Looking for an apartment in Geneva is a full-time job. I couldn't have done it if I was working. You can only see apartments between 9am and 5pm during weekdays; and can only understand the rules and send in your application if you know French.
Even though N's office made is much easier with assigning us a relocation agent, who drove me to the site and then back, sent in our applications for us, and was generally very sweet; I still saw some 20 apartments before I got the one we'll be moving in to this weekend.
Basically, the deal is that when you see one, like it, and apply for it, there are already some 20 people on the list already who have expressed a desire in the same apartment as well. So when the owner looks at the list, he/she sees 20 people having similar applications and even similar pay packages (coz everyone here looking for a place is working with at least one of the UN organisations).
With a 2-bedroom apartment costing about CHF 2000, a person who earns CHF 6000 is as qualified to rent the apartment as someone who's earning CHF 10,000 a month.
When we'd seen some 19 apartments, applied to even the ones I wasn't too crazy about and still got rejections from all of them, we started thinking if being Indian was working to our disadvantage. When N's boss also said the whole looking for an apartment through the property agent route was a hoax as they always, and only, gave it to the Swiss, we started getting convinced that why would any house owner choose us over any of the Swiss/white applicants?
Of course, when we heard a positive reply from the 20th apartment, that theory went out the window; and I take back everything I have said about the Swiss being racist.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Land issues
How does this 'don't be so nice with people' concept actually work? It's not as if we're going out of our way to be nice. It's just basic politeness that we're following. Basic politeness when one's dealing with a 93-year-old.
Our landlady claims she's 93. Yet she's at our door every time we have a problem with the apartment, or with the laundry downstairs, or even when we want to give her a notice of moving out.
She reminds me of the old lady in the Ben Stiller-Drew Barrymore film Duplex; the same crazy eyes and disheveled hair. Except that her interest lies in us staying on in the apartment.
She had come over one evening for some work, and after she left called us to ask if she'd left a packet with a bottle of jam in it. We looked around and found she hadn't. Sure enough, she was back 20 minutes later to look for herself. She didn't find it either.
So when we told her we were moving, she told us she'd be very sad and we were a very nice couple. Then started the incessant phone calls trying to convince us to buy furniture etc from her. 'I have lots of it!' she's always exclaim, but never actually get around to showing it to us.
In the mean time we bought everything we needed from Ikea and from some second-hand places.
Finally, despite my telling her we didn't need anything and that we'd bought everything we needed, she fixed a day (Saturday) and asked me what time she should come. When I said 11am?, she said she could be there by 7.30am. Errm.. did that get lost in translation or what?
So there we were Saturday morning in the basement of the apartment where we lived, with N carefully digging out all the stuff she needed to be dug out.
I knew even before we started looking at the old lady's stuff that we'd have to buy something merely out of politeness, and might even have to pay her whatever she asked for it coz of course we were not going to bargain with a 93-year-old lady who had come all the way to show us the stuff.
So we finally took a couple of bedside tables, a couple of blankets and some plates and glasses. She didn't even mention the money that day; and we exclaimed how sweet she was being.
But sure enough the next time she came over she had brought up a bill of 565CHF.. for the stuff that was old and used, and had been lying in a store room for what seemed like at least years. And what was more, we had basically been bullied into buying what we didn't need in the first place.
She was selling us a bedside table for 100 CHF, when we had SEEN one at a second-hand store for 10 CHF; and hadn't bought then because WE DIDN'T NEED IT.
She was selling an ironing board for 75, when an absolutely new one at Ikea would cost us 35!
The cost of being nice, apparently.
Our landlady claims she's 93. Yet she's at our door every time we have a problem with the apartment, or with the laundry downstairs, or even when we want to give her a notice of moving out.
She reminds me of the old lady in the Ben Stiller-Drew Barrymore film Duplex; the same crazy eyes and disheveled hair. Except that her interest lies in us staying on in the apartment.
She had come over one evening for some work, and after she left called us to ask if she'd left a packet with a bottle of jam in it. We looked around and found she hadn't. Sure enough, she was back 20 minutes later to look for herself. She didn't find it either.
So when we told her we were moving, she told us she'd be very sad and we were a very nice couple. Then started the incessant phone calls trying to convince us to buy furniture etc from her. 'I have lots of it!' she's always exclaim, but never actually get around to showing it to us.
In the mean time we bought everything we needed from Ikea and from some second-hand places.
Finally, despite my telling her we didn't need anything and that we'd bought everything we needed, she fixed a day (Saturday) and asked me what time she should come. When I said 11am?, she said she could be there by 7.30am. Errm.. did that get lost in translation or what?
So there we were Saturday morning in the basement of the apartment where we lived, with N carefully digging out all the stuff she needed to be dug out.
I knew even before we started looking at the old lady's stuff that we'd have to buy something merely out of politeness, and might even have to pay her whatever she asked for it coz of course we were not going to bargain with a 93-year-old lady who had come all the way to show us the stuff.
So we finally took a couple of bedside tables, a couple of blankets and some plates and glasses. She didn't even mention the money that day; and we exclaimed how sweet she was being.
But sure enough the next time she came over she had brought up a bill of 565CHF.. for the stuff that was old and used, and had been lying in a store room for what seemed like at least years. And what was more, we had basically been bullied into buying what we didn't need in the first place.
She was selling us a bedside table for 100 CHF, when we had SEEN one at a second-hand store for 10 CHF; and hadn't bought then because WE DIDN'T NEED IT.
She was selling an ironing board for 75, when an absolutely new one at Ikea would cost us 35!
The cost of being nice, apparently.
Keep the doctor away
The main reason why I hate changing cities or countries is that with every change of city/country, I also have to find a new doctor. Do I really need more and more people in the world who have seen me only in my underwear?
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