Flat hunting is...

Frustrating? Nearly impossible? Ridiculous?

...All of the above.

I really didn't know what I was getting into when I moved here. The UK is deep in a recession. It was hit way harder than Canada, and basically every day, all day the news talks about three things:

1. The war in Afghanistan
2. How awful the stocks are doing
3. The zillion pending government cuts

This affects every aspect of everything. Jobs are impossible to find, and this in turn makes apartments hard to find. Rent has increased in what is probably an attempt to make up for lost income, though rent is always high in cities, especially one as large as London. Most ads on Gumtree [the UK version of Kijiji] specify that one must be a working professional or a student to even be considered for rooms. And these rooms are not even that great, honestly. But whatever. Your classism is showing, London.

If you weed out the places that are too expensive, want you to be a professional, want you to be Christian, want you to be gay [not gay friendly, actually gay], and finally the people that want their home to be 'meat free zones' [because having to see meat gives vegetarians and vegans seizures, didn't you know?] you're left with... not a lot.

Then you have to do further weeding out. You want to live within walking distance to an underground station. At least, I do. Why? Well, for loads of reasons. Trains on the underground leave every 3 to 6 minutes. Overground trains might leave two to three times an hour, during peak times. Buses insist they leave every 5 to 10 minutes during peak times, but they're lying. London doesn't have power lines above ground, they're under the concrete. This means that somewhere in London there is a road being dug up at all times. To add to that, the population of London is bigger than all of Nova Scotia combined. So, that's Nova Scotia shoved into a small county. These things contribute to congested roads where it takes over an hour to drive the distance between Pictou and New Glasgow. Basically, buses suck, and trains are a disaster to try to plan around. Trains can add up to an hour to your travel time if you're unlucky enough to miss one, or if you have to leave early because it's either that or catching the train that will make you late.

Seriously, every, other mode of transportation sucks so much that when the underground goes on strike people just take a sick day.

Anyway, I followed the housing market on Gumtree all summer. Then, two weeks into my stay I decided it was time to spread my wings and leave my cousin's home. So, I made an ad. It said I was new to the country, wanted to live with people around my age, maybe people who were also travellers. I said I didn't want to have to share a room, and that I wanted to live somewhere relatively clean.

I also included a picture because that's what everyone else was doing, and really, pictures help. I don't even open ads that don't have a photo of the room, so I figure most people are probably with me on this one. Naturally, I picked some nicer pictures because no one wants to look crazy and 'crazy' describes ninety per cent of my Facebook photos.

This photo says, "I am only slightly crazy and I love elephants!"

This photo says, "You probably shouldn't leave me unattended in your house."

Unfortunately, a side effect of 'not crazy' photos is every bored moron feels they can hit on you through Gumtree. ...Because clearly the quickest way to my heart is to flood my e-mail with requests to be my boyfriend when all I really want is a flat. Watch me swoon RIGHT NOW.

It's sad because these guys are clearly delusional and probably don't even get that they're creepy as hell. I didn't bother to respond to any of them because I didn't want these sketchbags to have my e-mail address, but if I had of it would have been something along the lines of, "Where do you get off using my housing ad to hit on me? It's creepy and gross and totally unacceptable." I'm fairly certain these creeps would have been shocked! "What do you mean it makes me look like I was raised by Joe Francis? You're just an ungrateful bitch!"


...Right.

Anyway, here comes the parade of loser.

My very first response:

are you looking for a boyfriend by any chance?

No. No I am not.

My second response:

Hi, im 28 years old and verey friendly man and i live in a one cozy beroom flat on my own and just need some one like you in my flat because its boring to be alone meybe your the same, if you interesed you can email me then i dont care about any bills from you i can offer you a free living and cool life.
Thanks,
NAME REMOVED

Uh, what? I clearly said I didn't want to share a room, so nice reading comprehension. Also, ew. I have a sneaking suspicion that 'cool life' is very literal. As in, "It's awfully cool in this basement you have me chained up in."

At this point I actually changed the photos, hoping the creepy responses would stop. There was another guy who wanted to look at flats with me, promising to "make our house a home." The rest were alright. Then there was the guy that turned creepy as we e-mailed back and forth.

He originally e-mailed me with a description of his flat and some photos that made it seem really nice. So, I e-mailed back and told him that I’d love to take a look and meet the people.

He responded with:

hi, i have ogt a room for a week only. and its £80. u think it sounds suitable?

bye

Uh, no. Not suitable. It said in my ad that I was looking for something long term. I e-mailed him back and told him exactly that.

His response said:

u can hav it for longterm


only if yur hot lololol

I didn’t even bother to reply because clearly it was just another sketchbag.


Anyway, this rather long story has a happy ending. After a couple of failed responses, failing to get one of the rooms I looked at [because competition here is huge, tons of people look at every room no matter how crap it is], I finally found a place to live! I’m going to move in next Friday, which gives me just enough time to go to IKEA [SQUEE!] and pick up some things I need!

<3 Jade