Rant on rent

(Warning, rant ahead)

SERIOUSLY, I can not take this anymore! I am looking for a flat for WEEKS now and nothing works out. I have spend so much time looking at this, and worrying about this, it is really getting unbearable. I am constantly scrutinizing all the website with offers, reading the paper with ads, asking all people, it just does not work.

All that are find are small room on big loud streets. The occasional larger room is usually in a flat shared by folks that are either not interested at all to live with anyone but can not afford it, or people that smoke. (Who is the world smokes *inside* anymore?? yuk)

I guess I have high standards, but where I live matters greatly to me. I am in a foreign country I barely babble this language. I work hard and put a lot of energy into it. At least I want a comfortable safe haven to come home too! I am done living with sloppy students buying the cheapest toilet paper and eating only ramen noodle. I am done living in half-broken house that are cold and dark.I have got some basic criteria that I need: no carpet (allergies), no smokers (I despise that habit), no small room, no big loud streets, not a guy-only place. I do not need luxury, or fancy, just plain comfortable and pleasant to be in.


The harder part is the search process. I can finally decrypt all the ads from their abbreviated German. Example:

Moebl. 3er-WG-Zimmer (Stuehl.) zur ZW-Miete fuer ein Jahr (bis Aug. 2008), gr.
Bad u. Kueche; Tel.0761/3690149 o. 0172-3862421

Not easy. And then there are the phonecalls. I have to muster the energy to pick up the phone and call the people. Most of the time, they are not there. When they answer, they are usually just asking you: 'When do you want to see it?' And the male kind are the most difficult to handle. There is something so 'ungentle' about German guys. They have this authoritative voice as if they were always defending their turf. They speak to a stranger in the coldest most impersonal terms. Gee! What about a little 'Thanks for calling' or some enthusiasm in the voice? Instead I have been yeld at, lectured about timing, ignored in my requests for a slower pace of speaking, and so on.

The experience is just getting more difficult. I dread the phonecalls now. Especially I have started to speak to people in German, that might have been a mistake. I get the general point, but stay in the dark for a lot of it. If I do not speak in German I just phone and say, 'Hi, I am Jean-Olivier from Canada. I do not speak German well, perhaps you speak a little English?', that put a lot of them off. And if one of them in the flat speaks English other don't, or don't want to. So much for the idea that young Germans love to speak English, rubbish.

And now the problem, I am leaving on Friday for two weeks, so I MUST find. But the later we get in the month, the uglier the apartment gets. It feels like Halloween where the good candies are gone early and the average fructose sucker is all that's left for the latecomers.

Unlike a car or a pair shoes, one can not shop for a long time. There is a deadline: I am homeless in 14 days. Then I have to make a choice on a few 'not horrible' places and get stuck there for a long time.

Stupid Germany. This recent experience really adds to the tally of "I should leave" column. Things should not have to be this hard. I had tear of desperation this morning, I do not like that.

J.o.