So….after my little adventure out west, I find myself yet again looking for a Pad. I say Pad, but really mean a boxroom for me to crash and stash until the wild calls again. The idea of a full commitment, with all the trimmings of adulthood are something I tend to ignore when it ever so often knocks on my door. I will eventually settle down, but my roots still haven’t trooden on the right kind of soil to feel completely happy and contend.
Like most non commitment friendly travelbug creatures, I activate my easyroom and spareroom dot coms while still out in california, to get a taste of what is out there this season. The past few years, I was lucky that friends were in need of a larger rent paying pet, i.e. Me. That always had the benefit of knowing that I lived with people that were my kind of weird, and not dangerouly more or less, which to be fair, in London can be a fun and an entertaining game….but you don’t choose to live with that, with a contract bonding you both until certain insanity.
The first browsing and cruising sessions along the pages seemed pretty promising. Your “looking for student”, “family home looking for lodger” and “professionals only” are setting the standard of most ads. Affordables are far out of the city center and the easy access or more central places, way overpriced. Well, that was a given. But after a while you start reading and seing them a bit differently. The “65 year old retired English male and his 29 year old female brazilian partner looking for a female lodger, preferably a student”, does not look that innocent to me anymore. That reminded me of a job that I had when I was 18 and still living in germany. It was the last job I had out there before moving to the UK. I would go from door to door, working in environmental protection. Well, thats what we were supposed to say. In reality, we sold magazine subscribtions. You had to be comfortable with the unknown behind the closed gates of strangers. The smells, characters and situations that you encountered, were not something to be shared with outsiders knocking on your door, yet some people have no problem flinging themselves wide open for you to “possibly join”. Honestly, it was my own fault, I should have known better. The incident that made me finally throw my towel in, I lasted for about a week, was birthday boy. I guessed it was his birthday, as he was wearing that special suit you get given entering this world. Not normally shy when it comes to the human form, it is just wrong having your bits swinging out and about in a public staircase. Normally not a party pooper, I however kindly declined his offer to join in whatever celebrations he had planned that day and was that same evening on a train back to Leipzig.
But thats how flat or room hunting is in a city like London. You just don’t know what you sign up for, until it is too late and then you are stuck with it for three to six months minimum. I stayed in places where I was scared of the landlords family, had beaten up flatmates that took drugs on a daily basis and even had a male flatmate that took pleasure in nicking my underwear and wearing it to work….all things considered that was rather harmless, but I kept running out of knickers, which again can be costly. Truth is, people don’t tend to show their true colours until they feel safe or crazy enough. I tend to hide mine well….
So, good luck to me! As said, it is only for three to six months
You just got to 