I’ve just returned from an ‘apartment viewing’. It has opened my eyes.

This is it: doesn’t look too bad, eh ? I had come to think, looking at it, that this kind of small apartment building could be my saving.

In fact it was impossible to tell quite what it looks like; for the current tenant, although physically absent, had left so much filth and mess and plates of half-eaten FOOD around that one could barely get from the doorway to the balcony, and I do not exaggerate !

I have never in my life seen such a revolting mess. Not ever: not any type of habitation: not anywhere. And this was what the agency was happy to show potential tenants through.

As well, I’m now convinced that the photos used on the ads to show what the places look like are taken with cameras on which lenses are added to elongate the rooms or the balconies: what I eventually managed to see by way of a balcony today was roughly a third the size I was expecting. (That it faces directly west was as I feared: never again will I take anywhere that faces west !)

Am I out of touch ? Is this all one can expect to be shown ? Do agents  no longer accept any degree whatsoever of responsibility for ensuring that outgoers do their bit to ensure the next incomers can see what they’re applying for ?

It seems I am. Everything has changed: was it Covid ? Or am I simply a latter-day Rip van Winkle, and it’s been changing while I’ve been unaware ..?

Now RE companies insert statements into their ads (on the many and various search engines for real estate) that specifically deny any responsibility for the actuality’s turning out differently from what they’ve just told you ! So .. if they‘re not responsible for the contents of their own ads, who the fuck is ?!

Tomorrow I was booked to view a place that looks like me, in Werribee. Well, you know what I mean. It was I who called the agents yet again to ask why the viewing time was no longer showing on the ad: and they casually told me the unit had been leased. No-one had the slightest intention of letting me know; and I would’ve travelled from Melbourne to Werribee for nothing.

I may soon have an even more jaundiced eye than I have at this moment ..

 

 

Stupid of me not to’ve just told you the other night. I started to, but then I piked out; couldn’t face the topic yet again.

I have to move again.

You can be apprised of the many reasons for this truly hideous fact by reading a couple of documents, comprising my letter to my Property Manager, currently on holidays and not back till Thursday, under a covering bad-tempered email. There are some attachments I’m leaving out because they’re not necessary to your comprehension of my total fed-up-ness ..

1. Covering email.
2. 1st_vacating – as identified in said infuriated email – stating most of the facts (because, believe it or not, there are other things that I forgot at the time of writing !

Then there are a couple of the attachments:

1. att-2.jpg is essential, as you’ll see; and
2. att-2.pdf also, being  half of the infamous pair that set the lie in place.

I’ve since taken a shitload more photos so as to have them on hand in case of heated denials (or any kind !).

So that’s it. The enormous depressing load I’m currently toting about.

I’ve signed the lease and paid a month’s rent, so there ain’t no backing out of it – I have a place to move to !

Doesn’t that remind you of some of the places you rented when you were young ? – it does me.   🙂

It’s a 2-bedroom flat (you can’t see it ‘cos it’s ’round the back, ground floor) in Orrong Road, St Kilda East. I suppose I’ll get used to calling it that, although it’s going to be hard since it was known as East St Kilda during all the years I lived in Melbourne, back in my palmy days ..

And it’s only $280 a week ! – that’s $5 less a week than I’m currently paying – not too smelly, eh ? It even has a free-standing shower and taps for my washing-machine ! But for me, one of the very best aspects – there are two ! – is that my new Property Manager is a doll. I expect I’ll enjoy interacting with her as much as I have the wonderful Cobie, over nearly a year.

The other one is best represented by this map:

See, when I was looking in this area – which meant suburbs like Armadale and Carnegie and Caulfield, etc., etc. – one of the first things I’d do is enter the flat building’s address into Google maps and then use the ‘Direction’ facility to find out if I could get to the Woolworths Metro that’s the biggest Woolies symbol up there. AND ! – my next flat building is, like, across the road from it !!!

You may wonder at my extreme enthusiasm; but unless you are someone without a car, you can’t possibly understand what it’ll mean to me to be able to walk over the road to shop for my dinner every day.

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That line there was a pause while I contemplated how totally excellent it’s going to be. I can scarcely take it in !

Anyway. There it is. I’ll be moving on 29th September, until which day I shall dream of Woolies Metro shopping ..

