Putting the Heat On
By LESLIE ADRIAN I COMPLAINED here some months ago about the astonishing variations one gets in estimates • from building contrac- tors for the same job and congratulated my- self on having found 'a little man round the corner' who had done the job I wanted done very efficiently and cheaply. The small man operating without overheads and probably working in his evening and weekend spare time is not necessarily the answer, though, even if you can find one, for some of them can be tricksters who will ask you for, say, £20 in advance 'for materials,' go away and never appear again.
A new organisation called the London House- hold Service (ring KNightsbridge 3721 for their brochure) seems to me to be well on the way to solving this problem. LHS claim to be the equivalent of the AA or RAC for car-owners: they will take on everything to do with the ser- vicing of a house or flat, owned or rented, k■ the London postal area and there are plans for the future to spread to other cities and towns in the south.
For your membership fee you get a twenty- four-hour service for any household emergency (burst pipe, blown fuse, wedding ring lost down the plughole or whatever); all kinds of carpen- try, electrical and plumbing repairs: cleaning, laying and dyeing of carpets; painting and decorating; building and conversions. What you pay for these depends, obviously, on the work done and the amount of overtime required, but you will be told in advance, for example, that, if you want a burst pipe mended at 4 a.m. on Sunday, it will be time and a half or double time and priced accordingly.
LHS have interviewed and investigated over 200 contractors and now have a panel of eighty from whom they can choose to do the work required promptly, efficiently and economically. For a large job of, say, painting or conversion, they will provide you with a number of quota- tions, will recommend their own choice from among them and then see that the job is carried through. This last point seems to me to be par- ticularly valuable; an expert from LHS will see that the job is done properly and to time and that the contractors do not put five men on the job at the beginning and then hive off two of them to start on another job elsewhere.
Fringe benefits (which can give you your two guineas' worth quite quickly) include 10 per cent. cash discount on most brands of furnishings, fittings, carpets and electrical equipment that you buy through LHS, substantial discounts on in- surance policies to do with the home (including your car); discounts of up to 33 per cent. and free delivery of paint. Companies can join the service as well as individuals, for a higher fee, and the fringe benefits extend to all employees.
I think you'll find that the service you can get from LHS will save you a lot of trouble. It is based on a study of the same kind of service which has been operating successfully in the United States for some time. It also has the support of the building trade because (don't let me put ideas in your head) if you fail to pay for work done LHS guarantee to pay the con- tractor anyway.
made use of the service over Christmas when, like many others, I gather. I had a power failure (all lights, heating. and the cooker) hal an hour before the turkey was due on the table and just before we had put the vegetables on. The London Electricity Board emergency. service 'hadn't the vaguest idea' when I could?' expect one of their men round—they were all out in answer to calls like mine. The LHS got on to the Board for me and there was a maa round in twenty minutes.
• * How bare rooms look when the Christmas cards come down. We received something over a hundred this time, in spite of ICI's example, and, looking them over before sending them oa to Great Ormond Street or somewhere, found; that about a quarter of them were charity cards!, UNICEF, who, I think, were the first in the field; with their specially commissioned designs about five years ago, scored seven out of twenty-seven; Oxfam and the Africa Bureau tied for second place with four each. Then, came Polio Research{ with two, followed by one each from World Wildlife, Dr. Barnardo's, Danilo Dolei, Mental Health, Muscular Dystrophy, the Sunshine Fund; for Blind Babies, War on Want and Save the.::i Children.
Apart from a feeling, as one reads through', the list, that surely some of these worthy causes are pursuing such similar objectives that thcY ought to be compelled to team up, there are' , moments of surprise at names of charities that one has never even heard of. Among my crop were the Sue Ryder Forgotten Allies Trust and the Grenfell Association, the one devoted to bringing aid and comfort to the displaced per sons of Europe, the other to much-needed social. and medical work in Labrador and Newfound- land.
While on the subject of Christmas cards (of which, we've been told, more than ever have been sold this season), let me have a brief bleat about the undesirable trend towards the hori- zontal crease. Vertically-folded cards of reason- able strength will stand obediently upright fot the requisite week or ten days. The horizontally- folded gradually collapse under their own Weight, getting flatter and flatter, until, like cardboard cuckoos, they push all the cards in front of them into the fireplace. As next Christ- mas's cards are being printed now—fold them vertically, I say.
A holiday note for those who fell victim to the Marples pincer movement—don't drive, use the reduced facilities of public transport. A friend summoned for jury service the week before Christmas received a document couched in the usual mock-mediaeval jargon: 'Whereof fail not, as you will answer the contrary at your peril.' Imperilling ourselves to the brink of a paIe smile, We studied the footnote. 'NB— Bring this summons with you. There are NO [Sid car parks nearby therefore the City Police advise the use of public transport.'
The week after Christmas, with the season- able snow still on the ground, the dustbins were full to overflowing—and the last time any of us in this borough had seen hide or hair of a dust- man was the Friday before Christmas, when they knocked for their goodwill gift. Having surren- dered it, we were even more puzzled at their absence (for there is a well-established rumour that unboxed at Christmas the refuse collectors will not collect). Was it the snow? It stopped the trains, delayed the post, dried up the supply of paraffin, towered the gas pressure (a Little load-shedding by the electricity boards, and it was like Shinwell's winter all over again) and threatened us with a meatless Sunday.
Anyone would think that Britain did not have a winter, like Singapore or somewhere. Actually, the dustmen, we discovered, were 'in dispute' with our council. What a load of rubbish!
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