Just imagine, as a Daily Sceptic reader, temporarily going insane and buying into the rental market. Next, imagine going even more insane and pouring your savings (or increasing your mortgage) into trying to kit out your rental properties so that they gain the highest possible Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) in a nod to the U.K.’s fixation at pouring astronomical sums down the eco plughole. You’d soon wish you’d never been born
That’s what the Telegraph’s Secret Landlord has done, but came a cropper when trying to improve a Victorian flat:
At great expense, I’ve carried out internal wall insulation and upgraded the electric storage heaters in my one-bedroom Victorian flat (I’d already fitted double glazing years ago).
There’s no gas and, given it’s a flat, no way to do something fancy with solar panels or heat pumps, so I elected to purchase two high heat retention storage heaters, which cost £2,500 with the installation.
I chose these top of the range models because I was assured they would help me achieve the hallowed EPC ‘C’ rating, which rented properties are required to have by 2030, up from the current grade ‘E’.
The assessor had already told me I only needed one heater to improve the score, but as I also wanted to improve the quality of a tenant’s life, I bought an extra – rather than a panel heater, which I could have done without lowering the EPC rating.
Having also installed lovely wooden flooring, I called the assessor and asked him to revisit the property. I still had a couple of years left on the old certificate, but wanted to get it done now to show potential tenants the new enhanced ratings.
Imagine my surprise when the certificate came back with a ‘D’, just one grade higher than it was previously.
Cue angry phone call.
“I did what you said, why have I not got a ‘C’?”
“You didn’t install 50mm insulation under the floor.”
“But it’s got floorboards, plyboard, insulated underlay and then wood flooring – surely that’s enough?”
“I’m sorry, Secret Landlord, you needed to insulate under the floor.”
“But,” I said, “I’ve been doing research on this and I worry it may rot the joists, there’s a fear it may breach the damp proof course and cause other issues.”
“They don’t care about that on the EPC.”
“So, what am I going to do?”
“I suggest you either rip up the floor and insulate, or accept the ‘D’. They’re changing the software in January, so you may be better off just doing it now.”
“Sorry, what?” I exclaimed.
At this point the conversation moves from the absurd to a Kafkaesque nightmare. The assessor continued:
“Yes, from January we have to measure all the windows, say what direction they’re facing and list the age. Electric heating will also potentially get downgraded because the new update includes heating costs and electric is more expensive to run. To be honest, I don’t understand why the Government is pushing heat pumps because having them could potentially lose you up to 11 points.”
“OK, so you’re essentially saying we’re having a window tax by the back door and the electric revolution they’re pushing is going to penalise me?”
“It’s a mess. The new tests will take double the time so the costs of an EPC will go up, I also wouldn’t be surprised if many assessors quit – loads left during the Green Deal.”
“OK,” I said, reeling from this new information. “What is it I should do?”
“Well, if you lower the ceiling by 400mm that will give you three extra points, you do have very high ceilings.”
Cue insane laughter. So insane, the assessor had to cut across my guffaws.
“But honestly, I don’t think the Government will stick to the ‘C’ grade, I think they’ll lower it to ‘D’. Also, they may drop that metric altogether as it’s measuring the wrong thing – it’s not in line with carbon reduction, and that’s what they’re trying to do.”
The Secret Landlord is thus left thousands out of pocket chasing an EPC rating being carried as fast as possible up the pitch attached to a pair of goalposts operated by mutating software. Even heat pumps turn out to be a liability.
The EPC is exposed as a pointless farce. The Conservative government proposed a £10,000 (previously £3,500) cap on landlords’ spending on an EPC upgrade. If that spending wasn’t successful in improving a landlord’s EPC rating, he or she could apply for an exemption. But the Telegraph points out that in almost every instance the real cost of ‘improving’ a property is far higher than 10 grand – in some cases almost four times. Difficult to imagine how you’d ever get the money back.
Worth reading in full.