Yes: yous can help by suffering, OK ? I shall think my way through the kind of endless permutations involved in finding another place to move to, and comments will be expected— will be demanded !

1. How many bedrooms ?
   One will be cheaper, and quicker to clean.
   Two will enable removalists to put stuff in the 2nd so that it’s easier to unpack; and visitors will be able to sleep there later rather than on a divan bed in the living-room and having to listen to Boodie scrabbling in his kitty-litter in the wee smalls.
2. Garden or not ?
   I think I’m getting past it. Whilst (with the constant help of my old friend S) I made a terrific showing of the garden in MACS, filling it with natives, I fear I have lost that first faint careless rapture .. But you never know, I s’pose.
3. Multi-storey building ? – only if there’s a lift. Quod scripsi scripsi.
4. So much for the unit. Environs ? – have to be Boodie-suitable. No inner suburbs unless the unit’s at the rear and there are interior tree-ed areas for him to explore without being near roads.
5. Shopping ? – must have at least a milkbar within screaming distance, I’m told. Although it is to be noted that I shall continue having Coles deliveries (delivery fees as low as $2 make Coles my go-to supplier, even though I prefer the range at Woolies @ $13 the lowest delivery !) which, when kept abreast of, do away with the need for ANY nearby shop.
6. Public transport ? – vital. There has to be a bus-stop within half a k, so that I shall be in the happy position of getting Coles to deliver and a bus to Woolies. 🙂

Those are the points that are set in stone. If there are any I’ve forgotten, please remind me: this is an exhausting business, and I am already out of patience with it all ..

Of course I had ! – although none of you will believe that, given my track record ..

This lovely little apartment (I originally typed “apratment”, and have decided that there really should be a use for that new word) has brought me much joy and pleasure. I’ve never had a view like this, just for starters ..

But what’s happened

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CHORUS OF GROANS FROM EVERYONE READING THIS POST

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is that the osteoarthritis in my hands (that made itself felt fairly slowly and then decided that things were lacking in pace) has made living here quite difficult. In fact, a bit of a challenge ..  The french doors and their blinds, the hand-held shower, the garbage chute at the end of the corridor – these are the most difficult to operate, and I know more things will add themselves to this shortish list.

I need to be not in a high-rise apartment. It has been a wonderful ride that I’ve enjoyed absolutely, with WONDERFUL neighbours in the two nearest apartments: Joan brings me samples of delicious things she’s just finished cooking, and Jules&Greg gave me a divinely-scented little pot candle for my recent birthday .. I am extremely reluctant to leave them. Extremely !

However, the place I’m thinking of moving to could well mean that I can invite them down for a meal, and that would be huge fun !

I shall NOT be breaking my lease ! – amazing !! My super Property Manager, the wonderfully-named Cobie, has ensured that my landlord understands what’s going down, and I need only give a fortnight’s notice ! I’m not sure why it is that it took till I was in my late 70s before finding a Property Manager who is efficient and nice; but Cobie is most definitely both.

I shall post more on the move I’m hoping for, depending upon how it goes. On whether or not I get this pertickler place, I mean.   🙂

Just to let you see how frightened Boodie is of heights.

I used to stand next to the Daikin looking down the side of the building towards the Maribyrnong River. I don’t do this any more; as y-k-w took to rushing out of the loungeroom door and taking a flying leap to land beside me.

AAaaargh !

No good telling me how sure-footed cats are: the leaping was too much for the blood pressure (normally faultless), so I move away before he sees me there, now.

 

I had a handyman visit me to see what needs doing, last Saturday; and he spent a fair while gazing out my kitchen windows. When I explained that I pay a rental of $285 a week because this is an NRAS property, he thought about that for a bit, and then sighed “I’d willingly pay $400 just for that view !”.

It is pretty wonderful. The Saturday before that one you can see (above) the hot air balloons being picturesque; and just now, when it’s been raining and windy on and off all day, there was this:

with a second frame of it being this:

which you may find interesting as well as lovely, in terms of the tops of the houses down at ground level.

This whole enormous “development” is really amazing: I doubt that there’s one single building – whether apartment block or private house – exactly the same as any other. And it works !

Have I told you ? – I LOVE living here ..

