Life update
I've been a little quiet out in Internet-land lately - not particularly unusual with my irregular posting record, though this time it's very specifically because I've been having one of those months when real life pops up behind you and goes "Heeeeeey, remember me?" Not in a bad way, though - see, it's like this:
WE HAS A HOUSE! =DDD
Where 'We' = me, pinneagig and jaseroque (for those not in the know, pinneagig is my sister, jaseroque is a friend who's known us since primary school, so we're all well and truly confident we can deal with living with each other without driving each other any more nuts than we were to begin with), and 'house' = rental property we've just successfully applied for. At long last, after what was probably far too much dithering, we're all finally moving out of home.
The other potentially big news was that had a job interview for a position that sounds like exactly what I've been looking for. The original plan was to hold off making this post until I had a definite answer so I could say, "I has a house and a job!" (or alternately, "have the house, missed out on the job though, sadface," whichever turned out to be appropriate). But the suspense on that side is taking longer than I was originally told it would, and meanwhile we're signing the lease on the house next Tuesday and it seemed like a very good idea to have this update up while I still had some kind of breathing space. I'm still relatively hopeful about the job - it sounded pretty promising on the day and at least I know they haven't decided *not* to hire me so far, so I'm still crossing my fingers on that one, though I'm going to get some really nasty hand cramps if I have to keep that up much longer.
Anyway, house! If this announcement seems a bit sudden, that's because it seriously was - we pretty much got the place by accident.
It's been a bit of an adventure.
We've been planning to move out together in a general sort of way ever since pinneagig and jaseroque finished university, but we weren't planning to get started on the house hunting front in any serious way until I had my employment situation figured out. Then it just so happened that one of jaseroque's relatives had a house for rent that had recently become vacant. Oh cool! says we, it sounds like just what we're looking for - it's in a good location, it's got the required three bedrooms and we'd get the added benefits of renting from family whenever any of those little tenant/landlord issues come up. So we went down to have a look at the place a couple of weeks ago and all loudly agreed it looked good - the backyard was larger than what we'd want to put in the effort to take care of but it'd be great for holding parties in, the toilet's outdoors but at least it's only a step away from the backdoor - it's all looking very promising right up until RelativeGuy gets around to telling us what RealEstateLady told him he should be asking for rent on the place: a figure which made the three of us do the synchronised o_O. The Perth rental market is one long, drawn out horror story these days, but the price they're asking still sounds awfully steep for a three bedroom place. Of course, none of us have exactly been looking at the rental market that closely, so we all made some vague sounds of uncertainty while we were there, some louder ones in the car on the way back and then promptly made a beeline for the all-knowing archives of the Internet to find out whether the Perth rental situation really was that bad.
The Internets quickly proved that the answer to that one was such an emphatic 'no' that we can only imagine that RealEstateLady is very confused about something. There were tons of houses out there in the same size and in perfectly good suburbs going at way cheaper rates. And now that we're actually looking at what's out there on the rental market at last, jaseroque goes "Oh hey - how about that place? We should go check that one out!"
The place she's pointed out is actually eerily similar to the one RelativeGuy is renting, right down to the location, except that the garden is smaller, the toilet is indoors and the rent sounds almost too good to be true, and when we went to see the place we all fell in love with it on the spot. It wasn't as large as the first place but we've all got these big soft spots for old-style houses and there's something beautifully cozy and homelike about the place - plus it's about two minute away from the nearest shopping centre and bus station and the landlord even lets tenants keep pets! Better still, by some miracle it turned out that the only people who'd applied for the place so far were groups of university-aged males who'd all been promptly turned down (apparently for having the nerve to be male and university aged - look, considering we're all employed and distinctly female, we really weren't going to complain about that at all). So we eagerly picked up an application form and hurried home to get it filled out ASAP...
...only to discover that renting a house is a little more complicated than that. The real estate agents want bits of paper to prove we're meaningfully employed, phone numbers of people who'll say nice things about our cleaning habits, drivers licenses and passports from each of us - by the time we've actually got all that ready, it's the following Monday. But when that Monday arrives all is sorted without too much fuss, jaseroque and I make sure we can get off work in time to make it down to the estate agency to hand everything in before they close, and everything seems to be going smoothly right up until the point where the receptionist lady hands jaseroque her passport back again and she opens it to realise she's looking at her mother's face rather than hers. Oops. Fortunately for us, jaseroque's place is practically right down the road, so we've still got time to run back and find the right passport before they close. We've made ourselves look a bit silly, but it's no big deal.
So we get back again, hand the passport over to be copied when another more important employee who's just come to the counter turns to us and says, 'oh, is that for the so-and-so-road property? That's just gone.' In the couple of days since we saw the house they'd gotten a new application, checked it out and the very same woman we just happened to be standing next to at the counter by pure coincidence was was litterally just about to phone up the owners to let them know. Technically the owners might still have turned the new prospective tenants down I think, but it certainly wasn't made to sound that way.
Cue rather horrified wide-eyed looks from the both of us.
