90. Back Again 

Some time last week I was thinking about my Blog. I have not thought much about it in the last couple of years but I thought of the way I started it all originally. I called my first posting “So many addresses” and I listed the many places I had lived in. There were 16 in that first list but further down the line I had to add another one as we moved once again. But still later we moved once again. Then this week two people have mentioned my Blog so I feel prompted to add another episode. In the article number 75 you can read, if you are in anyway interested, about our move from Spoon Bay Road to Barry Street in Bateau Bay. We learnt to love that old house and were very happy there, but at the end of June 2020 we were informed by the letting agent that the owners had put the house up for sale. It was quite a shock for us, we had lived there happily for almost 9 years and did not think that the owners had any thoughts of selling. Lots of people said that maybe the house would be bought by other investors and that the new owners would like us to stay on as tenants. I did not hold out much hope of that as we could see from the market trends our house would fetch a good price. It was on a nice large, level site, close to shops, school, the doctor’s surgery, the beach, Crackneck view site and walking trail. We were pretty sure that when someone bought it, they would want to demolish the old house and build themselves their dream home. About October of 2020 the house was sold and the new owner, Darren, came to see us. He confirmed that he intended demolishing and rebuilding but that it would not be until the new year, so we were not to worry that we were going to be put out on the street. He promised us that he would not just turf us out and that as he and his wife still hadn’t decided what kind of house they wanted to build, let alone had the plans drawn up and submitted to council, so he said we were not to feel pressured. That was very kind of him of course but we knew that we needed to start looking for a new home as rental properties were pretty scarce. But it was good to know that we could relax a little and not have to take the first property that came our way just out of desperation. We looked a number of places but due to the Coronavirus lockdowns viewing was not easy. All the agents knew that there was a scarcity of reasonably prices homes available and did not try to make things any easier. Before we could view a property, we had to fill in an online application. They asked us for all sorts of information about ourselves and some of the agents even wanted us to give them a copy of our bank statement. This was before we had even seen the property not when we were actually applying for it. The properties had to be viewed wearing masks, social distancing, sanitizing one’s hands, and doing an electronic check in. Not a very easy time in our lives but thankfully Darren was not pressurizing us. He would pop in to visit now and again so we knew that he was progressing with his plans and we did need to find our selves somewhere to live. I scanned the internet every day for new houses on the market and viewed many that might be suitable. In a lot of cases, they had actually been taken before they appeared on the websites. Then one evening I saw that the agent that we had rented our Barry Street house though was advertising a small villa that might suit us. I got on the phone early in the morning and as we had been dealing with them for about 9 years, they knew us and did not need to go through all the rigmarole that we had been subjected to by the other agents. We arranged to see the house the following day and were accepted promptly and without any great fuss. We arranged to take occupation on 8th March and then the fun began. But I will tell you more about that in the next posting.