Please pass the hammer and nails

Fixing your new house can be tiring yet an exciting experience. Net photo

What you need to know:

Handywoman. Sometimes a woman needs to take matters in her own hands when that water pipe just won’t stop leaking or that bulb has blown again. Sometimes you just have to be your own handy woman.

The other day, while going about my business as usual, I felt an ache in a really weird part of my arms. I tried to think what the cause could be. I even feared I might be coming down with malaria. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been near a gym or done the kind of exercise that could leave me feeling this broken. And then, after a bit of mind searching, I landed on the cause.

For the past week or so, I have been moving. It was the boxes and suitcases to blame. In spite of the numerous handymen I have hired to handle the various kinds of heavy lifting, I found myself getting my hands dirty and being handy woman too. The aching shoulders could also be result of the many times I returned home and was disappointed to find that a new domestic loophole had opened where I thought I had sorted all of them.

When you first inspect a house before occupying it, you would hardly climb up to check if the lights or electric sockets are working or that you can reach up there to fix the light bulbs. My last two experiences have taught me that this should be a prerequisite for any female moving into a new house. Twice, I have entered a house to realise rather belatedly that the light fixtures were too high for me to fix the bulbs and that anyone I invited to help me would require a ladder anyway. Eventually, I had to get on the ladder myself in at least one instance.

The other culprit is doors. Before you move into any house; try all the doors. It is not enough that there are doors hanging in the house. Be sure that the bathroom door locks. I have been in a house where I had these beautiful, heavy wooden doors with fancy locks that couldn’t well—lock.

And when the doors and the light bulbs have been fixed, the water tap breaks—at midnight. No handy man you know would come to help you at that hour; at least no one who wouldn’t expect payment in kind. So left with no choice, you drag your feet but finally climb into handy woman’s boots and start fixing.