Our current apartment is managed by Hocking Stuart, and so far, we have been most impressed! We found shortly after moving in that the shower head was broken and the oven wouldn't light, and I filed a maintenance request at their office on my way to work. By 3p.m. that day, I had been contacted by their handyman who came in the next morning to fix the shower head, and my partner had been contacted by their kitchen appliance maintenance company, who made an appointment to come fix our oven the following week. The staff is friendly, and have made the rental process simple and painless.

The last two apartments we've rented have been through Caine Real Estate. The staff is friendly and efficient enough, but maintenance requests always take ages to be filled - our last apartment had a serious leakage problem which destroyed the skirting board of one of the bedrooms and a chest of drawers (thankfully cheap and about to be discarded anyway), which was ignored for the better part of 6 months, despite three maintenance requests from us. A 25% rent increase compelled us to move, after which we were contacted by the agent, as he didn't know if the apartment had a car space or a storage cage. I would've expected better from a company which bills itself as a premium establishment. I would probably rent a property managed by them again, but only if nothing similar from a more responsible firm was available.

We switched to Red mostly because they offer a discount for paying your electricity bill on time, and the added bonus that whatever energy we use is being offset by them purchasing an equal amount of green energy. However, we've realised that their customer service is far superior to Origin, the other energy supplier we've had to deal with. Red's customer service staff are knowledgeable, friendly, courteous and quick to reply - the longest I've ever been on hold is 15 minutes. I once left them a message and was called back within 10 minutes. When they made a mistake in our supply address at our old apartment, they immediately rectified the problem and gave us $50 in credit towards our next bill. They are our preferred electricity and gas supplier, and with good reason!

The last time we dealt with Origin Energy was when we lived in a sharehouse. It was all right, but they forgot to tell the old energy supplier that we had changed suppliers, resulting in us being presented with a very large bill at the end of the year despite having paid our electricity bills to Origin through the year. That took a week to clear up, and when we moved into our own apartment, my partner and I vowed not to use them again if at all possible. Alas, our new apartment has a hot water service run by Origin and they are the only people in Victoria who run this service, so we're being forced to go with them. It was a horror trying to get it changed to our name - my partner spent an hour and a half on hold the first time before he had to hang up, then an hour the second time. When he did finally get through to a customer service representative, she was unable to tell him anything about the hot water service and directed him to the website, at which point he informed her that we had already checked and there was nothing about it there. She promised to send us some information about it and the rates, but didn't, instead sending us their standard electricity and gas rates. So it seems that we're signed up to a service that no one knows about and is not documented anywhere other than our bills. No wonder we switched to Red Energy!

I was running late coming home from work and we didn't have dinner planned, so we decided to try Wise Guys Pizza, having vaguely heard or read somewhere that they were good. My partner placed our order online, and they called back 10 minutes later to confirm our order and address. We tried the Untouchable, and were pleased with it when it arrived about 40 minutes later - generous toppings, not overtly oily and a good thin and crunchy crust. Prices are quite reasonable - $13 for a large pizza. This could be our new local pizza joint, and I'm looking forward to trying the other menu items!

UPDATE: We decided to try the mains here tonight, and ordered chicken parmigiana ($14) and fried calamari ($15) for pickup by phone. The service was cheerful, and the pickup service is both convenient and quicker than delivery. The chicken was great, but the calamari was VERY disappointing: frozen calamari rings with that horrid, mushy interior. For $15 I was expecting real calamari rings, and was immensely cross that I'd received such a sub standard meal that was good for their profit margins and nothing else. So, stay away from the fried calamari here, and you should be fine!

Approximate cost: $13

Having recently moved into a new apartment and not having had time to purchase a new washing machine, we decided that we would send our laundry out to a service rather than having to spend the day at a laundromat. LaundrySpa thoroughly impressed us with their service - they were very courteous to me on the phone, and my partner was promptly and politely attended to when he dropped our laundry off. They even rang my partner before starting because they had found a pair of my dress pants with a dry-clean only label, and wanted to know if I wanted them dry-cleaned or laundered! Everything was returned neatly and carefully folded in bags, with delicates in a separate zip-top bag. We did about 2-2.5 weeks of laundry for two people, and it cost $28 all up. They also offer an ironing service, which we're going to try next time. If you live nearby, they will even pick up and deliver your laundry!

Approximate cost: $14-$25

I decided to try Tony after reading the favourable reviews here, and wasn't disappointed! It was so convenient not having to leave the house to go to my usual clinic, and the combination of relaxation and remedial massage was just what I needed that day.

Approximate cost: $55/hour

With such a plethora of choice in Melbourne for gelato, I'm going to stick my neck out and proclaim Il Dolce Freddo as my favourite. They make a range of flavours ranging from the usual like fruits of the forest and choc-mint, but also do more esoteric flavours like green tea, coconut and pandan (screwpine) and lychee (litchee). No matter what flavour you choose, the taste will never disappoint you - the flavours are true, never synthetic tasting or sickly sweet.

Approximate cost: $4-5

We were moving out of our apartment and didn't relish having to clean the apartment on our busy schedules, so we decided to hire a cleaner. Based on the review here at WOMOW, we decided to go with Absolute Domestics. Boy were we happy we did! With just one phone call, we were booked in with the wonderful Lyrinda. She went at it hard and fast for a full 5 hours, and the apartment was absolutely sparkling all over, definitely cleaner than it has ever been! We are definitely considering using them to find someone to do a regular clean at our new apartment. I don't usually give out 5 star ratings, but in this case, they really deserve it!

Edit 5/10: Absolute Domestics do longer do one-off cleans.

Approximate cost: $44

We had been stood up by our previous removalists, so we were very pleased to get Alexander in on short notice.

We needed 5 large shelves (all flat-pack and disassembled), a single bed, a queen bed, a desk (disassembled), a dining table (also disassembled), 6 dining chairs, a coffee table, two beanbags, a couch and a fridge moved. This took our last movers about 3 hours all up, including about 40 minutes on the road. In fact, our previous movers also had an extra double bed and a washer and dryer to move.

It took them over an hour to load the truck up, nearly an hour to get from East Brunswick to Prahran at off-peak hour (a trip that I know from experience takes no more than 40 minutes in heavy traffic) and then another hour and a half to unload the truck with my partner's help.

They were competent movers and didn't complain about the fairly narrow stairs at our new apartment (which I had warned them about), but they were a little slow. I didn't mind the service and I was happy to pay them, but I'd hesitate to suggest them with enthusiasm.

UPDATE: We are in the process of putting our furniture back together, and noticed that a few of our dark wood shelves are very badly scratched.

Approximate cost: $100/hour