Other What's ruining your life right now?

As ever, the important thing is to turn off the webcam first, though.

 

If I did that I'd have to refund your sub

 

You need:

 

Aspergillus fumigatus complex

I've had a cough for 8 years and for the last couple of years I've been really breathless and assumed it was my Emphysema getting worse although I've never had an exacerbation. Finally Doctor requested sputum sample and it turns out I have a fungal infection.

 

Sorry to hear that BE, my Dad has an A Fumigatus allergy that complicates his asthma.

I hope they can clear it up for you so you're not having to deal with that too

 

Last thing we heard was that the management company wanted to take legal advice. But that was two weeks ago and since then... crickets.

Deadline we gave was yesterday.

Given the bank holiday, and the fact that they apparently want to take legal advice, we're waiting until 1600 Friday. But that really is the last straw: I've already drafted the emails that I am 90-95% certain I will be sending at 1630 on Friday.

We've been on the market for a year. We had the offer on this house accepted in December. We were happy to wait for the seller to work out a family bereavement (edit: you don't need details, not on a public forum). But we've been trying to get this deed of variation sorted out since mid-March, and my patience is long gone.

 

Well, I somehow managed to get massively hacked on Monday.

Woke up Tuesday morning to absolute chaos, with millions of spam emails, fraudulent purchases on my eBay and Amazon, crypto scams spammed across all my socials, fake job postings on my LinkedIn, QR code scams on my Steam and that's only half of it. Absolute nightmare. Trying to deal with all this, do damage control on about 30 minutes of sleep (we have a newborn at home) has been brutal, as some of the wifes accounts got hit as well.

Mental part is I use MFA and passkeys wherever possible. Since I didn't get any "new login" or "new device" alerts, I'm guessing it was a session hijacking or cookie theft situation from something I clicked or installed, token stealing etc.

Now I'm just stuck waiting for new bank cards and doing a full security audit on myself. Purge old accounts I don't use anymore and start using virtual cards for online shopping. Put me out of my missery.

Honestly, I'm pretty embarrassed to admit this happened to me, especially as an IT professional. I mean I run NordVPN (with advanced security), paid Bitdefender Total security, Windows Defender, plus a bunch of tracker/ad blockers on Chrome, and My guess is I was the break in the chain, I have clicked something, installed something. Has anyone else dealt with a session hijack this bad recently?

 

This feels to me more like machine compromise, browser compromise or password manager compromise.
Do you share the machine with your wife?
Are you logged in to chrome at work or somewhere else with your account (or anybody else who shares this machine)?

 

It's my own pc at home. It's been formatted now but the wife occasion ally used it for checking stuff and printing off stuff from her emails etc. it's been fully wiped now. Recently moved from bitwarden to Nord for the password manager. So far so good, again been all updated password wise etc

 

Check what browser extensions are in use & your browsers password manager is empty (the built in one).
Also ensure that you're using a different MFA app to your password manager.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd0p0rz4n0mo

A very long time ago now, when Giles blasted evil Willow across the room, 11 year old me stood up from the sofa and cheered. That was the best cliff hanger ending to an episode ever. Obviously Anthony Head was in many, many other things, but he will always be Giles to me.

 

Aye, sad news. We've recently been watching Little Britain where he played the Prime Minister, fantastic comedy.

 

My girlfriend's daughter recently got into Buffy so it's been good seeing her enjoy something we grew up with, but it's been hard to see her upset with Brendan and now Anthony pass away

 

Well I ended up sending that email at 1730, not 1630 like I said, but send it I did.

So… that’s it.

We’re out.

After six ****ing months.

This ****ing **** is a perfect encapsulation of how ****ing ridiculous it is to buy a home in this country.

A 101 year old law that allows for your home to be legally repossessed over a £100 debt that you don’t have to be chased for; and a management company that refuses to agree to a legally-binding exemption that removes this risk, which in turn prevents any mortgage company from offering a loan. And they refuse to agree to it because “everyone else on the estate has the same terms” and “we would lose our ability to enforce collection of fees”.

Well congratu-****ing-lations: you’ve intentionally collapsed this sale, you’ve intentionally wasted 6 months for us and the seller, you’ve intentionally blocked the sale of a dozen other properties, you’ve intentionally pissed away the £1500-£2000 we’ve spent in fees, and you’ve intentionally pissed away multiple thousands in fees the seller will have to pay when they’re forced to take the property off the market. But you sure kept those enforcement rights. Of course you’re going to lose them eventually anyway, whether you like that or not, because all this is being reformed and the enforcement powers will be banned as a result of that. But good on ya, you stuck to your guns and didn’t back down. It’s been a colossal waste of time and money for everyone involved, but never mind that - you get to keep those enforcement rights for another year or two until they are forcibly taken away from you, and that is abso-****ing-lutely worth all the stress, all the expense, and all the wasted ****ing time.

