Answering some caravan queries

 To answer a few queries - the reason the caravan is so cobwebby and in dire need of a deep clean is that the previous owners both died in 2019 (fortunately, from my point of view, neither died in the caravan!).  I think August of that year was the last time it was used, so it's been unoccupied for about 21 or 22 months.  The wife died first, followed a couple of months later by the husband.  Although the husband was the site handyman, I'm guessing neither of them was exactly house (caravan) proud when it came to cleaning!

The caravan is also quite old, probably around 20 years, and we bought it 'sold as seen'.  So yes, in view of the age and state of it, we did get it for a very cheap price.  Hence why we don't mind spending a bit of money on it, although we still want to do it as cheaply as we can as we do have a set budget.  There are several vans on site which are considerably older than ours, so they can last quite a while if they're looked after.

The site owner was considering getting rid of the van (the son of the previous van owner didn't want it at all) and putting a newer one in its place, but knew we couldn't afford a much newer one.  He does seem to like us though - he says we're the exact sort of new people he wants to join the park 'family' (I assume he means mature but a bit younger than the average age, keen gardeners, not afraid of hard work and thus possible new handyman to replace the one who died! 😂).  He also said he's very interested to see what we will do with the van in terms of updating it - he's a bit sentimental about it as he was very good friends with the previous owner.

We know it was a risk taking on the van sold as seen, but we did have a very good look at the structure, which seems basically sound, and tested every part with the professional damp meter loaned to us by our caravan engineer friend, who also gave us pointers as to what possible problems to look out for.  Incidentally, he services touring caravans, not statics, so can't be of any practical help to us....different training schemes and certificates are needed for statics.  He's also ridiculously busy for months to come.

Collected my new cordless stick vacuum yesterday morning and tested it here at home on the rugs covered in Betty's hair (she sheds a lot) once we'd charged it up.  It's brilliant, much more powerful than my other cheapy one, easily as powerful as my Dyson and a lot more manoeuvrable (I find the Dyson very unwieldy and it hurts my back).  So it should tackle the dreaded caravan cobwebs with ease tomorrow.  It's a Vax Blade Pro, if anyone's interested.

Thank you for all the positive and encouraging comments, you're very kind.  Tomorrow the caravan gas man is servicing the boiler and dealing with the water leak, and capping off the gas behind the old gas cooker (which is being taken out, we're having a table top electric one instead).  And hopefully all the cobwebs will be gone and I can then start cleaning, and bring the sofa cushions home for steam cleaning here.  And then I'll feel a lot better and will start seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.