house work

I’ve been told by more that one person that there are about 4 million Iraqis living in Syria. If it’s not 4 million it got to be close to this figure. There are Iraqis everywhere. I mentioned that I was trying to register my 2 eldest daughters in school… well about September time, I registered my 3rd youngest in a state school. It’s much easier registering someone in a state school than a private one. I managed to wangle all her paperwork quite quickly whereas the other two needed letters, confirmation letters, stamps from British Council and British Embassy and Foreign Office in Syria etc…. Anyway, the majority of people at the Ministry of Education around September time were Iraqis. Rental prices for houses and apartments have nearly doubled and whereas haggling was/is a part of life for Syrians, the Iraqis pay full price as they have plenty of dosh. Luckily we bought another house quite cheap and are doing it up now. We started last week and it will take about 2 months and once done, we will rent it out.

Repairing or renovating property can be a very delicate business. If the neighbours are stinkers, they can complain to the council and stop the work. If you have added another room or stretched out your balcony by a couple of feet, they will knock it down. You need to then apply for licenses and pay bribes here, there and everywhere and this can delay work by months. If you use too much water or are wasting it then the water department come and fine you and even more headache as you know someone is snitching on you, BUT WHO???

Luckily, our neighbours are great and most of the wall-knocking is finished and we can now say that we installing new pipes etc and then rebuilding the walls (they won’t know what it looked like before, hee hee)

To renovate the property will cost about £4500 which is very good. I should take before and after pictures actually… Mmmm yesss… I’ll start tonight as I need to check on the progress of work.