The next couple of minutes are something of a blur to me. I am not quite sure what I would have done if I'd been there alone - probably asked them to take the application anyway just on the off chance something doesn't go through. Fortunately, jaseroque's powers of remaining fully articulate and dauntingly friendly even under stress were on hand, and by the time I'd caught up with the conversation again, it had been established that a) the current tenants of the house had told the estate agents these awfully nice things about this awfully nice group of three girls who'd come by and been so terribly enthusiastic about renting the place, giving us a good first reference out of nowhere, b) the group who'd gotten their application in before us were another lot of three males with nix on the rental history front themselves, and c) weeeeeeell, maybe the lady we were talking to could hold off phoning the owners one more day so she could process our application too and send them in together for the owner to decide on. I seem to recall making a few vague noises of assent here and there, probably in the hope of convincing her that jaseroque's prospective housemate wasn't completely retarded. I know we said thank you a lot and left buzzing with leftover stress, me having to reassure jaseroque that she'd sounded very coherent in there and really hadn't been blabbering stupidly at all (or if she was I'd been completely incapable of noticing).
Still not quite sure how we pulled that one off, but I am sure that jaseroque takes an awful lot of the blame credit. Especially for that bit where she so cleverly forgot her passport and brought us back again at exactly the right moment to get our names in at the last minute. That takes talent, yo!
Anyway, they told us we'd hear from them the next day, one way or the other. They took a day longer than that in reality, but the news was good so we really do not mind.
Or there's the abridged version of all that, which goes: We applied for the second house we looked at and we got it! (Take that Perth housing market!) Now all we need to do is sort and pack all our possessions, arrange for a removal truck for the furniture our parents have decided they'll let us keep, shop around for all the other furniture/appliances/kitchen stuff/etc that we still need, figure out how who's paying what and how on rent and future grocery bills and the rest, sort out phone lines and Internet connection, water and electricity bills, tell everyone who needs to know our new address, figure out new transport routes to our workplaces... but, I'm calm, really! LOOK HOW CALM I AM!
On the more practical side, we are still very much in need of a microwave, a washing machine, a couple of couches, wardrobes, bookshelves and probably one mattress, so if anyone just happens to know someone around Perth who's trying to get rid of any of the above, now would be a really excellent time to drop us a line.
So, that's what's been keeping me occupied for the last couple of weeks. For good measure, you can also throw in a visit from relatives from out of the state, a skating competition, the first proper PenCafe meeting we've had since last year and three evenings running around trying to help cescat and k_chan009 get their WCS costumes finished at the last minute (which was a lot more fun than I probably made it sound). And if I try to claim it's going to get any less hectic in the next couple of weeks, that will be the denial talking. We're going to have plenty of excitement ahead of us yet.
WE HAS A HOUSE! =DDD
Where 'We' = me, pinneagig and jaseroque (for those not in the know, pinneagig is my sister, jaseroque is a friend who's known us since primary school, so we're all well and truly confident we can deal with living with each other without driving each other any more nuts than we were to begin with), and 'house' = rental property we've just successfully applied for. At long last, after what was probably far too much dithering, we're all finally moving out of home.
The other potentially big news was that had a job interview for a position that sounds like exactly what I've been looking for. The original plan was to hold off making this post until I had a definite answer so I could say, "I has a house and a job!" (or alternately, "have the house, missed out on the job though, sadface," whichever turned out to be appropriate). But the suspense on that side is taking longer than I was originally told it would, and meanwhile we're signing the lease on the house next Tuesday and it seemed like a very good idea to have this update up while I still had some kind of breathing space. I'm still relatively hopeful about the job - it sounded pretty promising on the day and at least I know they haven't decided *not* to hire me so far, so I'm still crossing my fingers on that one, though I'm going to get some really nasty hand cramps if I have to keep that up much longer.
Anyway, house! If this announcement seems a bit sudden, that's because it seriously was - we pretty much got the place by accident.
It's been a bit of an adventure.
We've been planning to move out together in a general sort of way ever since pinneagig and jaseroque finished university, but we weren't planning to get started on the house hunting front in any serious way until I had my employment situation figured out. Then it just so happened that one of jaseroque's relatives had a house for rent that had recently become vacant. Oh cool! says we, it sounds like just what we're looking for - it's in a good location, it's got the required three bedrooms and we'd get the added benefits of renting from family whenever any of those little tenant/landlord issues come up. So we went down to have a look at the place a couple of weeks ago and all loudly agreed it looked good - the backyard was larger than what we'd want to put in the effort to take care of but it'd be great for holding parties in, the toilet's outdoors but at least it's only a step away from the backdoor - it's all looking very promising right up until RelativeGuy gets around to telling us what RealEstateLady told him he should be asking for rent on the place: a figure which made the three of us do the synchronised o_O. The Perth rental market is one long, drawn out horror story these days, but the price they're asking still sounds awfully steep for a three bedroom place. Of course, none of us have exactly been looking at the rental market that closely, so we all made some vague sounds of uncertainty while we were there, some louder ones in the car on the way back and then promptly made a beeline for the all-knowing archives of the Internet to find out whether the Perth rental situation really was that bad.
