Oh Heck!......When things go not quite as planned

[Ian M]

I think I'm having one of those weeks when almost everything I touch goes badly wrong.

In fact it started just over a week ago when a squirrel decided to make my loft as its home, ever heard a squirrel trying to rearrange the inside of your roof at around 4am in the morning? I read that squirrels don't like the smell of moth balls so, threw a load up into the loft when it wasn't looking. It now sounds like this squirrel if a footy fan & is now playing football with the said moth balls. I have read a lot of items now about grey squirrels & I'm fast becoming an expert on these cute looking evil little creatures. Today I had a pest control man come & deal with the little pest & we got the ladder upto the loft hatch & he has now put a live trap in the loft so we can soon be rid of Mr Nutkins for good. Only problem is the entry to the loft is in the room where I do my sublimation work & on his way down he managed to catch his foot on the CIS system to my printer & it finished up on the floor. It does look like I was quick enough to catch it just in time as it hit the floor & fingers crossed should be working ok now. Oh by the way it is £72 to catch a squirrel & worth every penny in my book just to have a decent nights sleep once again.

This morning I had to post some mugs off which I did first thing. Now one of the packages had 2 mugs in for a charity event for a nature reserve which I said I would donate plus a few other little goodies too. I had 2 other mugs which are samples for a football club at home as they don't need to see them until Friday. Now this is the best bit, on a Wednesday afternoon I get to entertain my cousins 20 month old little girl who is going on 35 years old. She wanted to see what was in the 2 white boxes & so I opened one of the boxes up & quickly realised the 2 football club sample mugs were now winging their way to a nature reserve. Mt 20 month old great cousin started laughing at me & said 'that's funny' & she is now calling me Ian the silly billy.

On top of this I got a letter from Revenue & Customs asking me to send them my life history since the 1st January. They want all bank statements from all bank accounts be they business & personal. They want copies of all adverts I have placed anywhere. Details of any websites I have. They also want original invoices I have sent to customers so, means I have to try to get customers to send me back all invoices I have sent them. They want my diary which should show all appointments with anyone I have had dealings with. They also want another diary that I should have which lists every hour of every day as we are supposed to write down everything we do whilst working in our own business. I called the number on the letter & got through to Mr Nasty who had sent the letter & he said he would let me send copy invoices but, I still had to send everything else as originals. I asked about the work diary & he said that if I can't send that it only proves that I'm not organised at all as we all should plan our working week ahead on a Sunday before. I asked what it was all about & why he needed all this information & it is to see if I really do qualify for £25 per week working tax credits. If I don't send everything he asked for by next Monday morning he will cancel the working tax credits & back date it to when I decided to become self employed. I said to him I might as well just wind the business up & go sign on & he said if I did that I still would have to pay every penny back. I told him I was trying to find a part time job & again he said I would have to pay all the money back. In fact I'm in a no win situation with them so, be warned.

The best bit is I have a couple who live next door to me & their children who are all grown adults with partners & kids in fact there are 8 adults who are all on benefits. They can all sit in their back garden next door drink loads of alcohol smoke loads of cigs, in fact they all drink & smoke like it's going out of fashion. They all have holidays abroad, all have new cars & everything else yo can think of. In fact my other neighbour who works for revenue & Customs said he knows that each of the households get on average £600 per week at a rough guess.

It's only Wednesday I might stop in bed for the rest of the week.....oh no I can't as the squirrel makes too much noise. :biggrin:

[Paul]

blimey! not good time for you at all!

regards to ppl on benefits.
is same here, next door to me. I got to sweat my b****off to get some money and they just loughin at you. every day they see me in my work uniform their look at me like I do something wrong!!! well. maybe. I propobly stole their job...

[mrs maggot]

i had to give up working full time in a very well paid job over a year ago, i had to have two knee operations and could not drive the mileage i did before, i received sick pay from the gov until i went for one of those appraisal things, and was told i would not get it anymore, i explained i was having a further 2 operations on my knees, and that i would be un-employable for around 12 weeks, i was told on the phone that as i was only having day surgery (thats all a knee takes) and worse still it was via BUPA which i still received from my old company - i would not be elligiable for any sick pay. i queried this recently, as we had a very hard few months, before i bit the bullet and registered self employed, and was told that what i was told was not true, but it cant be back dated, as there is no way of proving that i was just too lazy to claim !!!! i have told them the date i called, and the operator number i spoke to, but still nothing, and worse still i cant reclaim any overpayment of tax apparently either - you either know how to work the system and do, or you are confused and berated for not understanding it. i have claimed nothing from no one for over 9 months now, i still have problem walking, and standing, but hey at least at the moment i am not paying any tax

[David B]

Wow and I thought I was having a bad day. They seem to pick on us northeners. Hope your day gets better.

[John G]

Best of luck getting your problem sorted - hope they see sense and start going for the real dodgers.

Anyway - who the hell keeps diaries of their working week - I've never done this and don't intend too - its all in my head, or on the puter. It seems fishy too as I've never heard of them asking for originals that you sent to the customer - for a start the recipient needs to hold onto these for their vat/tax records and would never send them back.

Hope you get it sorted quickly as these things tend to drag on a bit!

[Ian M]

Thanks everyone & so nice when you have understanding friends such as yourselves.

I have now got all the paper work they want plus a lot more & I can tell you it will make one almighty thump when it hits his desk.

The work diary is a joke to be honest & everyone I have spoken to who has a business said they don't keep one & never would. I just can't understand why they are doing this to me as I would never ask for anything I think I wouldn't be allowed to claim. I was working out that when I was an engineer many years ago over a 5 year period I paid around £60,000 in income tax alone.

Now see if anyone can answer this question a friend sent me Why does a 'slight tax increase' cost you £200 and a 'substantial tax cut' save you 30p?

[GoonerGary]

A work diary?? Don't include time on this forum, they might knock off a few credits

[Ian M]

I've had 2 builders working all day to fix the damage to the roof that has been caused by the squirrel. To give you some idea how destructive one squirrel can be we are already into around £1,000 worth of damage & they haven't finished yet. The squirrel has managed to destroy quite a few of the roof lats which hold the slates onto the roof. On top of this they have also managed to chew through parts of the guttering too. I have to admit I always thought that squirrels were cute little creatures but not any more.

[Ian M]

I've just caught the squirrel doing all the damage to our roof.........wooooooo hooooooo.........it's still alive in a live trap & will be transported to the woods in the morning.........good times but not for Mr Nutkins :biggrin:

[John G]

it's still alive in a live trap & will be transported to the woods in the morning.

Then shot