After a lovely and refreshing Christmas holiday, first at home in New York and then up north with Dave's family, I was excited to finally move to Nottingham. I had started work in December just after my trip to Japan (pictures will be posted soon, I promise!) but didn't have a place to live lined up. I spent three weeks living out of a suitcase and staying multiple AirBnB locations while I got up and running at the university and searched for a flat or a house to rent.
It worked, but it wasn't pleasant to wear the same five outfits and live in hostel accommodation while trying to adjust to my shiny new job title of independent research fellow. I scoured the web for new listings, intent on finding something special. A bright and spacious kitchen that Dave and I could experiment in, 2 bedrooms so I could host guests like a proper adult… is that too much to ask for? After noticing that listings were trickling in at a pathetically measly rate before the holidays, and viewing exciting possibilities only to discover the reality was nothing at all like the photos online, I started to be a little be worried. I needed a place to live; I could not continue with AirBnB and a suitcase.
So I changed tack, looking more central and primarily at apartments. I viewed a 2-bed place in a converted mill on the edge of the city center, and was won over by the soaring ceilings and exposed brick arched windows, along with surprisingly decent kitchen counter space for an apartment. I got excited. I negotiated on rent and start date. I was all set.
Perhaps you see where this is going… after three weeks sharing my enthusiasm for the place with my family and friends, it became the ideal apartment in my head. And, as always, reality was a shock. I also had frustratingly bad luck the entire week, with little problems and big problems all snowballing into teary distress. First, Dave and I couldn't get into the property. I had specifically asked the letting agency to check out the electronic fob keys, which they promised they had, and sure enough the fobs were incorrectly formatted and not working. Cue panic, getting the agency and the building management team to work together 5 minutes before closing to get me new keys. Dave and I then unloaded the hired van, which involved a few doors, so we did it in batches. While we must have been elsewhere in the hall, a box that I left propping open one of the doors vanished, and I found it in the nearby stairwell, ripped open. Fortunately, it was just old clothes and nothing was lost as far as I can gather. I even stepped in dog shit. It was the worst possible first day, and I was already dreaming of an escape.
Things didn't improve any time soon. There was a leak under the sink, so I called the letting agency and they arranged a plumber. The external door to one of the car parks seemed permanently open, leaving a cold draft and zero safety. To fix this, I learned that I can't deal directly with the building management, but rather with their national customer service agents, to register the repair request. This leads me into my main concern. My building is managed by a housing authority, which specializes in social/subsidised housing. I'm hypothetically in favor of mixed-income/tenure accommodation, but I was suddenly feeling a bit blindsided by the situation and ever so slightly NIMBY-esque. When I registered the door repair, it was treated as an 'emergency repair.' That means that the other residents in the building just didn't care enough to bother reporting it.
Oh, and I spilled water on my laptop in my backpack and had to perform emergency drying and cleaning techniques. And I found out I can't get internet for another month because the service providers are incapable of plugging in a cable until February.
So, where am I now? I never would have predicted this, but I'm almost liking this apartment again. Dave came up again over the weekend, and now my kitchen is stocked, the wine rack is loaded, my boxes are emptying, and the furniture is arranged more sensibly. He is a star. The plumber came and fixed the leak. The external door was adjusted so it closes Most of the time. The new arrangement means I can get radio signals and classical music filters throughout the flat. After five days in silica gel kitty litter and some isopropyl alcohol cleaning, the macbook is healthy enough for me to be typing this up. So yes, everything has improved.
I'm still worried about the neighborhood; I knew there were some less nice streets nearby, but the issues in my own building do make me a bit uneasy. There are some things I couldn't have known beforehand, and more things that I won't know until I've lived here a bit longer. Maybe I'll bolt when my lease is up in July, or maybe I'll stick it out and enjoy the soaring ceilings and exposed brick a while longer. Stay tuned, and in the meantime I now have a second bedroom for hosting guests like a proper adult...
