House-hunting
When we first arrived in the Alpujarras for our Easter break last year, we went out and about with a couple of estate agents who showed us a range of houses, some more in need of modernisation than others (the others actually needed pulling down and rebuilding). We gave them a brief, so they would have a clear idea of what exactly we were after, i.e. a detached property with a sizeable piece of land in the countryside and ideally on the outskirts of a village. Consequently, when the first house we were taken to was a tall and narrow village house, hemmed in on all sides by other houses and when we asked why the current owners were selling, the estate agent duly replied: ”Oh, Jenny wants a garden.” …………Ah! I suppose we should have turned around there and then but our English politeness (plus the fact we were dependent on the estate agent for transport) made us go along with the viewing and for the next hour and a half we were entertained by Jenny who, rather than simply showing us the house as it was then, couldn´t resist recalling just how ghastly it had been before they refurbished it. “See that there? Well, afore we sorted it out, it … were…. crap!” Desperate to find anything complimentary to say, we remarked on how beautiful one of the terraces was, only to be told that it didn´t actually belong to the house but to the next door neighbour. (“But she never uses it, so it´s all right.”) The experience wasn´t without its funny side, however: you could almost see the estate agent´s toes curling under in mortification. Vendor from hell?
Another time, we were packed into the BMW of a Spanish estate agent´s daughter´s boyfriend (are you following?) and the daughter, a very pleasant young girl, fresh out of college, whisked us off to see some properties she was sure we would looooooove. Whizzing through the drab and dusty outskirts of an industrial town, we passed a big building. “What does matadero mean?” I asked innocently. Reluctantly, my husband told me that it meant slaughter house but the estate agent´s daughter was keen to reassure me that it was no longer used as such (surprisingly, she didn´t try to flog it to us). Having finally arrived at what looked like the local tip, EAD (estate agent´s daughter) parked the Beamer and led us up a narrow, unmade track. “Of course, you´d have to put in a road”, she chirped. “If you get together with the neighbours, they might share the cost.” Yeah – right. The house, more or less a ruin, and ridiculously expensive to boot, was - to use Jenny´s words … crap. Wedged against the bottom of a high cliff which prevented it from enjoying any daylight, let alone sunshine, it was horrible and we should have just legged it but – of course – we didn´t. Ian made a sardonic remark about the fact that the cliff had been prettily decorated with the name of one Manolo. Far from voicing any criticism, EAD proudly announced that the perpetrator was, in fact, a friend of hers. Hmm! She was doing her utmost to sell the house to us nevertheless: “It could be great. See this bit of land over there, leading past the house? Well, they are building a new major road through here soon, so the access, if you´re thinking of a hospitality business, would be superb. And see that great big building over there, on the hill? That´s going to be the new slaughter house.” Enough already.
They say you have to kiss many frogs before your prince comes along and I think the same applies to houses. Eventually, the day before we were due to fly back to the UK - it was a rainy day and we had nearly cancelled our appointment with the estate agent because we were sick to death of looking at hovels where you felt like wiping your feet on the way out - we were introduced to ´our prince´. There it was: the perfect house for us and it just felt right from the minute we walked through the door. Now, if you have read my first blog ´The story so far´ you will know that this is not, in fact, leading to the ending ´… and they lived happily ever after.´ Far from it. Even though we had our offer accepted and indeed once back in England informed our respective employers of our intentions to leave, someone somewhere obviously thought that we hadn´t had our fair share of frogs and the news that the vendors had changed their mind about selling came like a bolt from the blue. The sensible ones amongst you might say that we were stupid to act so rashly in the first place and yes, maybe you´re right, but sometimes the spontaneous act is irresistible – you only live once (unless you´re a cat of course). If we have learned anything from this episode (and I´m pleased to say that we have), it is that we would never again commit ourselves to buying a house in an unfamiliar area until we´ve lived there for a significant period of time to get a taste of what day-to-day life is like. This is probably the best piece of advice we could ever give to anyone thinking of emigrating: find yourself a place to rent first and if you still like living in the area after several months, then and only then look for a property to buy. It´s amazing what a difference there is between actually living somewhere permanently and merely visiting for a short holiday. If the house purchase hadn´t fallen through, we would now be stuck with a property to sell, as it only took us a few months to discover that for various reasons, the area simply wasn´t for us (the main reason being my husband struggling to cope with the extreme altitude). I really do believe that things happen for a reason and it now seems that we had a lucky escape.
