Oxley Woods Living

And by that, I mean quite literally stinks!

Yesterday and today are the first time for a while we’ve felt cold enough to have the windows and doors all closed up for any considerable length of time, the result of which has been rather unpleasant.

A short while ago we left the house empty for a day, came back, and there was a strange, unpleasant smell about the place. I gave the cat a grilling and she denied any wrongdoing, and after leaving doors and windows open it seemed to pass. The smell was only really obvious in the halls and landings, the other rooms were all closed off, which made me think it was either something unpleasant the cat had left somewhere, or that some smells had made their way in from outside, perhaps something to do with building work, and become “trapped” in the house.

Anyway, this morning we awoke to a horrible, horrible smell through the house, again most obvious in the halls and landings. After much sniffing and wondering around the house like a badly trained tracker dog, it turns out the foul smell is being vented into the house care of our less than impressive Nuiare ecohat. The vent is on the upper landing, and blows in the direction of the stair well, which would explain why we’ve smelt this in the halls and landings, especially when doors are closed.

Checking the warranty to make sure we hadn’t missed anything, the only serviceable part, the filter, should only need replacing after “three to five years” and a red light should flash to tell us when this is due. Well, we’ve been here since July 2008 (just over seven months) and the little red light isn’t flashing.

We put in a call and left a message with the George Wimpey site managers this morning and pulled the plug on our ecohat completely. So far nothing has come back from Wimpey, so I may have to try again soon. May have to call Nuiare direct, as the builders seem to either have completely forgotten about us and our outstanding issues, many they themselves caused, or they’re avoiding us. Either way, we’re not best pleased.