With the money the cook had brought, he paid his debts and hired a pair of gauchos to repair the roof of the ranch house, which was falling in.

NEWYORKER: The Insufferable Gaucho

"Now, I can repair the roofs of my house, " Alexander Chavez told Reuters as entire families descended on a river to gather gold tailings.

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It recognises that, if you are going to lend your neighbour large sums of money to repair his house, you might like a say in how he does it.

ECONOMIST: The Asian crash

It will probably take until the second anniversary of the storm to repair all the damage to our house.

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He often went to buy tools with which to repair the ranch house, but he also passed the time of day chatting with the gardener, or with the keepers of the general store and the hardware store, whose livelihoods he diminished day by day, as he lengthened the accounts he had with each of them.

NEWYORKER: The Insufferable Gaucho

If your house isn't in too good a state of repair though, you might have a lot of outgoings before you can start.

BBC: Wheels of fortune

It costs a lot of money anywhere in the world to have someone drive out to your house to repair your machines.

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