[T. and N. had mattresses delivered to their new, unfurnished flat...this was the priceless shot T. caught of the "delivery truck"! Can you imagine?? I can barely stay balanced on my cycle, let alone maneuvering this awkwardness through our city's streets!! I guess he DOES have a tiny trailer for it to balance on-but still!]
Renting here is a curious thing. I will spare you the details of our prolonged search for a new place. Once found, it took a number of weeks to negotiate our lease and fees. As mentioned before, there is the matter of 10 months deposit. Then, there is also an agent to pay. I have had to pay an agent’s fee for a rental in Boston. That agent actually found a place for us to look at and handled all the negotiations with our landlord. While it was painful to pay that fee, it was at least understood that some work had been involved on the part of the agent.
In our case here, we found a place online, dealt solely with the owner of the property ourselves, and literally made one phone call to the agent. And for that, it is generally accepted that he receive one month’s rent as payment! Please note: this is TWICE what some of our staff, who put their lives on the line, are paid for a month of arduous work. HUH?!
Then, we are dealing with a lease that uses phrases even our staff attorneys could not make sense of...so, after a week of back and forth on our lease, an agreement is finally signed. We moved our stuff via auto (4 trips back and forth), and despite its already having been “thoroughly cleaned,” we began a thorough cleaning of our own (things were still growing in the fridge and counters were extremely sticky).
Overall, the new flat is fabulous! It is such a relief to no longer be in transition. We have a playground below our window, which is always full of neighbourhood kids. We have plenty of tacky 70s looking velour seating at our disposal. We are, once again, the only non-nationals living in the complex. I realized this when I dropped off ironing with the man who lives next to his work station in our parking lot...I told him I’d pick it up the following evening, but instead, he unexpectedly dropped it off right to our door as soon as he’d finished (I hadn’t told him where I lived).
So, as is the norm, we are still dealing with setting up our “already set-up” internet service. In one day, we had four people come by the apartment. One of the four was at the wrong apartment (he was there to “disconnect” someone’s modem...”No, sir. Please CONNECT.” “Disconnect?” “NO sir, please CONNECT”), which was eventually discovered when I realized we were not going to fully understand each other and sagely called a friend to translate. After this day of being told “I will go, and come” and being met by a completely new individual several times, we have now seen a new face every day, and yet, still do not have internet.
Part of me thinks that it is not purely incompetence on the part of the company that no one seems to come to our house prepared for the work that is expected and required. Perhaps it is more the curiosity of its staff, who simply want to see the weird western women that live on their own? I’m sure it’s neither, but it’s interesting to learn where I need God to teach me patience...the internet, of all things? Really??
[The temporary flat is the top floor of this lovely home. Auntie and Uncle lived right below-they are the sweet landlords, who had many words of advice for us. So cute.]
No comments:
Post a Comment