Twenty-six years later...

My first rental in San Francisco cost three-hundred dollars per month. I slept in what had been the formal dining room. My two roommates had the actual bedrooms. There was no parking, no on-site laundry & no back yard access. The laundrymat was on the corner, and Golden Gate Park only two blocks away. Street parking in the neighborhood was atrocious, however. The only spots seemed to be along Fulton. If you left so much as a speck of valuables in your car, or what might have been construed as valuable, then you could bet that your car would be broken into overnight.

The last place I lived in, some ten years later, cost five-hundred dollars. The gal who owned it was an old friend who had come into a bit of money & was able to buy a small-yet-lovely flat in the Mission just off 24th street. I slept in what was once the living room. The parking spot for the upstairs flat was just outside my bedroom window. The neighbor would usually come home quite late at night, and the sound of her car locking with a BEEP! BEEP! consistently woke me up.

Don't ask me how much we currently pay in rent. It's obscene to the point of making NYC rents look affordable. We may be paying a mint, but with that comes a proper bedroom, a garage, and a washer/dryer combo. -still no back yard access, but, instead, a small deck. Good times.

Flat viewing, II

As they left, they thanked me for both responding promptly to their email of interest and for providing a short description of how one finds our flat.  I thought, why wouldn't I want to make it easy for potential renters to come and look at our place?  I said to the gal as she was putting on her shoes, 'you're welcome' and 'why not respond promptly?'  They had just come from initially trying to rent a flat in Lausanne.  'You wouldn't believe it.  We'd email asking about a place and if we could view it and NOTHING.  Or maybe they'd get back to us after a week.'  I can't imagine that making people wait is an effective model for renting out flats.  If you're keen to have your place seen and, ultimately, rented, then you're making connections with folk as quickly as possible, or is that just me?

Out of the fifteen, or so, visitors we've had viewing our digs, a few have thanked me for providing directions, a few have thanked me for my prompt response, but today was the day I was thanked for both.  -made me feel good.

Sadly, the 'thank you' couple didn't seem terribly interested in renting our 5-room wonder.  The had a decent look around the apt. and then bade us farewell.  If someone passes on seeing the Waschküche, Weinkeller and Garage, then I know I've lost him.  The Waschküche, large enough to be a second storage room, is really a must-see.  Heck, even if you don't want the flat, you should really see what not a lot of folk in German CH have: private wash facilities.  No schedule, no sharing, no worries.

WTF

I had a lovely and chatty woman came to the view the place this past week.  As I was showing her the Waschküche she told me of an almost brawl she had recently had with her seemingly haughty neighbor who found it perfectly acceptable to use the washing machine outside of her scheduled slot.  'I came down to the wash room and there she was washing on my day.  I said, 'hello, this is my day!'  The Italian apparently shot back with, 'you fucking Germans!  Always you and your rules!'  The Italian went straight to the big guns.  I guess it didn't seem to matter that the rules imposed on them were by the Swiss Germans and not the German Germans, but no matter.  The fight almost ended in fisticuffs, the woman told me as we stood inside my spacious wash room, my clothing having been left in the dryer over night.  'I wanted to take my fist and smash her in the face with it.'  This from a seemingly mild-mannered person.  Being denied one's weekly wash day is not a trifling matter.

I expect more visitors as no one has yet jumped up and demanded we rent them the flat.  I don't expect more 'thank you's' but certainly would be happy to receive them.  I'm off to respond to a few more emails of interest.  -mustn't keep them waiting!

Flat viewing

Of the 11 interested parties only 1 was, or so I thought, a 'no show'.  Wires had been crossed and I had made an appt. with him to view the flat on Friday, whereas he was sure I had made an appt. with him for Monday.  I waited in vain for him last week and he, apparently, waited in vain for me this morning.  -should have had clearer communication from the outset via email.  A short and somewhat casual phone convo doesn't really cut the mustard when trying to find a suitable Nachmieter.  As we are moving out of the flat during an unscheduled period--ausserterminlischer Auszug, we are responsible to find the next renters.  -not a fun chore.  We've put up a rather good-looking ad in online want-ads and have received a rather favorable response.  The next hurdle is to have the landlord to approve of the interested parties.

I have been largely very impressed with the punctuality of the visitors.  I hate to say that I have been impressed because, really, everyone should just show up when they say they will, and, if not, call to reschedule or cancel.  It's not really that hard, is it?

The range of folk visiting has been quite interesting.  -families, pairs, solos...younger, older, but mostly Swiss German and German.  There was only one native English-speaking couple who came to view the flat.  They seemed quite keen.  I do hope they have a 'fighting chance' as the woman then said to me after she and her partner decided they would like to live here.

I am waiting on another afternoon visitor just now.  He's just shy of being late.  An actual 'no show', perhaps?

A fun reason to buy lots of pickles...

When the hubs and I were in Copenhagen, recently, we had the pleasure of visiting a few great design shops.  At least one of them boasted lights made of glass jars that resembled this:

Warm jar light hanging in Michelle's Cupcakes, ZH.