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When my 100% compos mentis mother was ejected from the stroke rehab ward in Leeds General Infirmary, because she didn’t have
The FluCOVID, she was dumped in a nursing home (untested!) to be surrounded by people with dementia.The nursing home manager and her deputy (who would have been more appropriately employed as a bailiff) tried to stop me entering and they even threatened to call the police. I called their bluff and demanded that they do indeed call the police. They never tried that again.
Fight for what you care about, people, or they will stop at NOTHING, these Little Hitlers everywhere, to take everything from you.
Mum is as well as can be expected after SIX MONTHS OF THAT HELL. She’s now out and in a much better place. I’m amazed she didn’t go stir crazy.
Throughout, the council chased my mum for over £1,200 per week care costs. I beat them at that, too. None of them knew about the provision made in Coronavirus Act 2020. Nasty muppets, everywhere. And don’t get me started on the MPs and their experts.
The most appalling aspect of this is that your mother’s wishes were regarded as irrelevant.
Two weeks before the complete closure of the specialist ward to make way for the hoard of covid zombies (which as we know, never materialised), all visits were prevented. Prior to this, she had been told she was being discharged into a community bed “because COVID” and that she would have no choice about where, and that it could in theory be anywhere in the country. I got a telephone call in early April to be told that she had gone to said nursing home, and I was given the address – thankfully one in Leeds. She had had no assessments of any kind – not health, not financial, nothing. Not a jot. The council then proceeded (very badly, they were all WFH) to treat her as a normal hospital discharge, as if everything had been done normally and her new location was as a result of normal process. It was hell.
Throughout her entire stay in the nursing home, the staff needed constant reminders from me that she was not supposed to be there and that she was not demented. I am still not sure that the manager and her deputy ever understood this.
My mum also tried repeatedly to remind the staff that she was not demented, but you can imagine how that went. It’s everyone’s worst nightmare, the more she tried to tell them, the more they believed she was doolally. That triggered a whole raft of “mood enhancing” drugs.
Before her bilateral stroke in July 2019 (the preceding TIAs of which where misdiagnosed in March 2019 as Bells Palsy!), the last time she was in hospital was 38 years prior, when she gave birth to me.
Then “because COVID”. She has been through the wringer!
And this isn’t the half of it. When I get some time back in my life, I am going to write a book about it all.
I’m so sorry you’ve both been through this 😔 it sounds infuriating. Good on you for calling their bluff. We need more good people to not consent to the bs. I have no idea how this empty threat about calling the Covid police because people are breaking “the rules” still works?! Better off telling you that Santa doesn’t visit the naughty list or that you’ll go to hell.
Thanks, Sweet.
I am so sorry that your poor mother was subjected to such cruel treatment, and I can only imagine your stress and distress in dealing with such inhumane people.
I have been supporting the elderly throughout this dreadful time one of whom is currently in his third week of isolation at his care home. This is after 3 weeks of the same over Christmas (which was cancelled).
He is 94. Nobody visits him, they dump his food at the door and they test him every day, which distresses him.
He wonders what was point of the vaccines?
His wife died in a care home last year to which she’d been moved without telling him. Once in her new ‘care’ home, she ‘became’ unconscious at which point they allowed him to visit just before she died.
Please do write your book.
Why can these care homes not be named?
“The nursing home manager and her deputy (who would have been more appropriately employed as a bailiff) tried to stop me entering and they even threatened to call the police.”
And their names are….?
“I called their bluff and demanded that they do indeed call the police. They never tried that again.”
So, did they call the Police or not? And what happened – did you enter the nursing home and get to visit your mother? How did you get past the manager and deputy who were stopping you from entering?
Did you make a complaint about the manager & deputy to the owner of the nursing home, about their behaviour?
Is there anything wrong with asking for details? I’m not even being ‘sceptical’ here, am just interested in what happened.
No they did not call the police. Nor did I.
I persuaded them that they should allow me to see my mother on a regular basis. They did not demand face masks, nor negative tests, nothing; they didn’t dare to, by that stage.
No I have not made a complaint. I don’t plan to, in this case. I am aware of the utterly broken nature of the care system. There is literally no point. No lessons can be learned by the specific people in question. Sorry, but it’s a case of choosing my battles.
