Moving Out
June 21st is the first official day of summer. The weather in Bristol though does not reflect this time of the season. It has been cloudy and raining for the past few days and looks like it will continue doing so through the weekend. Wednesday night we had a proper thunderstorm that came through the area really quick and dumped a shyte load of rain. Lightning had even stuck the sign of this one shop in the city centre- scary.
So the Internet at the pub is still not working. Tuesday I had to relocate my “office” to the Marriott Hotel. Paid 15 quid for 24hour WiFi access. Was pretty cool, hung out in the cocktail lounge and was basically the only person there all day. Around 4pm more people turned up. Wednesday I had my office at The Watershed, this café/cinema/digital media centre close to the Pub. They have free WiFi but I felt obligated to buy a few coffees throughout the day so I didn’t feel like a total mooch. The one downfall of the free public WiFi is that once more people got onto it the connection speed got slower and I couldn’t even get on to the VPN at all, and Skype calls were out of the question.
Started look for flats as well, found about 6 places online, sent them emails. Then when I got home Leonna had gone by an agency and got a listing of places in Bristol that we would be shown Thursday afternoon. Then a guy I had emailed called and we would see his flat Thursday evening. Ended up back at the Watershed Thursday for work, took an extended lunch break in the afternoon to go check out the flats Leonna arranged for us to see. That was fun, we had 4 places lined up, but at we were driving to the agency, we realized the first one was unfurnished and decided to skip anything unfurnished, so down to 3 places. The first one we go to looks really small and we realize it is a one bedroom! Not sure how the agents got that into the pile, so scratch that and down to 2. Plus the halls in the building smelled like a dentist office.
At the next one, as we are walking down the street, we approach this old church and I tell Leonna, “Wouldn’t it be cool if they took old churches and converted them into flats?” Well they did, this was the next property we were viewing! A bit strange at first but when we entered the place was really lovely. Huge rooms, one with high vaulted ceilings and windows (remember this is in a church), and each room had its own bathroom, the smaller room had the larger one. Then up a flight of stairs and to the right was the living room. Huge pane-glass windows, then up the stairs again to the 3rd floor which had the kitchen, which was kind of like on a balcony that when you looked over the side, you saw down to the living room.
We really liked the look of the place, and Leonna was practically ready to sign the contract there and then, but when we started asking about price, I felt my purse strings tighten. Rent was a bit more than I really wanted to pay and we owed the agency a fee. As we were leaving Leonna was like “Why aren’t we taking this place now?” and I pointed out my concerns about the high rent, not only for myself but for them as well, and then Nick brought up his concern about the area. This part of Bristol was very close to a bunch of brothel-type places and massage parlors. I had also noticed before when we got out of the car that the area didn’t look that great. He said he wouldn’t want us walking on Old Market late at night, which is the only road to get to the city centre and Sublime, which we would be going to late at night, be it them for work or me to go out or see Alex.
We would keep the place in mind but I was not about to sign a contract, especially since it was the first proper place we saw. That evening I went to see the other flat on Victoria Street. Nick and Leonna would follow as Nick had some food orders to take care of. When I got there and saw the place a few red flags popped up, dishwasher wasn’t working, the living room and small room (which would be mine) faced the street and it is a main road, so the noise level concerned me, then in the bathroom the tub needed a good scrub and possibly re-grouting, and in the larger room the windows faced down into the living room and couldn’t be opened, and the girl said it could get rather stuffy sometimes.
She left me to have a further look around on my own, and I was about to text Leonna and say forget it, but then she called and they were at the door. I told them I wasn’t too sure, but they had a look still. We all seemed to have the same hesitations and I actually thought we were going to scratch the place but after we left and got into the car and I told them how much the rent and bills were estimated to be, Nick said it was very cheap. So now we were reconsidering. We had a long chat in the car and when we got back to the pub and decided the few faults could be taken care of by the owner. So I called the guy, told him we were interested but had some questions, and the issues we had he was fine to take care of. He’d clean and re-grout the bathtub, and replace the dishwasher. So with that we told him we’d take it and he’ll be emailing me the contract soon for us to sign and post back to him. Move in date is July 7th- about 2 weeks away!!
So I have talked about all the negative things about this place- allow me to share the good things. In short (haha, like anything I write is short): kitchen and dining area are separate from the living room, living room has high vault ceilings making it a very open space, rooms are upstairs, and the whole place is fully furnished- every pot, pan, teaspoon, table, TV, linens are all there for us to use, which means we don’t have to budget for all that stuff. It also has a storage area that all the tenants share, and there are only 5 flats, so it isn’t a huge building. From what the girl described most of the tenants seem like nice, orderly types, only once in a blue moon have they noticed people being noisier than preferred. The other great thing was the guy didn’t ask for any references or credit checks- sweet. Not that any of us aren’t able of paying rent, but I have very little credit over here still, possibly the same for Leonna and Nick’s is tied to the pub, which sometimes shows up poorly.