We returned to the Alpujarras in May (originally we had booked this trip to sign the contract for the house purchase), having decided to keep on house-hunting even though we had no great hopes of stumbling across a second dream house. This time we found ourselves in the clutches of yet another estate agent who was car-less at the time of our visit and asked us if we´d mind using our hire car to view a house which was tucked away high up in the mountains. We had no major objections as such but did express our concern as to the suitability of a Ford Focus to negotiate the inevitably steep and bumpy track leading up to the house. This to us seemed a justified query especially as the property details, the agent had already printed out for us, contained her own recommendation that a 4 x 4 vehicle would be required to tackle the track. “Oh yes - but only in the winter months, really. At this time of the year it´s no problem to get up there in a normal car.” We believed her – foolishly as it turned out. The arrangement was to meet up just outside the El Cercado holiday complex where we were staying for the second time. She had told us she would happily walk down from her office but at the arranged time was nowhere to be seen. We drove up the road, fully expecting to meet her at some point but - still no sign of her. It was only when we finally arrived at her office that we spotted her, locking up and on the brink of leaving. She would have been at least 20 minutes late, so you can imagine that we weren´t too impressed from the start. We were even less impressed when she opened the car door and asked if we´d mind if her dog joined us too. Er …… it was a hire car after all and we were quite keen to return it without muddy footprints and hairs on the upholstery. She assured us he was a very well-behaved dog and so the four of us set off on a little adventure we would not forget for quite some time.
When we left the main road to wind our way up the mountain track, we soon wished we´d never agreed to this ridiculous venture. The track was narrow, steep and large potholes made it very bumpy indeed. Ian is undeniably a confident driver and he is quite patient (with other people – not with me) but he went really quiet and I could see steam coming out of his ears – he was furious. The rough grass and weeds growing in the middle of the track did their utmost to scratch the underside whilst overhanging bushes and trees did their bit to scrape the sides of the car. The track was so steep that the engine howled for mercy and even though I was slightly distracted as the dog kept looking over, and dribbling on, my right shoulder, I undid my seatbelt and placed my hand on the door in readiness to jump out. The drive was turning into a nightmare and our by now very sombre mood wasn´t exactly improved when the estate agent reminded us that it was only a hire car after all. The track seemed endless and when we finally got to the house, Ian was muttering imprecations through clenched teeth and I had a serious chat with my knees instructing them to stop shaking. Our companion jumped out of the car with the words: “Oh dear. Bad start. Clients not happy.” Well, she was right there. The house wasn´t bad and enjoyed gorgeous views; the English lady who owned it was delightful but the place just wasn´t for us for a whole host of reasons apart from the horrendous access. The drive down seemed a bit easier but Ian took it very, very steadily and nearly wore out the brakes. You won´t be surprised to hear that this was the last time we spent any significant time in this estate agent´s company. Or her dog´s.
When we came out to Andalucía for good in September last year, we knew we had to find ourselves a bigger place to rent within the space of a month (the cats were due to arrive at Granada airport in mid October). This, thankfully, turned out to be a lot easier than our previous efforts to find a home. Even though we viewed a few places with estate agents, the house we found, where we are still living at the moment, was advertised by the owner on signs stuck here and there throughout the village of Bérchules. On an outing to the village with our friend Laura from El Cercado who had taken us under her wing when we first arrived, seeing herself as our ´agent´ trying to fix us up with accommodation, jobs etc, we stumbled across one of the signs. We were directed to ask for more information at the local tobacconist (which is in fact the Aladdin´s cave I referred to in my first blog) and it turned out that the lady serving behind the counter was herself the owner of the house. She showed us around the place chatting constantly and repeating “Aquí hay de todo.” (“You´ve got everything here.“) over and over again whilst proudly showing us microwave, ironing board and iron, washing machine, crockery, cutlery, bedding and much, much more. We asked if she minded cats (which luckily she didn´t), agreed to rent this 3-bedroom flat which is the recently refurbished ground floor of a substantial village house and has a little vegetable garden at the back (perfect for our moggies, so we thought), set a date for the move, asked if our landlady wanted a deposit (she didn´t) and were pleasantly surprised when she told us what the monthly rental would be. When we finally move out in April to rent a country house in the Málaga province, we will have been here nearly six months. Our stay has been highly enjoyable, more often than not, and I´ll tell you more about it in my next blogs.
Me voy.