Why We Have Been Missing In Action ... and other stuff

There is a certain frantic quality to life when you arrive in a new country. The urge to explore is tempered by the need to get settled and begin making a home, especially when you’re a mom with a teenage daughter to provide for! For me, this sense of urgency was compounded by the fact that I was due to start work within a week of arriving in Wellington, which reduced the amount of time I had to explore, plus I had no other adult to send to house viewings in my stead. So the pressure to ‘get settled’ was on from the start.

And practically speaking, finding a home isn’t easy. As mentioned before, rentals are shown for very brief periods and it is often first come, first served. Added to this was the fact that we were totally dependent on public transport (and thereafter feet!), we didn’t really know what any of the areas were like and we also didn’t know how far our new budget would stretch. So when on our sixth day in Wellington we found a sweet little flat that seemed OK and was relatively inexpensive, we grabbed it and moved in, signing a six-month lease and paying a two-week bond (deposit).

And it was a sweet flat, as long as you didn’t mind the fact that the kitchen, a weirdly configured two feet by six feet space, never saw the sun; that the only natural light downstairs came from the balcony in the afternoons, and that the entire place reeked not only of ancient carpets and a touch of mildew, but also of the seventies – and not in a good way. Green-and-beige carpeting and pink walls in the bedrooms … and funky turquoise and orange kitchen colors which would have worked well—IF the kitchen had been filled with sunny brightness all day long. But it wasn’t and never had been!

It might have been OK. But to add to our woes, the previous tenant had abandoned her telephone line instead of disconnecting it, which meant an utterly interminable delay while the various telephony companies liaised with one another to disconnect and reconnect our line ... it took three weeks of repeated phone calls and complaints and chasing up before we had an incoming line - but still no broadband, which meant no email, no Skype and no contact with the folks back home in SA.

I have to confess it never really felt like home. I started to dread arriving back at the flat after work, and coming up a set of stairs that occasionally smelled of cat, then along a walkway overhung by the heavy canopy of towering trees that blocked all light and kept the ground in a permanently damp and slightly slimy state. And because it never felt like home, I lost all interest in making it look like home. We camped out in the lounge, sleeping on a mattress which doubled as a couch during the day, using the bedrooms as over-sized clothes closets and venturing into the kitchen only when we needed to make tea or cook supper. I have to say, though, that the bathroom (apart from the mildewed ceiling) was a lovely little room – it had an actual bath in it – something of a rarity in Wellington flats – and it also had a washer and a drier which both worked fantastically well – speedy and efficient. The bath too wasn’t bad – small and snuggly and the water was always hot, hot, hot!!

So we decided to ‘keep our eyes open’ for an alternative. Having been out to the north before, we both knew we preferred the southern suburbs. So we explored the surrounding neighbourhoods carefully. Visited Lyall Bay and Island Bay – both gorgeous but just a little far out from school and work. We went over to Miramar which is also wonderful, but we would only be able to afford a place in the middle of the central valley – no views to speak of except fences and streets and other people’s back yards! We went shopping in Kilbirnie – a suburb just over the hill from Newtown but a whole other world away - where we found Pak ‘n Save, a great discount outlet for groceries and veg and dairy produce! And we both liked Kilbirnie a lot. Riding the bus over the hills with Hataitai off to the left and the Miramar peninsula on the far side of the beautiful Evans Bay … seeing the sprawling green fields of Kilbirnie Park, the yachts bobbing in the marina, the planes flying in and out of Wellington International Airport – not to mention a fantastic array of shops including branches of all the banks, Farmers, Woolworths, Amalgamated Video, pubs, dairies, organic food shops, furniture stores etc etc.

So we narrowed our eyes at Kilbirnie and watched TradeMe carefully for any possible future homes. And lo and behold! Much sooner than we had anticipated, we found … IT.

A bright, light and airy duplex on the hillside above Kilbirnie Park ...

...with outstanding views of Evans Bay .... :-)

Tbc.

We Found A New Home!

After only a few days of house hunting, we found the rental property that we're going to call home - for the next six months at least.

Saturday was a blazing hot day here in Welly and we set out around 2pm to go to three separate viewings - according to the map, they were within walking distance of each other. Well, the first one was at the top of a very, very, very tall hill .... when we got up there, panting and sweating, we were told sorry, it's been taken already! Duh! Couldn't they have put a notice at the bottom of the path? But we didn't mind too much as we'd decided about half way up that there was no way we'd take this place, no matter how cute it was .. imagine doing that slog with your weekly grocery shopping!

The second place had potential except for one very strange thing: the floor in the lounge was concave! It curved gently up towards the fireplace, leveled off for about a foot, then curved back down again ... very odd! There was also an odd smell in one room, as if someone had kept an animal in there for a while - so we decided to give it a miss and went off hurry-scurry to the last viewing. It was a two-level apartment within a complex at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac - lovely views out over the hills, warm and sunny, french doors out onto a private balcony, wooden staircase up to the two beds and bathroom (which has a bath - about four out of every five places we considered had only a shower!) and lots of trees and greenery. We both liked it immediately and had a good chat with the owner/landlord - he called us later that evening to offer it to us, we went back today at lunchtime and signed the tenancy agreement!

Here it is - and we move in next Friday, at which time there'll no doubt be a lot more pictures to show.

House Hunting in Welly

One of the hardest things about house hunting in a 'foreign' city is that you simply have no idea of what each suburb is like, or if you're going to like living there. One of the sites I have found quite useful in this regard is Tommy's Real Estate which includes some brief descriptions of the various suburbs in Wellington.

So today we went to a viewing in Brooklyn. Now, in SA, if you are interested in an advertised house or flat, you call up the agent and arrange a time that suits you, the agent and the current inhabitant of the house. The agent then meets you at the house and takes you through and answers all your questions. Here in Welly, things are done a little differently. Agents hold 'viewings' of rental properties. This is a fifteen to twenty minute time slot, picked to suit either the agent or the current tenant of the property, and anyone who wants to see the place just arrives and has a look. If you can't make it at that time ... well, tough luck. (OK, I'm generalizing. We also met a great agent who not only picked us up and took us to see the house he was renting, but then gave us a short tour of the neighbourhood too!) But speaking generally, the viewing seems to be the most common way things are done! It's like speed-dating for renters!!

The house in Brooklyn looked great - on the website! But the ad was misleading. Most of the pictures were of the flat just above - the one with the really great views and deck. The house we saw was underneath, smelled of damp and had a teeny tiny view out of one corner of the kitchen window. But the positives were that we got to see a new suburb and we used the bus system successfully - without all the trauma of the first trip we took!!! And that was a great feeling!!

The house - the rental was the small section underneath it.

The kind of view promised by the advert but sadly not delivered ...

The local corner cafe in Mills Rd, Brooklyn - known here as the 'dairy'!

Mills Road, Brooklyn - beautiful area, fabulous views!