Flat Hunting Part 1

After spending Christmas and New Year at my mothers in Immingham (New Year was crap, nothing interesting happened). It did feel like everything was on hold though, nothing open over the holidays, bit of a pain in the arse time of year to be homeless. It was time to return to Skeggy, I did contemplate living somewhere else, but decided against this for a number of reasons, the main one being, I know Skeggy. Its home, always has been, probably always will be. I have moved away from this town a few times, not with much success. Anyway those adventures will be covered another time.

My mother, bless her, agreed to put me up while I got back on my feet again. Not the best of situations for either of us, but I will always be thankful to her for doing that, we have never had the closest of mother-son relationships, truth be known, we fight like cats and gerbils.

I tried not to get in her way too much, tried to keep busy during the day, then at night I would go out somewhere, anywhere, it didn't matter. Often to the pub or to some friends, I'm sure lots of people got sick to death of seeing me, but nobody complained, nobody gave lame excuses about being out or doing something else. It brought home to me what real friendship is all about.

During this time, I didn't have time to think, no time for anything really, just try to get things back on track as fast as possible, ignore what had past, time for that later. 

I figured finding somewhere to live would be difficult and take months. I hit the internet! those right move sites etc etc, useful but ultimately no damn good, just one viewing of some apartment or other in two! yep two months time. The estate agents were just as useless, no help finding somewhere from them at all. One or two of them gave me the run around, phone this guy in Boston. I phone the guy, nope you need somebody else. Tedious tiresome bullshit.

Desperation started to set in, a couple of friends, Fay and Dave (more about these two saviours another time) lived in a block of flats that happened to have a bedsit going free. 70 quid a week no deposit or tenancy agreement, not how I wanted to do things, but needs must. Turning up at Fay and Dave's place I get the keys to this bedsit and head upstairs for a look.

It was properly minging! I mean so disgusting that pigs would not shit in it, cockroaches would pack their bags and leave! There was muck every where, on the walls on the ceilings, the floor looked like it hadn't been swept since the 70s. The bed, yes the bed, nearly made me sick. You all know I'm sure about bodily fluids going on mattresses, well this thing looked like it had been used in a seedy hotel somewhere for the last 30 odd years. The rest of it is not worthy of a description, I'm sure by now you get the idea. 

I contemplated it! really seriously thought about it, to the point where I figured how best to clean it up. Looking back there is only one solution for that dump. Fire!

Fed up now, I figured it was time to visit Angel, for a coffee and a catch up on things. We got talking about flats in Skeg, I asked her if she knew of anywhere, she said she might. Angel made a phone call to her landlord. Lady luck must have been shining that day, Angel told them what I was looking for had they got anything suitable? "We might have in a couple of days" came the reply "send him over for an application form"

That drive was a quick one! I turned up at the landlords office five minutes later, got a wicked smile off the lady behind the desk, got handed an application form and headed back to Angel's.

Angel really is an angel, together we filled the form in. Angel wrote me a glowing reference, over another coffee we discussed what may or may not happen, I then returned the form, not expecting to hear anything again.

That afternoon my phone rang, for a change it was a good phone call, the landlord "We might have something that would suit you, are you available for a viewing, this afternoon?" Well I thought about it for like a nanosecond! oh yes I'm available, very very available!

They gave me the address and a time for this viewing, I have to confess I'd never heard of the place before, never visited before, never heard any grumbles about the place, nothing, not a thing. I was by this time dying of curiosity, all sorts of thoughts running through my head, the main one being, I hope its not like that bedsit, if its not I will take it no matter what! 

The allotted time didn't soon arrive it seemed to take weeks not hours, I was like a cat on a hot tin roof, couldn't keep still, couldn't stop smoking, one after the other, put one out, light another. My nose for a change was still, no twitching, not a thing, so things must have been good!

Finally I pulled up into the car park and looked at the place, fairly big, quite imposing but sterile, no real outside character to the place. The landlord turned up, pointed to the flat and said "were going up to the very top". Crikey was it a climb that first time, lots of stairs to negotiate, some simple normal stairs, the next the angle got a bit steeper, until finally we arrived at a white door. "This is it, quite a climb ain't it" said the landlord. After all those cigs I was out of breath and didn't reply, I couldn't!!

The landlord opened the door, stepped through then held the door open for me. Taking a deep nervous breath I followed him through the door. A feeling of utter relief washed over me, the flat was friendly! Immediately walking through the door I felt safe, I felt secure, I was finally home.

To be continued........