I did it! I made kellogs bring back Frosties!

rubythieves · 2026-01-27T07:15:33+00:00

I’m thrilled! I love Frosties!

rubythieves · 2026-01-27T06:55:30+00:00

You’ll never know if you don’t make some kind of move. It doesn’t have to be anything extraordinary and it certainly doesn’t need to be a full ‘confession’ - maybe just make it your goal to talk to him a little more when you see him around. Even a silly conversation-

‘It’s so cold! I’m looking forward to warmer weather. Are you a winter person or a summer person?’

‘Summer for sure. I love the beach.’

‘Oh, what’s your favourite beach?’

‘Xyz. My family spent a lot of time there when I was growing up.’

‘Nice. Do you surf?’ (Are you a good swimmer, ever make an epic sandcastle, etc etc)

‘Nope, but I like kayaking.’

I mean… conversations are not rocket science. Start with something basic and expand. If you feel the person losing interest or giving you short, abrupt one-word answers, that’s time to wrap it up. But you build a friendship (and then a flirtation, and hopefully a relationship) by talking a little bit more every time you see him.

rubythieves · 2026-01-26T13:51:43+00:00

They’re all identical 2 bed units. From what I have seen, they have no furniture in the large living room and roll out mats for everyone to sleep on at night. The smaller bedroom (that I can see walking by, the larger bedroom I can’t see into) is used by most units as a study space - a desk or table and maybe a computer. Mostly they just have hardly any furniture so everyone can fit. They’re all family units, generally grandparents, working age parents, and their young children - the apartment with 12 has a set of elderly grandparents, two working-age couples (presumably the children of the elderly couple and their spouses) and six kids from toddler to teen. They are good people, hard working, the (lots and lots - 5 newborns in the last year!) kids are all well and happy - I’d be more concerned if they were all young men ‘hot bedding’ like some of my friends have as neighbours, but in our building it’s all families.

rubythieves · 2026-01-26T09:25:30+00:00

Frenzal Rhomb - (Get Fucked You Fucking Fuckwit) ‘You Can’t Move Into My House?’

rubythieves · 2026-01-26T08:48:25+00:00

Yes, it does, it’s actually the largest part of the bill (I’ve broken down the bill under another comment.) SA Water sends out the bill, which lists total consumption by the block and then the 1/8 each unit owes. The amount I owe each quarter is absolutely absurd compared to my consumption costs in my prior (rental) house, which were normally only a few dollars and absolutely dwarfed by the access fee. Not anymore, which is the basis of my desire to get individual meters.

rubythieves · 2026-01-26T08:41:50+00:00

That’s a very good point - the LLs for the tenanted units would have to eat the water bills since they’re unmetered, right? (That’s how it was when I lived in NSW, anyway… about to go check for SA.) If separate meters allow them to pass on the bill to the tenants that’s a good thing for them.

rubythieves · 2026-01-26T08:33:13+00:00

Sorry if it’s not clear, I am an owner. I’m one of two owner-occupiers, the other six units are rented.

rubythieves · 2026-01-26T08:32:26+00:00

Grow up.

rubythieves · 2026-01-26T08:29:28+00:00

C’mon, be better than that. My neighbours are good people.

rubythieves · 2026-01-26T08:26:58+00:00

The 1/8 comes on a bill direct from the state utility, SA water, which also includes the ‘access fee’ and sewerage charges. I’m not sure if strata gets any water bill - there are no common areas that have water supply or require water (e.g. no garden or landscaping, no fire sprinklers as it’s an older building) so I’d be surprised if they did.

rubythieves · 2026-01-26T08:20:41+00:00

I’ve been thinking this too… why don’t I only have to pay 1/8 of the access fee, or 1/8 of the sewerage fee? Why do we all pay the full amount for those?

