6) Looking for a house
At the beginning of January we started to look for a house to rent. We knew that we could not stay with Jonathan and Sian indefinitely. They were very kind to us and in no way made us feel unwelcome but they had their lives to live and we needed to get on with ours. Claudia and Lauren were sharing one bedroom and sleeping in sleeping bags on the floor. We were occupying the other room and had both of their beds. One of the first things we did was to buy ourselves a new bed, as we had got rid of our old one when we left South Africa. We had decided that when we bought we would buy ourselves a queen size one as our headboard was a queen sized one.It did not look that big in the store but when it was delivered I was amazed how big it was. I just about filled the whole room and I was worried that I had made a mistake with my measurements and that our headboard would not fit it.
We started scanning the local newspaper for ‘houses to rent’ and were rather shocked at the prices that were being asked. We were hoping to stay fairly near to Cowan and Berowra so that we could see as much of our family as possible but there did not seem to be a lot going for rent there. I remember one house we looked at in Asquith, a suburb about 10 kms South of Berowra. $300 a week was about the limit we were prepared to pay but when we asked the agent if they were going to fix the house before we took it they said “No”. The grass was overgrown, the garden was full of weeds, the gutters were falling down and there were broken windows. We were sure that if they were not prepared to fix it up before we moved in they certainly would not fix anything once we were in residence so we decided to forgo the pleasure of living in their little dump. They were asking $300 a week for it and it was a complete wreck. We looked at one in Hornsby, $350 but with no garage or off street parking for our vehicles. Also there was no where to store all the tools and workshop equipment that was on the high seas on it’s way to us in a shipping container. We had been told by the shipping agents that our furniture would take about two months to reach us so we worked out that it would arrive at the beginning of February. We needed to find somewhere to live so that we could store our stuff. Just buying a bed seemed to have filled Jonathan’s house to overflowing, we had no idea how we would manage with a whole household of belongings.
Another thing we had to get used to was, the way rents are always, unless otherwise stated, quoted weekly. In South Africa one always paid ones rent monthly. I think that had something to do with the fact that most people were paid monthly. Although artisans were mostly paid weekly, it had been the same when we were in Rhodesia too. I remember once going to a course on managing a household budget. We did not have much money and I thought it would be sensible to learn to use it wisely. The first thing we were told was to make up a list of all our expenses on the left side of a sheet of paper and to put our monthly wage on the right hand side. I asked the lady who was running the course “What if we are weekly paid?” She laughed at me in front of the whole class and said “No one in Rhodesia is weekly paid” I told her that my husband was an artisan and that just about all artisans were weekly paid. Also all the lower paid people, the builders, the labourers, gardeners, maids and the like were weekly paid and surely they were the people who most needed to learn how to manage a household budget. She said she had never heard of such a thing and brushed it off as if I was stupid but I knew I was right. I am afraid that it meant a very poor start to the course as after that I did not believe any thing she said and only continued with the course because I had paid my money and wanted to see if there was anything she could teach me. I learnt that if you have the cheek to set yourself up as an expert on anything and presume to teach others about it you will not have to worry too much about keeping to a budget.
I digress though, back to the house hunting. We did have some offers of furnished accommodation but as we were sure that our furniture would arrive soon and if we had no where to store it we would have to pay to put it into storage besides paying our rent we decided against doing this. Storage would not have been a problem though (except for the financial aspect). Here in Australia there are many companies that have a few rows of garages that they hire out to people who do not have enough space to store their goods. People store all sorts of things in them, furniture, boats, caravans and just general household belongings. A very useful service if one has need of it. I have never seen this kind of Storage Company in South Africa.
Rental properties in Australia all have a stove and curtains so it does mean that we would not have to lay out any money on these items. It is normal to expect to pay the equivalent of four weeks rent as a deposit that is held in a special fund against any damage that the tenant might do to the property during their stay. This deposit is returned – minus charges for damage – when one moves out of the property. I do not remember this system in South Africa but maybe it was just because we had not rented there for many years.
We started scanning the local newspaper for ‘houses to rent’ and were rather shocked at the prices that were being asked. We were hoping to stay fairly near to Cowan and Berowra so that we could see as much of our family as possible but there did not seem to be a lot going for rent there. I remember one house we looked at in Asquith, a suburb about 10 kms South of Berowra. $300 a week was about the limit we were prepared to pay but when we asked the agent if they were going to fix the house before we took it they said “No”. The grass was overgrown, the garden was full of weeds, the gutters were falling down and there were broken windows. We were sure that if they were not prepared to fix it up before we moved in they certainly would not fix anything once we were in residence so we decided to forgo the pleasure of living in their little dump. They were asking $300 a week for it and it was a complete wreck. We looked at one in Hornsby, $350 but with no garage or off street parking for our vehicles. Also there was no where to store all the tools and workshop equipment that was on the high seas on it’s way to us in a shipping container. We had been told by the shipping agents that our furniture would take about two months to reach us so we worked out that it would arrive at the beginning of February. We needed to find somewhere to live so that we could store our stuff. Just buying a bed seemed to have filled Jonathan’s house to overflowing, we had no idea how we would manage with a whole household of belongings.
Another thing we had to get used to was, the way rents are always, unless otherwise stated, quoted weekly. In South Africa one always paid ones rent monthly. I think that had something to do with the fact that most people were paid monthly. Although artisans were mostly paid weekly, it had been the same when we were in Rhodesia too. I remember once going to a course on managing a household budget. We did not have much money and I thought it would be sensible to learn to use it wisely. The first thing we were told was to make up a list of all our expenses on the left side of a sheet of paper and to put our monthly wage on the right hand side. I asked the lady who was running the course “What if we are weekly paid?” She laughed at me in front of the whole class and said “No one in Rhodesia is weekly paid” I told her that my husband was an artisan and that just about all artisans were weekly paid. Also all the lower paid people, the builders, the labourers, gardeners, maids and the like were weekly paid and surely they were the people who most needed to learn how to manage a household budget. She said she had never heard of such a thing and brushed it off as if I was stupid but I knew I was right. I am afraid that it meant a very poor start to the course as after that I did not believe any thing she said and only continued with the course because I had paid my money and wanted to see if there was anything she could teach me. I learnt that if you have the cheek to set yourself up as an expert on anything and presume to teach others about it you will not have to worry too much about keeping to a budget.
I digress though, back to the house hunting. We did have some offers of furnished accommodation but as we were sure that our furniture would arrive soon and if we had no where to store it we would have to pay to put it into storage besides paying our rent we decided against doing this. Storage would not have been a problem though (except for the financial aspect). Here in Australia there are many companies that have a few rows of garages that they hire out to people who do not have enough space to store their goods. People store all sorts of things in them, furniture, boats, caravans and just general household belongings. A very useful service if one has need of it. I have never seen this kind of Storage Company in South Africa.
Rental properties in Australia all have a stove and curtains so it does mean that we would not have to lay out any money on these items. It is normal to expect to pay the equivalent of four weeks rent as a deposit that is held in a special fund against any damage that the tenant might do to the property during their stay. This deposit is returned – minus charges for damage – when one moves out of the property. I do not remember this system in South Africa but maybe it was just because we had not rented there for many years.
posted by MC @ 6:16 PM
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