Crimes of Passion
I don’t know what it’s like for the rest of you, toiling away in our lucky lands; but for some of us, being those shifty-eyed Sydney-siders who loiter about the place, the rental property market at the moment seems to shift in leaps and bounds.
We had mates of ours recently, who are more of a western suburbs (hills district) persuasion cop some pretty hefty rental rises – to the extent of 20-25%. As a consequence, they’re now once again wading into the murky waters of newspaper clippings and online cork boards in an attempt to hunt for that perfect bargain.
We, on the other hand, already pay a fairly high price for our accommodation, and so the generalised 5% increase is now on the cards come our new lease date, which isn’t too far off – and that’s ok. By contrast, we’re in a position (I live with a workmate and his Mrs.) to afford it. Plus it’s like 5mins from work. Win.
However, our friends, who I’d mentioned previously, had raised the issue of pooling our resources together (seeing as we together pay a considerable sum of money each week in rent) and sharing some kind of “party mansion”. My guess is “party mansion” means big house with lots of space, a patio, a big fuck-off kitchen and one bathroom.
Which, while its an entertaining prospect, isn’t really practical or pragmatic when you’re late-20′s odd and like your “quiet” time. So when our new lease came up, we applied the diplomatic approach and said “no thanks”.. and that is when the sky shattered and the sirens began their distant wail.
It’s like the world tore asunder, and some ghastly beast has crawled out from the cracks of reality. It’s as if a personal affront has been committed, and by saying no, we’ve now taken our finely-honed bed-and-breakfast razor, and sliced through the slime-encrusted umbilical chord of an otherwise cheerfully agreeable mateship.
And so it leads me to the questions of the day:
To what extremes do you seek the perfect abode?
Or, to what extent have you sacrificed your personal needs to share a place with others?
Have we now breached an era, due to our society’s communal walls closing in around us, where your ability to hovel in small spaces is an expectation and asset? Or do we still, as Australians, dream of those sparse open plains and relative solitude from our neighbors?
I raise this in interest, as I hear you Mexicans and our Darwinians up north aren’t that far behind.
Waaaay too much hassle. It begins a slow spiral downwards, kind of like that of a knife being twisted in your kidney when it’s not meant to be there.
having gone through the hassle of finding a new place recently with an ‘acquaintance’, i feel for you.
its all worked out pretty well in the end though for the following reasons:
- the place is massive for what it is, 2 bathroom, 2 bedroom, 2 storey,
- the bedrooms are at opposite ends of the house,
- theres enough room upstairs or downstairs to feel comfortably alone while there may be a party going down on the level your not,
- i get home late / wake late, flatemate sleeps early / wakes early so apart from a couple hour overlap we barely cross paths.
the benefits of living with someone you barely know are abundant, particularly that you don’t feel you owe them anything on an emotional level. It just makes shit easier.
If they got pissy about that you have to wonder how awesome it would have been locked into a lease with them for 12 months.
First it starts with the toilet seat, then your stale pack of salt and vinegar tasty jacks you left on the table for a day and finally they will remove your manly right to drink straight from the milk bottle. Not cool.
Being keen on the country Tash and I moved to the Adelaide hills, for space cheapness and so I can fang my bike as soon as I get on it instead of braving 20k’s of straight roads before the good shit.
You forgot to mention the toilet paper.