the next move
Since Dave now wants to let the maisonette out to a young professional couple or cast member of TOWIE, I have been plunged back into the existential horror of flat-hunting. My preliminary visit to various estate agents in town was remarkable for the fact that the agents in question seemed to have less and less time for me as I went on. Finally the guy in the last one I entered just chucked a photocopied set of listings at me and told me to go on Rightmove. It was tempting to pretend ignorance ('What is this... right...move?') but I just got out of there. I considered trying one more place but was worried that, the way things were going, I'd be physically assaulted.
The first place I saw was pretty dismal, but I couldn't have afforded it anyway. So that was lucky. I lowered my expectations sufficiently to look at a bedsit (or 'studio apartment' as they are now known) and because there was no money in the meter, had to look at it in the dark. Well, there wasn't much to look at. There was a massive wardrobe, but this proved to contain a fold-out double bed, like something from a childhood nightmare, poised to drop on me.
The landlord was 'a building contractor from Romford' (aren't they all?). 'So at least he isn't in deepest darkest Peru', the estate agent reassured me. Though he probably could be, at a moment's notice, if I needed him for anything. In the event, I suppose I might even prefer him to be.
Finally I looked at a flat in King's Road just down from the kebab shop. It was evening time. I loitered on the pavement for some time before it became apparent that the estate agent wasn't going to appear, feeling like the world's oldest and least successful rent boy. They were understaffed, it turned out, hence their non-appearance, but I got to see the place the next day. The estate agent called up the stairs - no response, so we proceeded to loudly disparage the state of the place (the toilet looked like it hadn't been flushed in a month) until a groan alerted us to a blanket-covered form lying on the couch. Perhaps he was ill, perhaps hungover, it was hard to tell. He didn't seem to care about our snide comments; didn't seem to care very much at all really, just pulled the blanket over his head. It was the best place I had seen (even though the fixtures and fittings had seen better days) but I wonder if it would eventually reduce me to a similiar state.
All the stress of the idea of moving has left me feeling quite fragile. Even The One Show is too brutal for me now. They did a report on some cooling towers. That was fine: I like cooling towers. Then, halfway through, it turned out that the report was about the demolition of these cooling towers. The reporter was just as excited about this as she had initially been about the architecture of the things. 'That was absolutely amazing! They just... crumbled!' Criminally, there was no number to call 'if you have been affected by these issues'.
The next day, the headline in the Daily Mail was 'GREED OF THE ENERGY SHARKS'. That freaked me out too. What were these 'energy sharks'? Were they invisible? Were they IN THE AIR ALL AROUND ME?
Perhaps if I'd read the story it might have calmed me down. But there was no time. I went to work, warily.
The first place I saw was pretty dismal, but I couldn't have afforded it anyway. So that was lucky. I lowered my expectations sufficiently to look at a bedsit (or 'studio apartment' as they are now known) and because there was no money in the meter, had to look at it in the dark. Well, there wasn't much to look at. There was a massive wardrobe, but this proved to contain a fold-out double bed, like something from a childhood nightmare, poised to drop on me.
The landlord was 'a building contractor from Romford' (aren't they all?). 'So at least he isn't in deepest darkest Peru', the estate agent reassured me. Though he probably could be, at a moment's notice, if I needed him for anything. In the event, I suppose I might even prefer him to be.
Finally I looked at a flat in King's Road just down from the kebab shop. It was evening time. I loitered on the pavement for some time before it became apparent that the estate agent wasn't going to appear, feeling like the world's oldest and least successful rent boy. They were understaffed, it turned out, hence their non-appearance, but I got to see the place the next day. The estate agent called up the stairs - no response, so we proceeded to loudly disparage the state of the place (the toilet looked like it hadn't been flushed in a month) until a groan alerted us to a blanket-covered form lying on the couch. Perhaps he was ill, perhaps hungover, it was hard to tell. He didn't seem to care about our snide comments; didn't seem to care very much at all really, just pulled the blanket over his head. It was the best place I had seen (even though the fixtures and fittings had seen better days) but I wonder if it would eventually reduce me to a similiar state.
All the stress of the idea of moving has left me feeling quite fragile. Even The One Show is too brutal for me now. They did a report on some cooling towers. That was fine: I like cooling towers. Then, halfway through, it turned out that the report was about the demolition of these cooling towers. The reporter was just as excited about this as she had initially been about the architecture of the things. 'That was absolutely amazing! They just... crumbled!' Criminally, there was no number to call 'if you have been affected by these issues'.
The next day, the headline in the Daily Mail was 'GREED OF THE ENERGY SHARKS'. That freaked me out too. What were these 'energy sharks'? Were they invisible? Were they IN THE AIR ALL AROUND ME?
Perhaps if I'd read the story it might have calmed me down. But there was no time. I went to work, warily.
posted by martin at 12:05 PM
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