House Hunting: International
Looking for a place to live is hard enough at the best of times. Throw in being in a new country with no job or references and no idea what a reasonable budget or location is, and things get about 10 times harder.
I’ve been staying at a hostel since I arrived in London and even though it’s not a bad hostel (more about it in another post, hopefully) I didn’t really want to stay here much longer. They also have a limit of 14 nights. Naturally my first 2...3 days were write offs and I could barely think straight to look for a place. Or I was sleeping. Eventually I got my act together and started looking. Luckily there are some lovely apps to help with this, namely SpareRoom and Rightmove.
I had been hoping to find a place by myself (no, you don’t need to tell me, I know it’s expensive) because I’m sort of over just having a room. However, being in a time crunch and not really knowing where I wanted to live, I went with the flat share option. Which, let me tell you, is still pretty difficult.
I had to try and find a place that wasn’t stupid expensive, wasn’t ages away from transportation, would accept a short let, and didn’t care about references or me not having a job. I found a few places on SpareRoom, messaged some of them, and miraculously someone offered me to come view a room! Even though I was all cozy in my hostel pod and had not intended on moving for the next 12-14 hours, I dragged myself back out into the world and limped my way (yeah I’ve been walking a lot and have a blister now...) to a tube station and, thank you Citymapper, figures out how to get there.
I (half) jokingly messaged my sister and said I was looking at a place and if I didn’t message her in an hour I may be dead. Didn’t have to worry, the landlord was a pretty nice dude. He told me he was going to make a decision the next day and let me know, as there’d been a bit of interest.
lol and behold the next day he messaged me and asked if I would like to move in! Woohoo I have a place to live! Found one in less than a week. I’m actually a little surprised by that. Had to do all the official stuff like contracts and money transfer, which stressed me out probably way more than it should have, but all is finished and approved.
I had to extend my stay at the hostel (twice, actually) since my move in date is Saturday and I was meant to check out Wednesday. Why I thought I would only need 6 nights is beyond me. But the hostel staff made it work and it’s all good.
I’ll be at this place for a minimum of 2 months, and then we’ll see what happens. But at least if I do decide to move elsewhere I’ll have more time to look for places. I’m pretty stoked because there’s going to be another Canadian girl living there too.
Now that I’m no longer stressed about finding a place to live I can start looking for a job and enjoy my time sightseeing in my new city!
I’ve been staying at a hostel since I arrived in London and even though it’s not a bad hostel (more about it in another post, hopefully) I didn’t really want to stay here much longer. They also have a limit of 14 nights. Naturally my first 2...3 days were write offs and I could barely think straight to look for a place. Or I was sleeping. Eventually I got my act together and started looking. Luckily there are some lovely apps to help with this, namely SpareRoom and Rightmove.
I had been hoping to find a place by myself (no, you don’t need to tell me, I know it’s expensive) because I’m sort of over just having a room. However, being in a time crunch and not really knowing where I wanted to live, I went with the flat share option. Which, let me tell you, is still pretty difficult.
I had to try and find a place that wasn’t stupid expensive, wasn’t ages away from transportation, would accept a short let, and didn’t care about references or me not having a job. I found a few places on SpareRoom, messaged some of them, and miraculously someone offered me to come view a room! Even though I was all cozy in my hostel pod and had not intended on moving for the next 12-14 hours, I dragged myself back out into the world and limped my way (yeah I’ve been walking a lot and have a blister now...) to a tube station and, thank you Citymapper, figures out how to get there.
I (half) jokingly messaged my sister and said I was looking at a place and if I didn’t message her in an hour I may be dead. Didn’t have to worry, the landlord was a pretty nice dude. He told me he was going to make a decision the next day and let me know, as there’d been a bit of interest.
lol and behold the next day he messaged me and asked if I would like to move in! Woohoo I have a place to live! Found one in less than a week. I’m actually a little surprised by that. Had to do all the official stuff like contracts and money transfer, which stressed me out probably way more than it should have, but all is finished and approved.
I had to extend my stay at the hostel (twice, actually) since my move in date is Saturday and I was meant to check out Wednesday. Why I thought I would only need 6 nights is beyond me. But the hostel staff made it work and it’s all good.
I’ll be at this place for a minimum of 2 months, and then we’ll see what happens. But at least if I do decide to move elsewhere I’ll have more time to look for places. I’m pretty stoked because there’s going to be another Canadian girl living there too.
Now that I’m no longer stressed about finding a place to live I can start looking for a job and enjoy my time sightseeing in my new city!
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