Finding a flat to rent can be a real task. Movies, catalogs, websites, they've been training you your entire life to search for the perfect living space. So with every tiled backyard design you see in glossy pages and every sensationally breathtaking view from a french window a housing website throws in your face, you begin to weave your own dream.
However, after the first time a flat broker leads you through a dingy alley and shows you into a tiny crevice that he's trying to peddle off for a flat, you begin to readjust your expectations. Fast.
So you begin looking for the basics. Good rooms, cupboards, and windows.
But unknown to me a source of great annoyance was waiting. Biding its chance till it could spring upon me and scare the living daylights out of me. And it made it's appearance promptly next morning.
However, after the first time a flat broker leads you through a dingy alley and shows you into a tiny crevice that he's trying to peddle off for a flat, you begin to readjust your expectations. Fast.
So you begin looking for the basics. Good rooms, cupboards, and windows.
When I began searching for a flat more than a year ago, I went through all these phases. From expecting the castle of my dreams to be on the market to lease, I went to looking for durable plumbing. However, despite cutting my expectations significantly, I still wanted some of the things I'd grown up with.
I wanted sunlight but not so much that it would scathe the plants that I intended to grow. I wanted ample of kitchen space, enough for both my oven and me. I needed to know that Internet lines could be drawn to whichever desolate corner I chanced on this housing arrangement.
I wanted sunlight but not so much that it would scathe the plants that I intended to grow. I wanted ample of kitchen space, enough for both my oven and me. I needed to know that Internet lines could be drawn to whichever desolate corner I chanced on this housing arrangement.
A few brokers and after visiting houses across sewer lines and below bridges I hit the jackpot of little houses. Windows, enough wardrobe space to satiate my shopping addiction and heck even a balcony! It was a match made in heaven. I knew then and there I'd sign the lease in blood if the situation called for it.
So a proud lease owner, I settled into my cosy abode the next day. Making use of every type of cleaner known to man I erased any remnants of the previous owner and even eliminated every radioactive life form that had spread thinly across the space.
But unknown to me a source of great annoyance was waiting. Biding its chance till it could spring upon me and scare the living daylights out of me. And it made it's appearance promptly next morning.
A bell, that sang an eclectic mix of Hindi trucking songs, intermittently throwing hisses and static my way. Oh the tragedy! You cannot image the terror.
I sprang out of bed, my fingers searching for a makeshift weapon to protect myself. It was only the maid, and it was only the bell.
It's been over a year in this flat and I can assure you that bells like that don't grow on you. You don't get used to it and you don't begin to enjoy it. In fact, it's like repeatedly having a the scab torn off a wound. It festers and becomes worse.
Driven to the edge of insanity, I have been forced to look high and low for the power point, so I can dismember the bell that now is the sound track to most of my nightmares. But it's a cunning rival. Always hidden. Always missing.
And over the span of the year, it has bred. Little spawns have cropped up all over the neighbourhood, screeching their own tracks through the night as I continue to sit defenseless in my flat with paper-thin walls.
So, I now am the girl who embraces power cuts. For when it's pitch black and I'm all alone, I know the bell won't ring. It just can't. And at that thought, the corners of my mouth begin quivering. Ever so slightly. There's a smile rising from my gut and it can't wait to surface.
I sprang out of bed, my fingers searching for a makeshift weapon to protect myself. It was only the maid, and it was only the bell.
It's been over a year in this flat and I can assure you that bells like that don't grow on you. You don't get used to it and you don't begin to enjoy it. In fact, it's like repeatedly having a the scab torn off a wound. It festers and becomes worse.
Driven to the edge of insanity, I have been forced to look high and low for the power point, so I can dismember the bell that now is the sound track to most of my nightmares. But it's a cunning rival. Always hidden. Always missing.
And over the span of the year, it has bred. Little spawns have cropped up all over the neighbourhood, screeching their own tracks through the night as I continue to sit defenseless in my flat with paper-thin walls.
So, I now am the girl who embraces power cuts. For when it's pitch black and I'm all alone, I know the bell won't ring. It just can't. And at that thought, the corners of my mouth begin quivering. Ever so slightly. There's a smile rising from my gut and it can't wait to surface.
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