Future accommodation

Day 6

My week here in this hostel is nearing its end, which is a shame because I am starting to like this place.  I have started to get to know some of the people staying here and some people who are working here.  The feeling of loneliness from the first few days had gone (like I knew it would).  I enjoyed coming down to the kitchen every morning (expect when I was ill) and seeing new faces.  But my stay here was always going to be temporary until I found a more long term place.

Sounds tempting from the advert

I have been chasing up some adverts for places during the last few days and I had a viewing today at a place across town.  I am still not familiar with Sydney and I misjudge distances on my map very badly.  What I thought looked like a 30 minute walk across town actually turned out to be a 1 hour 30 minute walk across town.  After the frustratingly long journey I was hoping that the place would be worth the journey, but it really wasn't.

The entrance to the property was a small door hidden between 2 shops; it was so hidden that it took me 3 walks up and down the high street to find it.  I walked inside to see a mattress in the living room, seeing a mattress in the main communal space is always a bad sign.  I asked the woman who was showing me around how many people lived here and she said 10 people.  10 people!  Where the hell were these 10 people staying?  The only way you could have 10 people staying in a place this small is if you stacked them on top of each other.  She said that there were 2 bedrooms of 4 people and 2 bedrooms of 1 person.  Oh, and in case you are wonder who the mattress in the living room was for?  That was for her 2 children.  She also showed me the downstairs toilet which had a massive turd floating in it.

Nothing says "welcome home" more than a creaky mess front door

I know the rent was cheap for this place but you would actually have to pay me to live there.  In fairness the single room I would be staying in wasn’t all that bad, but overall I think staying in that house would have driven me mad.

After viewing that terrible house I had to walk all the way back across town to the hostel.  The journey getting there was bad enough but I had lost my map, I think I left it in somewhere on the way to the viewing.  Trying to find your way in a city you are not familiar with on a hot day is not fun.  I think the point where I realized I was totally lost was when I walked past an abandoned car with no wheels.  After about 2 hours I finally stumbled into an area I knew and managed to find the hostel from there.  By this point my feet felt like they were on fire.  I have only seen one house but already I think I need to raise my budget if I am going to find a place that is liveable.