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Expat's Eye
Expat's Eye
UPDATED: November 17, 2010 Web Exclusive
Moving On
Finding a new place to live is only half the battle. The moving process is not for the faint of heart
By Mike Fuksman
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It doesn't matter if you're moving to a new place just down the street, or to a completely new street in a new city in a country you've never been to before – relocating is never a picnic. Organizing, coordinating and actually schlepping your belongings to a new home all require a level of determination and doggedness that can only be sustained for a short time.

As such, I was not exactly looking forward to moving to the apartment that my girlfriend and I now share. It's not that I wasn't excited – I was actually pretty happy to move into our new neighborhood and discover a new part of the city.

No, it was the moving process itself, and the accompanying frustrations of dealing with real estate agents and landlords, that I was apprehensive about. Having already moved a couple of times since first landing in Beijing, I was familiar with the troubles and travails that we were likely to encounter. However, if there's anything I've learned from my adventures in relocation, it's that the process never goes quite as smoothly as you might want it to, no matter how much you prepare.

I won't even bother to go into the finer details regarding our experiences with the various real estate agents we dealt with; most Beijing residents know all too well just how dreadful it can be to negotiate with these shysters. Many of the apartments we initially looked at were out of our price range once we added the agent fees into the equation. I think it would be sufficient to say that my impression of these hucksters is not exactly flattering.

After many inflammatory debates with my girlfriend, I was finally forced to accept that the agents are somewhat of a necessary evil – when we looked at an apartment that was listed by a landlord, without the help of a real estate agent, we realized that we were not likely to find an apartment that met our specifications without consulting an agent.

And that's how we found ourselves in a cozy, whitewashed two-bedroom just five minutes away from Beijing's Line 10 subway. Initially, we were sold: the apartment was clean, well-lit, and relatively spacious and came with a beautiful view of a nearby park.

We had spent the previous month living in near-poverty in order to afford our new digs, and at that point, we were just happy to see an apartment that was free of garbage and mouse droppings. Seriously, landlords: if you're going to rent an apartment, you might want to consider cleaning the place up a bit before you start bringing in prospective tenants. Just a friendly tip.

Although I knew that moving day was approaching, I ignored my girlfriend's admonishments and neglected to pack my things in any kind of logical fashion. It just so happened that we were scheduled to move into our new apartment on the day after Halloween, which we had celebrated in grand style.

Boxing up and bagging one's entire collection of personal belongings is never a treat – even less so when you're hungover and wounded from a raucous night out. I crammed and shoved as best as I could, and threw the last box into the back of the van we hired to transport our things. We were finally making the move.

We'd been promised by our agency that the apartment would be furnished with the things we required – chairs, a desk, tables and so on. The dusty, wobbly chairs and tables that they brought in did nothing to improve my opinion of these people. But I soldiered on – surely the apartment would be more comfortable once we finished settling in.

And then it got cold. Really, really cold. Offices and apartments all over the city turned on their A/C units and set them to warm up the air; I thought, why don't we do the same?

Oh, I know why. Because we don't even have A/C in this apartment. We could thank our friendly neighborhood real estate agent for that, since he neglected to tell us that our A/C units wouldn't be installed until April. We wore our winter jackets inside until the heat was turned on last week. Lovely.

But now, it seems that the dust has settled. Our furniture, ramshackle though it might be, is at least serviceable. The nice man selling youtiao at the stall right outside our apartment building every morning has done much to lift my spirits. We've found some lovely Chongqing-style restaurants nearby, and we still have that nice view of the park. Every apartment has its "charms" (read: problems), but for the time being, we are warm, safe and doing our best to make our new house into a home.



 
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