Rental Accommodation

Today is our official moving day, because supposedly it's lucky to move on a Friday.  The rain is blowing all around and I don't feel like going in to clean the new place, but it has to be done.  It's not filthy, but it's not what I'd call clean, either.  We're going to go to the shop in a few minutes, where I will attempt to find the Irish equivalents of Murphy's Oil Soap, Windex, and a few other things.  

The last time I looked for a place to live was in late September, 2006, when I was planning my move to Cambridge.  At the time, I scoured craigslist for a room in a shared apartment. I found a place near Central Square, sharing with two other women, all of us in our 30s.  We brought in our own furniture, kitchen utensils, etc.  The place was bare, clean, and freshly painted when we arrived.  

This apartment in Galway is a little different.  It has a similarly good location, a better view, two bathrooms instead of one, and substantially less square footage.  In it, we have a variety of low- to mid-quality furniture, lots of kitchen stuff, and whatever the previous tenants left behind.  The leavings include a bottle of cheap pink champagne, some cassette tapes, and a UV nail drying device, among other things.  We'll have to fill a garbage bag or two, I think.  The landlord claims to have repainted one of the bedrooms last week, but I can't tell which one.  

One of the general differences I've noticed is that in apartments here, the bedroom doors lock.  It would never have occurred to me to lock the bedroom door in the other places I've lived, but here it seems to be routine.  I suppose it comes partly from the practice of accommodation agencies renting accommodation out one room at a time, instead of having people band together to rent whole houses or apartments as a group, screening each other for trustworthiness, tolerability, vegetarianism, etc.  We're moving in with friends, so I don't expect to use the bedroom door lock very often, but it's strange having it there.

The other thing is that we're signing a year's lease.  I think this is the first time any of my new housemates have signed a lease, but I've usually done it when moving into a place.  Mike tells me that rental accommodation here is seen as very temporary, only for students, and that anyone with a family is virtually required to get themselves a mortgage as soon as possible. I think it would be nice to own a place, but I'm not in any great hurry about it.  Most people I know back home seem to buy within a couple of years of having children, but it can be either before or after the fact and no one's much bothered about it.  

All right.  Off we go to explore the cleaning products section of Tesco.

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