It's Worse Than That, It's a Shed, Jim

At the risk of repeating myself, another lovely morning with another 8AM start. We went to look at a house which would work OK, 4 bedrooms but no garden. Sadly only a 12 month term but we're asking for 6. The same agent, who was very friendly and helpful also had another property on her books. Looking it up on the map, Di had it pegged as no. 110. Looking on google maps it looked OK. However the map was a bit out, or Di's reading of it was and the place was basically a shed. It was also in a disgusting state, full of dogs and cigarette ends. That probably explains why the rent was only $350. We crossed it off our list.

Di's friend Caroline rang us to say that the owners of the first house we looked at would take a 9 month term. I still don't want it, as it doesn't feel at all homely, and at $450 it's relatively expensive and it has absolutely no heating. That might be all right for the next 6 months, but after that it could get a bit nippy. Also they can't let us have it until 9th October which means another $1200 to stay in the hotel.

We rang the agent for the house recommended by the hotel, and the agent could not have been less helpful if she'd tried. No way would they consider anything other than 12 months, they insisted that we produced all of our references (everyone else so far has asked for names and made contact themselves) and offers of paying 6 months up front were countered with claims that we'd just wreck the place once we'd paid. We were also a bit suspicious about the roof that was damaged in a freak hail storm back in May which still hadn't been fixed. All in all it was a very negative experience.

We decided to ask the agent for the house on Excelsior place to draw up papers for Monday. It's an expensive property at $500, but they will take 6 months and then require a rolling 3 weeks notice after that. We are looking at another house this afternoon and of course we have the advertisement this Saturday which may bring something in.

Westpac rang to say my visa debit card had arrived, but Di's hadn't. Hmm. A bit odd...and then the post arrived at the hotel and Di's card was among it. Also our AA cards arrived. Over here, you need to visit the bank to set your PIN number. We'd done this with our EFTPOS cards, but that was I thought because they were "off the shelf" and anonymous. It seems that even though you've got a personalised card they don't issue PIN numbers through the post like in the UK. A bit of a bind, but I guess it's a little more secure. We wandered down to Bayfair and picked up the card and PINed both of them.