I have however just reached a very positive conclusion in suing the NHS for misdiagnosing her March 2019 TIAs as Bells Palsy: they have admitted Breach of Duty, Clinical Negligence and Causation. That has consumed almost all my powers over the last horrible two and half years since her stroke proper.
Thanks for your interest, as ever, EF.
I will not be naming any individuals in question on this public forum. Not least because I may bring further legal action, but also out of common decency and respect for people who – however flawed I may think they are – work in extremely difficult circumstances even in ‘normal’ times.
‘I called their bluff…’
If they’d meant to call the police, it wouldn’t have been a bluff. That was implicit from the choice of word, I thought.
Good on you, myrtle, and thanks.
He is 94. Nobody visits him, they dump his food at the door and they test him every day, which distresses him.
I bet the poor animals at Battersea Dogs’ Home get more love and attention.
No consolation I know – but your mother’s experience if far from uncommon. The system is totally broken and corrupted. I am a registered care manager amongst other things and been up close and personal with this infamy for years and predates covid, but is now worse than ever.
I really need to write about a few absolutely stand out amazing individuals in the whole affair. People right at the bottom, fighting to do what they know is right, against all the odds and against all the edicts sent down from their WFH “managers”.
People like nurse Susan who turned a blind eye at all the right times, with her characteristic wink. People like head nurse Clare who was seething mad inside when told my mum was being discharged. Physiotherapist Rebecca who continued to visit her at every opportunity.
I marched with their kind in Leeds, along with my wife and two children, against mandatory “vaccination”, in support of the NHS100K.
I am certainly not a protesty person, even less Labour (I have campaigned with the Tory party in the past), but BY GOD THESE PEOPLE MUST BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE.
The good people are there, battling against the infamy. I have always been seen as a challenging individual and not always liked. Why? Simply I see myself as there for others. Why are we on this earth otherwise? To transcend the selfish self is the next evolutionary step, which some of us as attained, but no where near coming for the majority. Good people make me weep and I love them all. Question, fight, and be bloody minded for the alternative is purgatory..
Many ‘care homes’ are simply run for profit – look at who owns them to get an idea what it’s all about.
Still, what does one do with the elderly who cannot look after themselves? Looking after them at home would seem best – but how can you do this if you have to be at work and out of the house?
Done it. Mother, mother-in-law, and recently a friend who died this week. Tough yes and working the whole time. How? Sacrifice and good fortune. Not easy. There are models of care and support that can deliver, put going into this here is not possible as would lead to a mega post. The end of our lives is complex yet simple. As a family we rejected subjecting our family to care of others. A really tough thing to do and I would never criticize anyone for looking at residential care as the necessary (?) option. The sacrifice is huge and the challenges huge. The current situation is an evil.
I will read it.
So sorry for the trauma your mother has had to endure and you and your family.
You are correct in saying you get what you fight for. Know the so called rules correctly and then fight and don’t give in.
Don’t get mad – get even!
But by Christ have I got mad over the last two years. F*** me!
ol hancock did not show any interest in “distancing” with kisses and cuddles on camera.
Sadly one of many such stories out there – I work in health and social care and it is a total mess. Morally and intellectually bankrupt. If anyone thinks any of the actions due to covid help the old and frail, I would happily disabuse them of this notion by citing what I have witnessed and battled against. Really harrowing stuff. Criminal does not cut it.
I agree. And it’s heartbreaking
Agree, olaffreya. Prison would be too good for the people who conduct this satanic affair.
Perhaps nuclear war will hasten the end of these inhumane restrictions.
I wouldn’t bet on it. Think how much control the freaks would get by replacing “due to Covid” with “due to fallout”.
Care home residents are still being kept in their rooms for 24 hours a day and having their Mothers’ Day gifts ‘quarantined’ under an “endless cycle” of lockdowns. The Telegraph has the story.
If Julian assanges treatment can be described as torture, then locking elderly people in their rooms for 24 hrs a day can also be described as such, this also looks targeted even more as I cannot believe the state is this bone idle to fail to update guidence for care homes, or as I call them “business homes”
julien Smith was unable to bring his mother flowers for Mothering Sunday because her care home said all gifts needed to spend 72 hours in a “quarantine room” before they can be delivered.
dumb as a box of rocks enforcing that.
