Un-bloody-believable
A quick mid-week post, if I may.
Or rant, rather. I do apologise if I’m becoming a crashing bore about the subject of opening a business in Spain and the impossibilities thereof, but I feel the world should know. Besides which, if I don’t hammer this into my keyboard to relieve the tension then my head will surely explode.
Today was the day of the sound testing in the new kennels. This, you may recall, is one of the absurd conditions that I am obliged to fulfil before the ayuntamiento will grant me my licencia de apertura.
So yesterday the firm I have paid to carry out the tests duly notified the Medioambiente (environment) powers-that-be 24 hours in advance, as required, and at 16:30 today I went to meet the engineer at the motorway exit to guide them in.
As we parked up at the barns and exchanged greetings and pleasantries, Inma (the engineer) commented that it was really quiet, and that she couldn’t actually hear any dogs.
“Errrr,” I said, trying to realign the cogs in my fast-fading brain. “That’ll be because it’s not open yet.”
She looked at me all cock-eyed. “But I spoke to the oficina técnica in Bullas last week to ascertain exactly what tests they require me to carry out. They said I was to test the noise of dogs you have in there!”
“But I can’t have dogs in there until I have the licence to open, and I can’t get that without the tests!!”
She looked perplexed. After some consideration, she then suggested that we could do one of two things. We could put my four dogs in the kennels for the night, measure their noise levels and extrapolate. Or she could go away and speak to the oficina técnica again tomorrow to enquire how exactly they wanted to test a business not yet open.
If we opt for the former, it would expedite matters but there is a possibility that they won’t be content with it and may ask for a second test (another 700€ cost to me!). If we follow the second course of action, I will have to pay around 50€ for the extra journey undertaken by the engineer and the process will take longer. Of course, I should be able to look to the ayuntamiento to foot that, shouldn’t I?. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA JAJAJAJAJAJAJA (manic laughter in both english and spanish).
I asked if the instruction she had been given by the oficina técnica were verbal or written.
“Oh, verbal only,” she laughed. “Nobody in Spain writes things down if they can avoid it.”
It’s a no-brainer, then. I’ll pay the extra 50€ and she can challenge the oficina técnica tomorrow about their specific requirements. In writing. To be fair, bless her, she did say she’d accelerate the reporting to compensate for the delay.
About five minutes after she’d left, the policía local arrived to oversee the test (high national risk again, obviously) so I had to send them packing, too.
So the ayuntamiento have set me a circular problem. No licence, no dogs – no dogs, no test – no test, no licence.
They either have the brain of an amoeba or they are fiendishly clever. What do you reckon?
bittenbyspain 