Into The Big Smoke

In the mist of looking to move out of home again, I can't help but think back to the time when I moved out of the home for the very first time [reminiscing music plays in the background]

The year was 2008 BM (Before Melbourne), and it was around Augustish and I had been working at my then-current job for a little bit over a year. I thought to myself, "I do not want to do this all my life" then when I knocked of work, I looked at university courses. After a few weeks of deliberating, I decided to pursue the university pathway.

I won't bore you with my uni application, that can be a whole other blog. However, I decided to advertise my need of two housemates in Melbourne over facebook, hoping one of my friends, or two, would jump to the idea. No such luck occurred.

My best mate and second best mate, yes believe it or not, I do have two friends, toyed around with the idea we find a pad together. Looking back, it would have been a disaster because, well, I would have been the lil b'arch of the house. So I was back to square one.

The month of November was half-way through and still no luck with finding someone. Then one-fateful day/night, I don't remember exactly how it happened but a girl, who was attending uni in Bundoora asked to be a housemate for her and her friend. I knew the girl, but as for her friend, I did not.

I jumped at the idea, cos let's face it, I was in no position at the time to be turning down offers for houses. Then we spent the next couple weeks messaging each other houses to look at and so forth. With me being so far away, it was hard to be to physically inspect the places, so the girl had to do most of it. And for the record, she did a lot, well, pretty much, everything in order for us to apply, inspect, move in etc.

So there I was, sending links for nice houses, 3 bedrooms, some were 2 baths, houses, flats, townhouses, some were on quiet streets, some on main roads, some were single storey, but some were two. I then made a date for when I could come down one weekend to do some inspections in person, to actually make a contribution to the cause.

So at 7am, I made the trip down with a friend and met up with her, but got my friend to start driving when we got close to Melbourne as this was the first time I have ever been in that area of Melbourne. I had a little booklet you may call it of a few houses and their inspection times.

We inspected three houses that day I think, one was a nice unit in a quiet court, another was a dirty old crappy house, and the third was an alright-but-not-as-good-as-the-unit two storey townhouse. In between inspections, we visited Northland, a massive shopping centre (well it appeared massive at the start) and a McDonalds. Now, these two locations hold meaning later in another blog.

We put in our applications for the unit and townhouse, and then went back to my mates to stay the night. However, we ended up going to the greyhounds and had a bit of a punt, so it turned out to be a good day.

That Tuesday following, my housemate got a phone call of the real estate letting us know we got our application accepted for the townhouse. She must of told her she needed to discuss it with the rest of us, and she did. I told her that was excellent and I'm willing to live there. The next day I got a message saying we now have a house.

The main thing that surprised me was leading up to the inspections, my friend informed me to start early as it could take months to find a place, however it turned out it only took a couple days.

So here was the dates leading up,
Saturday 3rd Jan, 2009, Inspected house
Tuesday 6th Jan, 2009, Offered house
Wednesday 7th Jan, 2009, Accepted house
Saturday 10th Jan, 2009, Signed house

So that Saturday I travelled back down to sign the lease, hand over money and grab the keys to my new house. We made the trip to Northland to get the keys cut, and I nearly got lost in that dumb centre! Oh and just for reference sake, our new place was in Heidelberg Heights, but like many of posts, there will be more of this to come.

And there I was, standing out the front of the house I would be living at for 12 months, next to me, two girls I would had to put up with for 12 months (Ha, nah they are alright). It was an exciting time, and even though it took me over a month to officially move in, I still had lots to do until then........


From The One They Call Anthony, This Is The Life And Times