. Your parents are getting older. Up close and personal, the passage of time can’t really be ignored. Enjoy them while you can, I tell myself. That said, we will all enjoy each other more when they can watch their quizzes - good for the memory, after all - in peace, and me and my Real Housewives are back in our own home, I’m sure.

11. I am still allergic to the cat.