House Hunting Cont.

Oooookay, so it has been a while since I last wrote here about the beginning of my house hunting and a lot has changed since. It turns out looking for housing is NOT as easy I expected.

The hope of moving out of this hostel by June 1st has obviously vanished, as it is June 1st today and I don't have anywhere that is even being considered as a place to live right now.

I began the search just looking for rooms for myself in a shared house with Canadians or other locals. I thought it could be good to live with local people to learn the area. Then I began to think I would end up with people with 9-5 jobs who didn't really have the same interests as me, exploring.

So, I teamed up with another person on the same trip I have taken, Rich. We decided to either look for a house share with other people or just a 2 bedroom place. We checked a few places out, but every one of them had some sort of major issue with them.

The first place we went to was a basement that had ceilings that were 6"3 high at its tallest, and we had to permanently duck in some rooms. Naturally we didn't like that.

Then we had a day with 3 different house viewings, surely one would be okay, right? Wrong. The first one was a complete shithole. The neighbourhood was in a poor, run down area, and the building was the same. Some guy from somewhere in the middle east answered the door to show us around. The place was falling apart. The carpets were filthy, the room stank, doors were missing on cupboards and there was even mouse traps around. Nice, right?

The other 2 places were a big improvement, but one was tiny with no living area, pure white walls, expensive and just felt like a hotel. No way I could live there for a year.

The final one was again, an improvement. It was spacious, homely and affordable. However, the landlord wanted us to fill out forms with credit checks, landlord references etc. etc. We didn't have such information.

We viewed other places too, to no avail. One thing that I didn't expect was the complexity of renting here. In the UK, from my limited experience, you didn't need financial checks and references. If the landlord liked you, and you liked the house, you had the place. Year long leases also seem to be a requirement here, which is an issue as a) I can't guarantee I will even be here a year and b)Unless I get a job I can't even afford a year long commitment.  

Anyway, we have now teamed up with one more person, Jessica, also on the same working visa. We've began looking for 3-4 bedroom houses (4 in case Jessicas friend wants to move in)

Now we're aiming for a June 15th move in date, or earlier. God help me if we don't find one by then.