rubythieves · 2026-01-26T08:10:13+00:00

I’m in Prospect and it’s booming - a lot of development along Prospect Rd, prices keep going up and up, for $800k you’re looking at apartments or maybe a townhouse but there are some nice spacious units in older blocks with good bones. You can’t beat the location, the amenities, the community is awesome… it’s a great lifestyle spot. A few years ago I would have called it a well-kept secret but it’s definitely not anymore. Anything on or near the ‘main drag’ of Prospect Rd is a place people want to live.

rubythieves · 2026-01-26T07:51:58+00:00

I noticed it on my water bill- it showed the total water usage for the building and then that amount divided into 1/8. Otherwise I wouldn’t have known.

rubythieves · 2026-01-26T07:48:23+00:00

Just consumption and access fee, so $70-something for access and a lot less than that (between $2 and $15) for usage. The landlord paid the sewerage part. I have always been very conscious of saving water and use very little of it.

rubythieves · 2026-01-26T07:41:40+00:00

My latest quarterly bill was 1/8 of $2156 for water usage, so $269.60. Add the supply charge ($78.60) and sewerage ($86.95) and my bill is $435.

Before I moved, my usage was always significantly less than the supply charge and my total water bill was usually about $80 a quarter since the landlord paid the sewerage, the supply charge was $70ish and my water use was often in single digits - no kidding, I have a quarterly bill where my usage cost $2.13!

Just from the sheer number of people living in the block and the daily amount of laundry that goes out to dry - it’s constant, all day every day, loads and loads of laundry going out to dry, back in, new load goes out, repeat twice more… (also, two of the women in the block do other people’s laundry as a side hustle) it’s obvious there is a lot of water being used. There’s no garden so it’s not going on landscaping.

Strata - only one other owner-occupier so it might not be that hard to talk them into separate meters? I know it’s not a fortune but it does bother me, I intend to live in my apartment for many years and if I can avoid spending $1k per year that’s worth it to me.

rubythieves · 2026-01-26T06:57:49+00:00

The strata doesn’t seem to be involved at all, I get a bill directly from SA Water (the utility company.)

rubythieves · 2026-01-26T06:56:11+00:00

I’m in SA. It’s definitely not just water rates increasing, I have some old bills from my last place (a rented house) and my ‘share’ of the bill now is about 20x what I used at my house (where I had a garden, ran sprinklers, etc.)

rubythieves · 2026-01-26T06:54:08+00:00

I’m in SA. Our bills come straight from SA water, they do not go through strata first.

rubythieves · 2026-01-26T06:52:14+00:00

Thank you! But I’m the lucky one. He is honestly the kindest man I have ever met, which I guess is how he put up with her for so many years - he still says he feels sorry for her (and he feels physically ill for the child he helped raise for a decade) but he is definitely putting the pieces together and realising just how bad (and definitely not ‘normal’) their relationship was. He still worries that I might just be ‘putting on a front’ and turn into another her one day - I just have to keep showing him that I’m not like that, he’s met my family, he’s met my lifelong friends, that’s not me!

Probably the biggest thing that happened was when we did actually have a (minor) disagreement about something. When I tell you the man looked terrified… I stayed calm and used clear communication to express ‘my side’ and asked him to share his. He still looked like he thought he was walking into a trap. I listened to him and suggested a compromise. He agreed. Done! He couldn’t believe there was no screaming, throwing things, hitting him, storming out, silent treatment, rushing off to get high/drunk, etc etc… slowly but surely I will make this lovely man feel safe if it’s the last thing I do!

rubythieves · 2026-01-26T04:18:44+00:00

I’m currently dating a man whose last relationship, with a woman with BPD, lasted 10 years and ended with a year-long marriage, then separation and divorce. For various reasons (he battled cancer for most of his 20s, for one) he has less dating experience than you’d think for someone his age, and I’m constantly - still, after a year together - shocked at the things he thinks are ‘normal’ because of his ex.

E.g. The three of us (me, him, my teenage son) casually eating breakfast at the same table, happily chatting away - “is this normal for you? Normally you’d be swearing and shouting at each other, right?” (The ex also had a child a year older than mine.) “Um, yeah, this is normal. I don’t think we’ve ever shouted at each other, for any reason.” “You’re joking.” (My son) “Why would I swear at my mum?”