All in all we are very happy with the choice. It is super close to Sublime and everywhere else we all go. The area is safe, none of us would be concerned about walking home late at night, and I think once the place is cleared of all the stuff in it and we make it our own it will be very nice. Housewarming party!!!
So the Internet at the pub is still not working. Tuesday I had to relocate my “office” to the Marriott Hotel. Paid 15 quid for 24hour WiFi access. Was pretty cool, hung out in the cocktail lounge and was basically the only person there all day. Around 4pm more people turned up. Wednesday I had my office at The Watershed, this café/cinema/digital media centre close to the Pub. They have free WiFi but I felt obligated to buy a few coffees throughout the day so I didn’t feel like a total mooch. The one downfall of the free public WiFi is that once more people got onto it the connection speed got slower and I couldn’t even get on to the VPN at all, and Skype calls were out of the question.
Started look for flats as well, found about 6 places online, sent them emails. Then when I got home Leonna had gone by an agency and got a listing of places in Bristol that we would be shown Thursday afternoon. Then a guy I had emailed called and we would see his flat Thursday evening. Ended up back at the Watershed Thursday for work, took an extended lunch break in the afternoon to go check out the flats Leonna arranged for us to see. That was fun, we had 4 places lined up, but at we were driving to the agency, we realized the first one was unfurnished and decided to skip anything unfurnished, so down to 3 places. The first one we go to looks really small and we realize it is a one bedroom! Not sure how the agents got that into the pile, so scratch that and down to 2. Plus the halls in the building smelled like a dentist office.
At the next one, as we are walking down the street, we approach this old church and I tell Leonna, “Wouldn’t it be cool if they took old churches and converted them into flats?” Well they did, this was the next property we were viewing! A bit strange at first but when we entered the place was really lovely. Huge rooms, one with high vaulted ceilings and windows (remember this is in a church), and each room had its own bathroom, the smaller room had the larger one. Then up a flight of stairs and to the right was the living room. Huge pane-glass windows, then up the stairs again to the 3rd floor which had the kitchen, which was kind of like on a balcony that when you looked over the side, you saw down to the living room.
We really liked the look of the place, and Leonna was practically ready to sign the contract there and then, but when we started asking about price, I felt my purse strings tighten. Rent was a bit more than I really wanted to pay and we owed the agency a fee. As we were leaving Leonna was like “Why aren’t we taking this place now?” and I pointed out my concerns about the high rent, not only for myself but for them as well, and then Nick brought up his concern about the area. This part of Bristol was very close to a bunch of brothel-type places and massage parlors. I had also noticed before when we got out of the car that the area didn’t look that great. He said he wouldn’t want us walking on Old Market late at night, which is the only road to get to the city centre and Sublime, which we would be going to late at night, be it them for work or me to go out or see Alex.
We would keep the place in mind but I was not about to sign a contract, especially since it was the first proper place we saw. That evening I went to see the other flat on Victoria Street. Nick and Leonna would follow as Nick had some food orders to take care of. When I got there and saw the place a few red flags popped up, dishwasher wasn’t working, the living room and small room (which would be mine) faced the street and it is a main road, so the noise level concerned me, then in the bathroom the tub needed a good scrub and possibly re-grouting, and in the larger room the windows faced down into the living room and couldn’t be opened, and the girl said it could get rather stuffy sometimes.
She left me to have a further look around on my own, and I was about to text Leonna and say forget it, but then she called and they were at the door. I told them I wasn’t too sure, but they had a look still. We all seemed to have the same hesitations and I actually thought we were going to scratch the place but after we left and got into the car and I told them how much the rent and bills were estimated to be, Nick said it was very cheap. So now we were reconsidering. We had a long chat in the car and when we got back to the pub and decided the few faults could be taken care of by the owner. So I called the guy, told him we were interested but had some questions, and the issues we had he was fine to take care of. He’d clean and re-grout the bathtub, and replace the dishwasher. So with that we told him we’d take it and he’ll be emailing me the contract soon for us to sign and post back to him. Move in date is July 7th- about 2 weeks away!!
So I have talked about all the negative things about this place- allow me to share the good things. In short (haha, like anything I write is short): kitchen and dining area are separate from the living room, living room has high vault ceilings making it a very open space, rooms are upstairs, and the whole place is fully furnished- every pot, pan, teaspoon, table, TV, linens are all there for us to use, which means we don’t have to budget for all that stuff. It also has a storage area that all the tenants share, and there are only 5 flats, so it isn’t a huge building. From what the girl described most of the tenants seem like nice, orderly types, only once in a blue moon have they noticed people being noisier than preferred. The other great thing was the guy didn’t ask for any references or credit checks- sweet. Not that any of us aren’t able of paying rent, but I have very little credit over here still, possibly the same for Leonna and Nick’s is tied to the pub, which sometimes shows up poorly.
All in all we are very happy with the choice. It is super close to Sublime and everywhere else we all go. The area is safe, none of us would be concerned about walking home late at night, and I think once the place is cleared of all the stuff in it and we make it our own it will be very nice. Housewarming party!!!
posted by Triana @ 2:53 AM
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