Livin’ On a Prayer (As Opposed To In a House)

One of my first major tasks now that I live in Melbourne is to actually find somewhere to live in Melbourne. Now, I have only looked at once place so far, but because I am prone to extreme impatience I am already convinced that this is an insurmountable task and that I will die a bitter old man on someone else’s couch with a car full of shoes and bedding.

I knew this was never going to be an easy process. There are just so many elements that need to be factored in and balanced perfectly. Finding the right sized room with the right housemates in the right location at the right price – it’s like a life version of a Rubik’s Cube – except you can’t just cheat and peel the stickers off. You just have to keep twisting and turning until you get it right – or at least until you get it 60% right and then give up, which is what most of us do with both the Rubik’s Cube and share house hunting. This is why so many of us have horror housemate stories (and half-finished Rubik’s Cubes).

And it’s not just me who has certain living arrangement expectations – the potential housemates you meet with also have their own agenda. Some of them have agenda to spare. Some of them have so much agenda that their laser targeted housemate requirements are right there in the listing. You wouldn’t believe how many people feel they couldn’t possibly live with anyone who isn’t a woman. Who plays the mandolin. With a collection of doorknobs. And an eleventh toe.

But as it turns out, specificity isn’t necessarily a bad thing. For example, I have learnt I need to specify whether or not I want to live in a room inside a house, or in a hastily constructed annexed lean-to attached to back of the house.

Yes, I said “lean-to” – a phrase that should only be used as part of a longer sentence when choreographing a dance for Justin Timberlake. Sure, the room was cheaper than some of the others I had looked at, but quite frankly I would rather pay extra to not live in an unsealed shanty.

The windows weren’t even proper windows. They were louvres. The natural enemy of climatic homeostasis. If it’s cold, louvres make it colder. If it’s hot, louvres make it hotter. Louvres are the opposite of climate control – they are climate chaos.

Also, because the annexed lean-to was a hastily constructed annexed lean-to, it of course didn’t match the rest of the house. It was made up of these thin timber panels. It looked like a sauna.

So I’m standing in this hastily constructed annexed louvred sauna shanty, trying to convince myself that all houses in Melbourne are old and sometimes you just have to lower your standards a bit and maybe this place isn’t so bad after all, when I realise that my hair is brushing the ceiling. Now, I am a decidedly average five foot ten – my hair should not brush the ceiling, unless I am visiting a hobbit (which I rarely am). Suddenly, the ugly thin timber panels, combined with surprising lack of cubic footage, make the room look less like a sauna and more like a coffin. Convenient if you were to die in the room, I suppose – but I can’t help but think that if you were to die in the room it would actually be because of the room.

Slowly it started to dawn on me that this place was, in fact, a dump.  And then, like a flash, it was obvious everywhere I looked:

- the ratty, threadbare furniture covered with even rattier, more threadbare throw rugs (isn’t the point of the ubiquitous throw to cover the unsightly upholstery, not layer it? Bald people wear wigs, not skincaps),
- the back lawn which was long and overgrown enough to hide an entire cat (it was cute, but when it leapt out of nowhere it took every ounce of testicle I owned to not scream like a girl),
- the bathroom that made me wonder how long it had been since I’d seen Trainspotting,

And worst of all? The living room television was a 48cm CRT box from around 1991.

That’s just inhuman.