Today I went to see my quack – a beautiful young woman who INSTANTLY recognized the term “laryngopharyngeal reflux” when I saw her last week, to my absolute joy* ! – to talk about diabetes. Yes, I’ve given up the attempt to eat the right thing: there are so many varying inputs that I can no longer pretend to be coping.

But the worst part has been not continuing on with my vegetarian diet. I LOVE the food I used to cook.

(Some of you might remember that I became somewhat leery about cooking a while back; but that was because I put pressure on myself to keep cooking new recipes. Once I settled on several tried&trues, I was laughing.)

No more. Introducing meat into my consumption has rendered me helpless. I can’t cook meat ! I mean sure, I can grill a steak and have it with vegies or salad

(or sausages, which I like as long as they don’t have bread in); but to cook a one-pot meal using meat ? – no way. Casseroles don’t have anything LIKE the variety that vegetarian recipes do !

I did my best to

• not eat anything sweet (or with sugar in)
• not eat carbohydrates anywhere near as much as I did when vegetarian
• eat FAT – full-cream milk, full-cream yoghourt and so on
• eat meat

but I was detesting it. In the end I had to admit that having my coffee with full-cream milk was making me feel sick; that adding cream to blackberries (gosh, they were yummy ! – but so short a season !) just ruined them; that I was missing my morning Freedom cereals so much I felt like crying; and that the meat-eating simply wasn’t working.

And added to all this was my absolute LONGING for one of my vegetarian one-pot wonders ..

At the beginning of this week I caved: I cooked a big potful of chickpea coconut curry with fresh tomatoes, and it was .. it was .. to tell you that it was the best thing I’ve eaten in roughly three months is no exaggeration. It was HEAVENLY. And I have one serving left ..

So the quack and I discussed all this and agreed that to get the advice of a dietitian who knows about diabetes and how to eat for it is indeed the best way to cope with everything food-oriented. My dear friend M is sceptical; but we shall see what we shall see – I see her next Wednesday.

I failed, see ? – failed at trying to approach my eating using common sense. I’m too torn: I don’t want to be eating more fat and less carbs, but I know I’m definitely going to have to cut down on the latter .. So to throw it all in someone else’s lap and just cry “Help !” seems good to me.

 

*as opposed to every GP I saw during the 4½ years I lived in Geelong, none of ’em either recognizing the term or indicating the slightest interest in reading about it (for I printed out and took to each one a most respectable article that had peer reviews ad everything)

(with apologies to Carol Bayer Sager !)

This was on moving day; and you can see that Boodie was absolutely terrified. Not. No hiding in the bathroom for him ! – once he got used to the bringings of furniture et al, he paid it no attention and simply gazed, transfixed, at his new view.

I didn’t let him out that day;  but the following day he was out there, peering down through the transparent balcony walls in absolute fascination. And he’s out there every day: sometimes sitting on top of the external part of the split system. It gave me a fright the first time I saw him up there – especially when he stepped elegantly onto the railing ..

But hey, he’s a CAT ! – they’re not stupid !   😀

Today I went up to ..

MARIBYRNONG

to see my new apartment. It’s FABULOUS. I LOVE it. I knew I would, of course; but to have it confirmed so delightfully was a truly uplifting thing.

I hereby give yous something to do: google the suburb.   🙂

I’ll help: that’s it, below; so see if you can place it in the map I posted yesterday. (Thinks: was it yesterday ..?) In the map I last posted ..

You can see the river from a couple of my windows !

The entire section of Maribyrnong in which my building is situated is chocka with development; it’s a huge residential complex of apartment blocks and scattered shopping, with buses criss-crossing –

But wait ! – I am getting ahead of myself ..

Which side is my apartment ? – neither the front nor back, but on the left ‘end’ ..

Don’t be put off by my description of the area: there are no buildings jammed up against each other, and there are built-to-design-choice houses all over the place amongst them.

I even have a friend living there !

But if you want the pièce de résistance, it is this:

Oh, I’m SO EXCITED ! And the apartment itself is full of light (that can be kept out by dropping the very classy blinds) and bigger than I’d expected. I like very much being on the end of the corridor, so that there will be no people walking past in the night. Something tells me I am not going to hear one single large, bored dog barking mindlessly – not ONE !

More later.