They say moving into a new home is one of the most stressful experiences you can go through in life. They’re probably right, because my move from uni halls to a 7-person-house has been nothing but stress and complications for the past three weeks.
I’d like to say it all started the day I moved in, but even than that’s not the full truth. My contract with university halls of residence finished on the 23rd of June, whereas my contract to move into my new house started on the 1st of July, leaving a 7 day period where I had to work in Sunderland but with nowhere to stay. The solution? To squat in my halls of residence in Sunderland. That doesn’t actually sound too bad, but it’s a funny thing that a packed-up room/flat is nowhere near as homely as it was when all the posters/pictures were up on the walls, when the DVDs were stacked and the hifi could be on. Even though all my possessions were in the same room the reality of seeing them in bags and boxes was that I didn’t actually belong in this room anymore.
That week was a pain. I was the only person I knew of living in a 300 bedroom halls of residence. THAT was lonely. I had to stay indoors to avoid security/cleaners hassling me. Most of my friends moved back home and the only time I left the flat most days was to work. Far from the student life I’m used to. But it was only a week, so I put up with it and come Saturday 30th June I managed to move all my things into the new house.
The first few days in the new house were rosy. My six housemates made the trip up to Sunderland from wherever they were to ‘get things sorted’ in the new place (I’m still confused as to why my room is so pink, it doesn’t feel like my room because it’s pink and I currently don’t have enough money to buy posters and things to cover it… I will with time though. Anyway…) After trips to IKEA and much socialising, most people were content with their rooms and that they’d ‘moved in’. But as such, nothing was actually sorted. I realised this when they all went home again a few days later. There was a broken shower, broken cupboards, shit left everywhere throughout the house, everything needed cleaning, etc. etc.
I was left in a BIG 7-person house with one other guy, and the 10 days or so since then really have been frustrating. First things first we had to put motions in place for bills. As a flat we decided to pay an equal sum (£50) monthly into a joint bank account to cover all the bills. Easier said than done, because bank accounts don’t come at the click of a finger. They don’t come after waiting an hour in HSBC either. Or an hour after that in Barclays. No, it took me 2 hours one day just to get a further appointment with Barclays. After two more appointments, so many questions and a number of phone calls – we finally got the bank account. However, such is the delays in sending everything out, we can’t access this account (no card, no internet banking – all coming in the post soon I hope) so all we can do is pay in and set up direct debits (all that matters at the moment I guess). It’s easily taken 6 hours of my time over 3 days though, way more than I expected.
Trying to get seven people to pay £50 into a bank account is no easy task either. It’s funny how quiet people go when it’s time to cough up money. The people who’d been texting me all week and had such a laugh with only days earlier were suddenly very quiet. But I’ve no qualms about that, I’d be the same if someone demanded £50 a month when I wasn’t living in the house at the time.
Now it’s time to set up Sky and the Internet and everything! (A week after moving in) but alas, we need our BT line reconnecting before any of this can happen. Easy, right? We’ve got the BT line, we’ve got the bank account, just switch it back on? No. Not that easy at all. I rang up last Thursday and spoke to a foreigner with broken English (no, this won’t be a rant). I’m not entirely sure she understood what I said, although she seemed to, and she ended the call with “we’ll ring you back within 48 hours”. I’m yet to hear from BT and I’ve spent two more lengthy phone calls trying to hurry the issue along. Do the maths – on Thursday they said they’d ring back within two days. So, I should have heard back from them at Monday by the latest (if you include work-free weekends and all) but not a peep. It’s Wednesday now and you know what? I probably won’t hear from them today either. This really pisses me off as it’s the only thing we’re waiting on for Sky, Internet and a host of other things. And all it takes is for them to flick a switch and take some direct debit details (5 mins work). Disgraceful.
So at the moment I’ve pretty much no idea what’s happening in the outside world. No Sky to watch the news and no Internet to keep up with the rest of the world (music, football, etc.) – it’s killing me. I’ve got to make my way all the way to the city library just to check my e-mail… And the worst thing is that until BT get in touch with me (probably next week at the rate things are going) I can’t even order the internet (which will probably take ANOTHER week).
Other problems remain too. The washing machine which we rent (not from our landlord) is mouldy. Thus any clothes you put in stink. My flatmate rang the guy up and he kicked off about how previous tenants of this address had never paid him, how he was sick of it and that if we wanted to rent this washing machine it’d cost us £25 a month. £25 a month for a mouldy washing machine? Get the fuck outta here! So I’m not sure what we’re doing on that front yet. Grumpy-stiltskin picks up his substandard machine on Friday though.
If you’re not feeling sorry for me by now let me add that our analog aerial is broke so we can’t even watch channels 1-5 on analog TV. The bath water runs slightly warm at best, meaning a long process of heating kettles for baths, I’ve been working 5 nights out of 7 each week and I’ve not been able to goto the gym/eat properly for the past few weeks because of all this – meaning my beer gut has resurfaced with my holiday in Barcelona only a month away.
And my fucking phone bill is going to be through the roof this month.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.
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