Dumb as rocks, perhaps. But only responding to the subtext of the government’s nudging that ‘everything is dangerous during Wu-flu’.
The myth of fomite transmission, along with masks, social distancing, and hand sanitiser, still survives in the hideous closed minds of people who should know better,
They’re Using DNR Notices to Turn Hospitals into Death Camps
https://vernoncoleman.org/articles/theyre-using-dnr-notices-turn-hospitals-death-camps
Dr Vernon Coleman MB ChB DSc
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Currently to see my demented mother I have to arrange an apt turn up 30 mins early have a LFT (on site, cant take my own anymore)to tell me what I already know – having natural immunity and not feeling even slightly peaky.
Then don, a useless mask, gloves and plastic apron.
10 mins later after she’s grown bored of me (the condition rather than my conversation) I leave.
I’m also the one who takes her to Hospital apts.
The process is then:
Arrive.
Get her in the car.
Have a nice chat.
Hospital apt.
Get her in the car.
Drop her off.
And last summer I was very naughty after an apt and let her come home and sit in the garden (until she got bored), sadly it was one of the rare moments the schools were open so she had to wait until this year to see her granddaughter, who doesnt need to go through the testing PPE nonsense.
I honestly don’t know why I became very sceptical after about 2 weeks of the Panicdemic and the wisdom of the experts?
Well you say you “have” to do these things but, what happens if you don’t? What would happen if all visitors just said no thank you?
Exactly. Never has it been more important to rebel.
I think you mistyped there. It should have been ‘experts’. The word without the inverted commas suggests an authority that is both knowledgeable and competent.
UKHSA again – headed by the soulless control freak Susan Hopkins. Come on Boris – get a grip of this nut job!
Boris says: “Pull my finger!”
I really don’t understand why some people think Boris is any kind of answer to anything. He is a self-serving Etonian bully-boy. If he visited a care home he’d probably just burn £50 notes in front of the inmates to show how wealthy he is.
He is probably not that wealthy yet (alimony etc) but wait until he leaves politics and goes on the gravy train like Bliar did.
‘Care homes’ for the elderly are terrible places designed to suck the assets out of people after a lifetime of work.
I would rather top myself than go into one, see any assets I have looted from my family as I see out my last days smelling of boiled cabbage and wondering if the government were going to kill me at any given moment.
I’ve told my kids to smother me with a pillow if I’m unable to take care of myself in later life. I absolutely do not want to end up in a ‘care’ home.
It’s either (A) the SARS Covid-2 virus is carried in or on (and transmitted by) flowers or (B) this whole thing is indeed a planned operation to confuse, demoralise and psychologically break us and thus impose on us what they want. I place £10,000 on (B).
B
(C) the depopulation plan has to start somewhere so it might as well be the easy targets – the old and frail.
Evil. Pure wickedness.
Heartbreaking. How is it possible for people in government to allow such cruelty? Why aren’t the experts, those who manage care homes and those who live in them, asked for their input. If you are able, take your loved ones out of care homes. They are not fit for purpose.
They are insensitive to others’ pain – they are so commited to their “holy mission”, and believe so deeply that they are doing things for the “greater good” that they are blinded.
Damn their ideologies. Damn them all.
A pox on all their houses!
That sort of hypocritical virtue signalling is bloody nauseating
just a way to try and kill off as many elderly as possible.
move on, nothing to see here..
This is sickening. making their lives not worth living under the guise of ‘caring’. What kind of people are they that are enforcing these horrors? All for a virus that is so mild that this winter the UK had the lowest death rate for years. How long will people put up with all this?
Shouldn’t the care home internees – oops sorry residents – or their relatives sue the care home provider for false imprisonment?
The judiciary would not be on their side
One might almost form the impression that, given old folks don’t tend to have the platforms from which to complain, and they’ve been regularly denied those who could complain on their behalf, it’s been the perfect opportunity to get rid of as many of them as could be managed without making it look deliberate.