The Internets quickly proved that the answer to that one was such an emphatic 'no' that we can only imagine that RealEstateLady is very confused about something. There were tons of houses out there in the same size and in perfectly good suburbs going at way cheaper rates. And now that we're actually looking at what's out there on the rental market at last, jaseroque goes "Oh hey - how about that place? We should go check that one out!"
The place she's pointed out is actually eerily similar to the one RelativeGuy is renting, right down to the location, except that the garden is smaller, the toilet is indoors and the rent sounds almost too good to be true, and when we went to see the place we all fell in love with it on the spot. It wasn't as large as the first place but we've all got these big soft spots for old-style houses and there's something beautifully cozy and homelike about the place - plus it's about two minute away from the nearest shopping centre and bus station and the landlord even lets tenants keep pets! Better still, by some miracle it turned out that the only people who'd applied for the place so far were groups of university-aged males who'd all been promptly turned down (apparently for having the nerve to be male and university aged - look, considering we're all employed and distinctly female, we really weren't going to complain about that at all). So we eagerly picked up an application form and hurried home to get it filled out ASAP...
...only to discover that renting a house is a little more complicated than that. The real estate agents want bits of paper to prove we're meaningfully employed, phone numbers of people who'll say nice things about our cleaning habits, drivers licenses and passports from each of us - by the time we've actually got all that ready, it's the following Monday. But when that Monday arrives all is sorted without too much fuss, jaseroque and I make sure we can get off work in time to make it down to the estate agency to hand everything in before they close, and everything seems to be going smoothly right up until the point where the receptionist lady hands jaseroque her passport back again and she opens it to realise she's looking at her mother's face rather than hers. Oops. Fortunately for us, jaseroque's place is practically right down the road, so we've still got time to run back and find the right passport before they close. We've made ourselves look a bit silly, but it's no big deal.
So we get back again, hand the passport over to be copied when another more important employee who's just come to the counter turns to us and says, 'oh, is that for the so-and-so-road property? That's just gone.' In the couple of days since we saw the house they'd gotten a new application, checked it out and the very same woman we just happened to be standing next to at the counter by pure coincidence was was litterally just about to phone up the owners to let them know. Technically the owners might still have turned the new prospective tenants down I think, but it certainly wasn't made to sound that way.
Cue rather horrified wide-eyed looks from the both of us.
The next couple of minutes are something of a blur to me. I am not quite sure what I would have done if I'd been there alone - probably asked them to take the application anyway just on the off chance something doesn't go through. Fortunately, jaseroque's powers of remaining fully articulate and dauntingly friendly even under stress were on hand, and by the time I'd caught up with the conversation again, it had been established that a) the current tenants of the house had told the estate agents these awfully nice things about this awfully nice group of three girls who'd come by and been so terribly enthusiastic about renting the place, giving us a good first reference out of nowhere, b) the group who'd gotten their application in before us were another lot of three males with nix on the rental history front themselves, and c) weeeeeeell, maybe the lady we were talking to could hold off phoning the owners one more day so she could process our application too and send them in together for the owner to decide on. I seem to recall making a few vague noises of assent here and there, probably in the hope of convincing her that jaseroque's prospective housemate wasn't completely retarded. I know we said thank you a lot and left buzzing with leftover stress, me having to reassure jaseroque that she'd sounded very coherent in there and really hadn't been blabbering stupidly at all (or if she was I'd been completely incapable of noticing).
Still not quite sure how we pulled that one off, but I am sure that jaseroque takes an awful lot of the blame credit. Especially for that bit where she so cleverly forgot her passport and brought us back again at exactly the right moment to get our names in at the last minute. That takes talent, yo!
Anyway, they told us we'd hear from them the next day, one way or the other. They took a day longer than that in reality, but the news was good so we really do not mind.
Or there's the abridged version of all that, which goes: We applied for the second house we looked at and we got it! (Take that Perth housing market!) Now all we need to do is sort and pack all our possessions, arrange for a removal truck for the furniture our parents have decided they'll let us keep, shop around for all the other furniture/appliances/kitchen stuff/etc that we still need, figure out how who's paying what and how on rent and future grocery bills and the rest, sort out phone lines and Internet connection, water and electricity bills, tell everyone who needs to know our new address, figure out new transport routes to our workplaces... but, I'm calm, really! LOOK HOW CALM I AM!
On the more practical side, we are still very much in need of a microwave, a washing machine, a couple of couches, wardrobes, bookshelves and probably one mattress, so if anyone just happens to know someone around Perth who's trying to get rid of any of the above, now would be a really excellent time to drop us a line.
So, that's what's been keeping me occupied for the last couple of weeks. For good measure, you can also throw in a visit from relatives from out of the state, a skating competition, the first proper PenCafe meeting we've had since last year and three evenings running around trying to help cescat and k_chan009 get their WCS costumes finished at the last minute (which was a lot more fun than I probably made it sound). And if I try to claim it's going to get any less hectic in the next couple of weeks, that will be the denial talking. We're going to have plenty of excitement ahead of us yet.