Best of the worst...

        Trying to find a better place to live! What a soul destroying job, and one I came out of today, feeling 'pants' about. So down, I felt, I wonder I did not trip over my own feet. Chin on the floor stuff...why? Well, trying to reconcile the estate agents blurbs, of 'light and spacious living space,' with the small, dark, basement room, with the flooring worn into holes. Yes, that may have been one reason. Or, perhaps it was the fact that it was a hundred pounds more than I am paying already. Then, I had to hang on with two hands to balance down the narrow, dirty, winding basement steps. Before stepping over the black bag of rubbish, to reach the narrow doorway. One so narrow, no furniture would have gone through without being completely dismantled. As for the basement kitchen, and the neglected bathroom, at the rear, well. You can forget that, I would rather die first. Not that the agent was at all nonplussed, for showing such depressing rubbish.

        I think that's what got me. Her buoyant attitude, as in her description. As if it did not matter, or I would not notice it was nothing like the description, both on the net, and repeated by her. Did she really expect me to take it? To say, 'thank you, wonderful, where do I sign.' I looked quite smart, and affluent I thought, not the kind of person to live I a hovel. Would she live there? I very much doubt it. You would have to be desperate to take it, and if you were how could you afford rent at that level. Perhaps,  I have completely lost touch with rental prices. Or, landlords who, have absolutely no respect for their work, their reputation, or their tenants.

          You know, you peruse the net, which everyone says is the place to start. Except its not, is it. By the time you find them there, they have already gone. One property I went past, on a 'drive by', actually had the people moving in, with van outside, the lot. No, I must go see a friend, and do it the 'old pals' method. I only hope that works. Only hope that because he knows me, he will be able to let me know before something is on the market. Give me the heads up!

           There is absolutely no point in moving, paying more money, which I know we must, and be worse off. It must be a nice area, a clean, well kept place, with larger rooms, two double bedrooms, and some kind of outside space. Of course, the actual moving costs are not cheap. There are finders fees, deposits, paying ahead, as well as the removal van. That will be about twelve hundred, for a month ahead, at least six hundred deposit, two, or three hundred finders fees, removal van three, to four hundred...that's about twenty five hundred. Oh...that's without all the hard packing, unpacking, changing car licence address, tv, power, bank, doctors. Oh yes, it is a mammoth task, one I can only hope I stay well enough, to do. As all the organisation, will be down to me. That's if they don't ask us for six months rent ahead,  as they did last time. Being officially semi retired, we are not big money tenants. Sad, but true.

            Ah, perhaps it's all a pipe dream, but I don't give up easily. What's the alternative? Stay here, which is very overcrowded, with no outside space. Where the heating is all electric, and costs the earth to run. So much so, we live in temperatures too cold for comfort. Have guests stay in a room hardly bigger than a wardrobe. Where there is barely enough room to stand beside the small bed, and nowhere to put the luggage. A place where I have no room to store kitchen utensils, or cleaning stuff. Where in the winter, because of the badly fitting double glazed windows, all you can see through them, is condensation. A building that is colder inside, than out. On the plus side, it is a nice, quiet building, secure, and safe. The location is good, near the sea, and the town, and the main road out to the motorway.

          I shall put up the thought for a solution, because at present, the more conventional ways don't seem to be working. Also, I am not sure how many more soul destroying days like today, I can stand. 

           I don't like being rude, or unkind, and I don't like to be deliberately lied to. Which leaves me with a dilemma..... How to cope with the lying real estate agents out there, without telling them of my angst, of my feelings.

           Mmmm, this brings me back to the earlier blog, about agents, written previously. It seems, nothing has changed then.

           What a shame...it shows the worst of human nature. Something, no one wants to see. So, my friends, put up the thought that things work out well for me. As well  as for everyone else in this predicament, we all deserve a decent place to live, without being put through the wringer by unscrupulous money grabbers. Be they the lying estate agents, or the uncaring landlords.

           Wishing you all the best, out there.