Searching pains

I've been having something of a period of abstinence from buying books.  The reason for this is that as soon as it arrives on my desk, it would rapidly disappear into a box.

Searching for a place to live can be a perplexing activity.  There are positives and negatives.  On the positive side, it gives one an opportunity to clear out cupboards, have a cull of the wardrobe (a local op-shop is going to do very well out of me), sort out books, and generally find out how much stuff one really has.  On the negative side, well, there's lots of things that come to mind: camping out in a house that is increasingly crowded with boxes, being unable to pass a real estate agent without compulsively picking up a rental list, wasting every spare moment trawling real estate websites, endless form-filling, lack of follow-up from property managers, finding places that fit all the criteria, applying and then discovering it's been let the day after your application was received. There's much more, but anyone who's ever moved house will know what I'm talking about.

My criteria for a house have been quite easy.  Somewhere near transport links (preferably train and tram), easy access to bicycle trails, gas cooking, building in decent order, and at least one room larger than the present place.  I stopped looking at apartments when I realized that moving into the northern suburbs might allow a house within the current budget.  That would bring a bit of space in which to grow vegetables, and not having to worry about disturbing the neighbours with the sounds of practicing would be a distinct bonus.  Apartment-dwelling has lost much of its romance since the yodelling sadist moved in upstairs and decided that anytime is practice time (even 3.00am a couple of times).

Today's crop of inspections was an incredibly mixed bag.  Out of about twelve, all chosen from internet advertisements, three were totally unacceptable either because the state of the building had been actively misrepresented, or the advertising had lacked photographs, or a cosmetic renovation hadn't done anything to address the basic problems in the structure.  A further building was so riddled with damp that I turned around and walked out as soon as I smelt the passageway.  A couple were superb, but well out of range of transport links.  One was absolutely stunning, but had an awkward layout.  Several were clearly deceased estates. 

In almost every case we met a property manager who bemoaned how slow the market is in the area.  They could have fooled us: at least two applications have been knocked back last week.