Inspired by our visit to the 'city of design', we came home from the trip determined to make a light fixture using a glass jar.  Armed with a small pickle jar we came up with this:

The bulb ain't pretty, but it's energy-saving at 4 watts.

Bulb in action.

Replaced initial bulb with a three-watt halogen. 

The only real challenge was cutting a hole through the top of the pickle jar lid that would support the bulb socket and attendant cable.  Hubs used a pair of wire cutters for the task and it worked fairly well the first time round.  The rough bits of the lid were then bent down with a pair of needle nose pliers.  Because Swiss tenants take their light fixtures with them upon moving, our spare rooms are equipped with cables ready to be hooked up to lighting.  Hubs stripped the cord with attached socket (9CHF at local hardware store), separating the two color-coded bits on the inside and attached them by color--brown/line and blue/neutral in our case--to what was hanging down from the ceiling.  The process of attaching the jar to the ceiling took less than ten minutes. You should check the local wiring codes for your line/neutral colors.

We've purchased a large jar of pickles in anticipation of our next jar light project.  I'm excited to see where the next jar will hang!

Flats to let...

or, as we say back home, "apartments for rent."  However you slice it, it's still a tough piece of cake to get your fork into.  Letting agents are plentiful and flats slip through one's grasp fairly quickly.  I've recorded numerous places from various websites, and called on them only to find that they've been let.  The letting agent then makes sure to "register" you, so that he or she may then contact you when other like properties become available.  Given the high demand for flats in the capital, it would seem a challenge to get anyone to phone back.  Especially if one's initial contact with an estate agent is simply over the phone.  I can't imagine that my having an American accent would endear them to me.  Perhaps it would be quite the opposite.  An American friend of mine living in London for the past 15 years said to me recently, "Everyone thinks that Americans living here are rich."  So, I suppose that these commissioned-based estate agents see piles of cash when we walk into their places of business.

The only bit that I do like about the whole estate agent-handled-letting is that the agents themselves will chauffeur you, the potential renter, around town to various properties you're to see in their company car.  It's a great way to see the city, but not have to pay a cab driver's fee.

One of the, ahem, "cabbies" called James took the bf and I around Shoreditch in a scruffy-looking VW Polo.  You'd have thought he was Steve McQueen in "Bullitt" what with all the speeding around sharp corners and zooming inches away from parked cars and pedestrians as he took us to different rental properties.  The best was when his phone rang--as it did numerous times throughout our car ride--and he said, "Oh, it's the office, I've got to take this..." and answered the call.  From my vantage point in the back seat, I could see the face of his iPhone.  The caller ID from "work" came up as "Super Spurm".  Um, yeah, charming workmates, bro.

After seeing flats in Clapton, Shoreditch, Greenwich, and Highbury, we've put in an offer (you'd think we were attempting to buy a house!!) and, had it accepted, on a place in Greenwich, a lovely area just south of the Thames.   What with all the Bank Holidays and Royal Wedding shenanigans we've hardly had a decent work week to work within in this country since we've landed, so, hopefully, today we'll find out if our vetting has yielded positive results.  Can you believe that one needs both a solid reference from former landlords and friends alike?  Finding a friend to say that I'm a decent sort with no obvious problems would be a easy.  Our NYC landlord, to whom we'd given a month's notice, and who charged us for the entire month of April although we had flown to LN on the 20th of that month, whose apartment we then did not clean in its entirety, might not be the go-to person for a good reference.   

Anyway, fingers crossed that all goes according to plan, and we'll be ensconced down in the Village of Green soon!

Update as of May 6th: the letting jackass, um, agent, who, BTW, is like the "Dougie Howser" of letting agents, has been jerking our chain for the past week, and we didn't even know it.  I feel a bit of a fool, really, but I just couldn't believe that some little, rosy-cheeked, pip squeak in an ill-fitting suit would be so deceitful.

At the end of April, we saw the Greenwich flat and quickly put in an offer.  We were told by the letting agent that the landlord would prefer a long-term lease.  THREE years long was the story.  Balking, but feeling like we didn't want this place to slip through our fingers, we said, 'yes, but with a get-out clause at 24 mos.'  Then we heard nothing for a few days.  Jonathan, our young man at the agency, came back with the 'green light' and the bf and I began filling out paperwork.  This was two days back.  The next day, yesterday, we were informed that the landlord wanted only a one-year contract, that he'd 'changed his mind'.  That he thought that that 'was best for him'.  Fully perplexed at this point, we could only assume that the landlord was inexperienced at his post, and we weren't sure that we wanted to deal with him any more.  Then the letting agent told us that "the landlord just doesn't want to do it anymore.  -maybe he has another offer..."  The deal was off.  The bf, thoroughly fed up at this point, then asked for our very hefty deposit back.  Supposedly, the transfer of money took place yesterday, but the funds have yet to show up in bf's account.

To all who think they'll be renting in the UK:  estate agents are a, somewhat, necessary evil.  Don't trust 'em as far as you can throw 'em.  If you're keen on trying the non-agent route, then might I suggest this site: http://www.gumtree.com/