House hunting

As you’ve probably worked out by now, we’ll be moving house soon, as we’ve come to the end of our lease and decided not to renew. And, since Julian and Shelley will also nearing the end of their lease, they also need to move soon. As such, we’ve decided that our two tribes shall merge – we haven’t come up with a new tribe name yet, but at the moment I’m favouring “Team Fantastic Four” purely for its originality.

Yesterday, we spent the whole day looking at potential flats. Though we’re open to moving pretty much anywhere, we concentrated on two places yesterday – London Bridge, and Clapham (plus their surrounding areas).

We started in London Bridge with a friendly estate agent named Amir. The first place he showed us was brilliantly located, but way too small for four people. Place number two was more reasonably sized, but a good 20 minutes of uninspirational walking to get to the tube. Plus, it had so many awkwardly placed doors that it was near impossible to walk around inside if any of them were open. Two strikes for Amir.

Next we headed down to Clapham – or probably Wandsworth, to be more accurate – where we met up with an estate agent whose name I instantly forgot (it didn’t help that we had been referring to her as “Birdy McBird” before we had met her). Birdy showed us through a number of beautiful flats in a brand new building, two of which were almost perfect! There were once again a few awkwardly placed doors (seems common in new developments), and we’re just a little unsure of the area, so a bit more research is required before we’d commit.

There were two apartments left on our list after that. When the lady showing us through the next one realised we were two couples, she instantly dismissed us with a flippant, “the owner will never go for that”, citing that he’d be too concerned about wear and tear. It was quite insulting to be honest (especially seeing what a state that the current occupants had the place in); we walked out without any nice things to say about her.

The final place on our list had a lot of potential (decent sized living areas, huge bedrooms with lots of storage) – however it was hard to get past the absolute pigsty that the people were living in (not to mention the water damage and resulting mildew). It was a total disgrace! It’s bad enough that the tenants clearly made no effort to tidy up for inspections, but oh my goodness – how can people actually live like that?! Disgusting! I just wish I’d have taken photos.

While we were at the pig farm, Julian got a call from an agent who had arranged another viewing for us back at London Bridge. Though the apartment was very competitively priced, it just wasn’t a winner (and once again, quite a mess – they hadn’t even bothered flushing the loo…). So our trip back to London Bridge was a bit of a waste in the end, but at least the sun was out, which gave us a glorious view!

In retrospect, the places that we looked at in Wandsworth were quite clearly the winners for the day, but we think we may be able to find something even better (still, they’re a very decent fallback). Keeps those fingers crossed, people! (A huuuggeee thanks to Julian for all his hard work organising all these viewings!)