We recently celebrated my daughter's birthday with a children's party at our home, and just as we did in March for my son, we invited school friends and their parents, many of whom we had not met before.
And whilst I love holding parties in my home, in the run-up to the 'event' I started to panic about how my abode would appear to those who have not seen it before. And to be honest, it looks pretty darn shocking…
It's not because we are filthy and live like savages (oh who am I kidding, I have two children, so there is never a 'tidy' moment in it), but because as is typical for a house built in Cyprus, it needs constant maintenance or looks completely rundown.
We bought our house 11 years ago from a developer who was building a row of six houses, and are still waiting for our deeds (another, different issue…) I know there are many, many horror stories that range from shoddy workmanship to downright criminal building negligence, but we were lucky to have my Cypriot father visiting every day and moaning at the builders to get things right. Had he not been on their case, I can't imagine how many more issues we would have on top of the ones we have now - the ones that make us look like we live in a house about to be bulldozed with the amount of cracks and pieces falling off!
I am acutely aware that Cypriots are very, very house proud and that many of them are particular with maintaining their homes and keeping them spic and span, hence why I start having palpitations when they turn up at mine for a kid's party and see a house that looks like a) it has been vomited on by a juvenile art fairy (that would be the children's artwork covering the cracks in the wall and the garish colours to make it a cheerful home for them), and b) it is just about ready to fall down on their heads (it isn't, but it sure looks rather sorry for itself). On top of that, our cesspit is far too shallow (another building blunder), and being that we live on a slope, fills up with the waste of all six houses, thus overflowing constantly and costing us a fortune to empty frequently. This is on top of the badly installed water pipes that have caused countless problems, the shower that was not sealed that led to major ceiling damage in the living room, and the cemented electricity pipes. Just a selection of the 'quality' work performed on our significant investment.
And yet, I think we have got off lightly compared to some of the problems I hear from other people. I have one friend who bought a property in Tersefanou who has literally abandoned it as it is a train wreck that won't get rectified by the developer, and is just too much stress and hassle to seek justice for. A very sad situation.
So why is our building industry in such a shambles? Does the nature of our climate condemn our houses to the kind of decay we witness - just as the dust condemns us to a ridiculous level of housework, or is our construction industry too lax? I simply can't understand how we have not yet worked out a method to build houses and pavements that will not start to crack and crumble almost instantly… how do they do it everywhere else in the world?
And so with so much maintenance being needed in our particular home, we just end up looking like paupers living in a castle!
First appeared in The Cyprus Weekly, 22/05/15