Good job, dickbrains, that was a sublime and magnificent demonstration of incompetence, obstinacy, and outright ****ing stupidity. 10/10 no ****ing notes.

 

When I bought my house, I was (well, am) extremely fortunate to be able to lean on the advice of my retired solicitor father. He was amazed at how bureaucratic the process had become and how bad people were at just getting on with what was needed. I still feel the whole industry is set up just so some useless people can somehow have a job.

 

Up until 2 years ago, I'd steadfastly refused to have photo ID, the whole idea is the establishment having an up to to date image for the facial recognition cameras.
My mother in law died, leaving her house to her 2 daughters, we bought my sister in law out. Doing things by the book, to avoid any future problems. We could not sell our house
where we'd lived for 28 years, because i didn't have photo ID.
Before purchasing where we live now, we had to sign a pre-contract agreement with the company that "looked after" the grounds of the estate. We could not buy without their approval. I think this a massive problem as no one should wield that amount of power over something they don't own. They then turned around and said 150 trees on the site needed replacing at our expense, which we all fought, as if they'd done their job properly, the trees would have been planted in places where they were suited to, and would have thrived with the proper care. Our next door nieghbour is a horticultural expert.Thankfully since then all the home owners joined together and sacked the b*stards. Currently the new lot are far superior, lets hope the standards stay high.

 

People on a power trip tbh. Small minds need an ego boost

 

The thing is, the rest of this process was fairly smooth. I get the rationale behind a lot of the "paperwork" involved in conveyancing, because I've seen times when that "paperwork" revealed something quite alarming. Up until this deed of variation started to become an issue, it was all pretty mundane.

I do kinda wish we'd been told sooner what a "deed of variation" is and why it's needed. But as soon as it became clear that there was going to be an issue with it, our solicitors were in contact with us within a couple of days.

It's literally just this one management company that refuses to open their eyes or listen to legal advice, I've got no complaints about anyone else involved or any other aspect of the process.

That's certainly... a theory...

Of course "the establishment" doesn't need facial recognition cameras to track and/or monitor you. Sure, it would probably make that job easier, but you already leave enough of a footprint by just interacting with society in any way. Get paid? HMRC has a record of it. Ever go to a GP or a hospital? The NHS has a record of it. Been born? You've got a birth certificate sitting in some local government office.

I don't want biometric scanners (i.e. facial recognition cameras) becoming widespread. I don't trust that police or governments can keep that information secure, and I don't trust that current or future governments will necessarily have everyone's best interest at heart. But if there was a desire, or a need, for someone somewhere to keep track of my movements, my activities, etc, then I already leave enough of a footprint for that to become trivial.

If you have a Tesco Clubcard, or a Sainsbury's Nectar card, they already know far more about you than you realise.

 

My mother-in-law's cancer has returned. It was never technically gone, but it had been kept at bay. She was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer last summer and underwent six rounds of chemotherapy. By December, it appeared to have cleared from all the areas it had previously spread to so she was given the all clear before Christmas.

Unfortunately, the chemotherapy tablets don't seem to have worked and were causing more damage than good. Blood tests showed her tumour markers were rising again, and today's results have shown that level has almost tripled. As a result, she'll be starting another six rounds of chemotherapy next week.

After this course of treatment, there are no further options available. Based on how long the previous treatment managed to keep the cancer under control, it's difficult to see this buying her much time, if any...

I foresaw this coming so was desperately trying to reinvigorate my eBay business after letting it slowly die off. Finding the right stock at the right price is difficult. Vinted is helping, but it's slow going. Very occasionally coming across the right watch to buy or group of watches but the margins are going to be tight. I just need to keep getting inventory in and turning it over.

If I can get the business back to where it was 6–12 months ago, then when the time comes we'll at least have the financial safety net so my wife won't feel pressured to rush back to work before she's ready. The reality is that she only gets three days of compassionate leave. Three whole days.... After everything that's happening, that just feels mental. So really keen for that not to be an obstacle.

 

Don't get me started on allergies. Mine have flared up badly enough to take out the hearing in my left ear, not for the first time. Took weeks to sort itself out last time!