The last few days I have been frantically flat/house hunting around London. Might I add it is not a pleasant experience.
Sifting through the hundreds of classads on the famous Gumtree website, and in the Loot newspaper, is like sifting through a huge stack of needles, for a non-rusty, non-AIDS carrying, sterile, sharp one.
There’s loads of rentals out there, but only 1 in 10 is worth visiting. Obviously, you only find that out after spending a couple quid on a tube ticket, and an hour’s time to get there.
The classad posts don’t help much either. They are advertised as follows:
“Beautiful, huge double bedroom, with TV, in a mod and clean flat, perfectly situated, a stone’s throw from the tube station”
Which actually means:
“Crusty flat, above a dodgy kebab/pizza shop on noisy Wandsworth High street. A 10 minute walk from the tube station, past some smelly, run down fast food joints.”
I’m learning pretty quickly how to decipher these adverts.
To cheer me up a little, I snapped this picture. At least London trains and buses come on time. Well most of the time. See below for proof:
Actual arrival time: 10:41:00
I'm a half English, half South African, digital designer, photography lover & co-founder of WooThemes.com. This site is my dedicated creative outlet.
Dave
07. Aug, 2006
Haha mate, good luck, been there done that, got the t-shirt and now I’m doing it all again in the next few months, really sucks, the right one will come along soon enough, and then you wonder how they hell the others can charge what they do!
Mark
07. Aug, 2006
Thanks for the sympathy Dave.
Hopefully the right one comes along sooner rather than later.
Bryce Lloyd
07. Aug, 2006
Ha Ha ! Nice one Mark, so true, keep hunting and don’t give up they are out there you just have to spend a lot of time looking! Try get the advertisers to email you pics before you venture out it always helps !
Meri
07. Aug, 2006
Standard of housing’s a little different, isn’t it? ;-)
Jammin
08. Aug, 2006
Hey dude, i could not help noticing your sudden surge of hits, what the secret? come on share.
Mark
08. Aug, 2006
Hey Jammin, was wondering if anyone was going to ask that. How observant of you.
I actually submitted the photoshop tutorial to a tutorial search engine. The hits are coming from there. I’m not sure how long it will last, but definitely makes me think should I post more?
Pienk Zuit
08. Aug, 2006
“At least London trains and buses come on time. Well most of the time.” – Good luck when reality sets in dude. Some of the most frustrating time in my life was spent waiting for transport in the UK.
Colin
08. Aug, 2006
heh heh heh. Good luck. My first and only experience of looking for a room was pretty much the same, except I was paying to get from Dorset to High Wycome/Marlow (bloddy expensive when you’re still converting everything back into Rands and not earning a penny) only to find the place was a shit hole with a window the size of an ipod, of which most of it was covered by someone else’s washing. Good luck. Oh, and watch out for the damp… one damp flat ruined a lot of my books and clothes.
Mark’s Digital Farm » Blog Archive » I Miss My Pillows
16. Aug, 2006
[...] What phases me is the pillows. When I buy new pillows they take a certain amount of time to mould to the correct puffiness. Once they have achieved perfect puffiness sleeping is wonderful. Until then though I toss and turn all night. Sleeping on other people’s beds means using their pillows, which have each been moulded by other people’s heads. Being on so many different beds over the last few weeks, with so many different pillows, all slightly different in puffiness has been difficult. They all make me tilt my neck slightly differently when in the sleeping position. Making my sleep patterns on each bed different. Friday hopefully marks the end of all this. Not the pillow issue (that will take another couple weeks to rectify, ie. the new pillow moulding phase), but the “living out of a suitcase” saga. I’ve finally found somewhere to stay. After a lot of visits to the Gumtree I finally found somewhere that’s clean, modern and large at an affordable price. The flat is in Raynes Park, next to Wimbledon. Unfortunately, I cannot go into more detail as to my whereabouts as the bus load of beautiful supermodel stalkers might catch me again. But I can share my excitement with you. [...]
André
25. Sep, 2006
You have been lucky Mark! The tubes and trains in London are, as a rule, never on time. EVER! Good luck in Londinium. I’ve just started checking out your site and find it really easy to read and hence have kind of a connection to you – but not in a weird way?!?! I’m also from Cape Town and have had my time in the UK.