Trust me

I took a week off from being ungrateful to celebrate Mr. O's work visa and the Midsummer holiday here in Finland. But the fact remains that, with less than seven weeks to go till landing, I am still apartmentless and jobless.

The apartment hunt has been consuming more of my energy these days. So I'm checking viewit.ca, craigslist, and myriad other sites of various reach and quality twice a day, every day, for the past 10 days or so. Originally we had thought of getting a furnished temp place for the first two weeks while Mr. O starts work and I shop for jobs and furniture, etc. Something private with a wireless net connection starts at around 500 CAD/week, while at the other end of the spectrum you have places targeted directly at immigrants, which are typically out in the middle of nowhere and priced accordingly.

So we decided to do neither and find a permanent lease starting August 1 instead. The extra advantage to this is that we'd have an address before we left to give to CIC and Posti, while the downside is that we won't have any furniture so we'll be camping out in our sleeping bags [better than a tent - Ed.] – if we can find a place, that is. Our budget is a bit tight for a two-bedroom place, and while I lived in numerous super-sketchy Toronto neighbourhoods in the nineties, I think I've been spoiled by low Finnish crime rates since then.

So pickings are slim to start, and as if that weren't enough, we have discovered that we are not, be still my beating ego, the most ideal tenants. Landlords typically want to look potentials in the eyes before agreeing to anything, which is understandable but no less frustrating when you're trying to set something up remotely. We've been roping various friends into going to flats to scout for us ("Test the water pressure!") but so far haven't even gotten that far, as places are whisked out from under our noses. Our strategy was to offer a few months' extra cash upfront, to compensate for the lack of local credit/references/bank info, but we haven't found that to work yet either. I can almost hear their eyes glazing over when I mention Finland -- if I were in their shoes I might rather avoid the extra hassle of foreignness too. Little do they know that under our foreign skins we are budding bourgeoisie with considerable savings and dreams of worm composting, maybe the odd patio party. Sigh.

But all is not lost. Last night we found a possibility in the Junction, which is apparently a trendy area despite the fact that you have to take a bus to the centre, managed by the world's most laid-back landlord ever. So if our local representatives find it acceptable, all of this might be moot by the time you read it. I'll keep you posted.