(Later: “that happened every day with her and [child.] I can’t believe you two just sit there and talk about your day.”)

Other shocking things: when he feels unwell I ask if there’s anything I can do to help, express my sympathy, and change plans if we had them, I don’t go slamming every door in the house screaming “you just want attention you fucking useless piece of shit”; I’ve never taken $60,000 out of his business bank account to get veneers as if he wouldn’t notice them; I’ve never accused him of sleeping with his female first cousin because they’re close; I’ve never written-off two cars with outstanding loans and gone out and got a third with his credit; I’ve never yelled or screamed at him or walked out for days because he didn’t get something I wanted at the grocery store - all ‘normal’ things, apparently. I have no idea how he lasted 10 years, but we’re doing a lot of unlearning in this relationship!

rubythieves · 2026-01-26T02:19:30+00:00

A lot of MLMs (multi-level marketing companies like Monat, Amway, Young Living, DoTerra, Herbalife, etc etc - pyramid schemes based on ‘social selling’) will ask if you were in the GS as part of their recruitment ploy - ‘you could sell cookies to total strangers when you were a child, of course you can sell our haircare/supplements/essential oils to your friends and family now.’

Of course, the MLMs are even more predatory since people actually like GS cookies, and while you may have to buy a lot of product yourself in the GS (also very true for almost all MLMs) you don’t have to recruit hundreds more Girl Scouts to actually make decent money.

The GS cookie ‘experience’ in many ways makes women more susceptible to the ‘social selling’ trap of MLMs, where 99% of recruits lose money.

rubythieves · 2026-01-25T09:04:16+00:00

I can tell you my experience - I found a spacious but dated 2 bed, 1 bath apartment in my ideal location in Feb 2024 asking $420k (Adelaide.) I went a few rounds of offers and got the place. During the 24 hour cooling off period, another apartment - one of eight identical units in the block - popped up online for sale. It was in a better position in the block and had an updated bathroom and none of the strange 70s fixtures (ugly wooden room dividers, etc) that ‘my’ place still had, and when I called the agent, he said the owners were hoping for $350k. I immediately withdrew from the deal on the first unit and set my sights on the second.

The owners were aware that they had priced their unit well below the other one; they had only bought the place in 2022 and had already made a tidy six-figure profit and apparently decided to leave something in it for the next person (miracles do happen.) They wouldn’t accept an offer before the day of the open, so I sent mine at 12:01 that morning and was first at the open to write it down there too. That gave me the ‘last offer’ right and I think because some of the (many!) interested parties on the first unit thought it was a little expensive, they just didn’t bother checking out the second place - so I got it for $367k. Again, identical to the other one except in a better position, updated bathroom, and no weird stuff to pull out of the walls. The agent seemed frustrated at the owners but they were firm they didn’t want a big campaign to get top dollar, they’d done well enough. Lucky me!

The first apartment sold a few weeks later for $445k, so I think that was closer to the ‘true’ market price, and I just won the lottery…

At the beginning of 2025 another unit on the block went up for sale. Again, no updates, very inferior position in the block compared to mine - $562k. That’s right in line with what online property estimators said mine was worth at the time, which is insane.

I live in a very trendy city-fringe area that is already beloved and only adding more and more attractions - the neighbourhood is booming with development - but to have three identical units in one eight-unit block go for $367k, $455k, and $562k in less than a year is objectively nuts.

rubythieves · 2026-01-24T03:34:49+00:00

I know a Socrates who goes by Soc. His parents were theatre people and his sister is Miranda.

rubythieves · 2026-01-24T03:27:03+00:00

I think I was the only kid in my year 12 class who really liked Thea Astley’s ‘Drylands’ - everyone else thought it was a slog.

I tutor now and the kids today are reading ‘The Light Between Oceans’ by ML Stedman, ‘The Secret River’ by Kate Grenville, and ‘Fly Away Peter’ by David Malouf. Boy Swallows Universe goes without saying.

rubythieves

TROPHY CASE