The very first time that I saw the place, was the day that I moved in. Little did I know however that moving in with my ‘acquaintance’ would be pretty much life changing.
(To check out the first part of my sharehouse to home story, please click here.)
From left: The face that I have on all the time in this house, Kerem (our friendly butler who went back to his mothership in Amsterdan), Filzah (the girl who randomly invites strangers to live with her) and Edna (thank god for her).
This is pretty much what I ended up with in the end (I think my face says it all).
The process to getting here wasn’t easy though. Let me reiterate that I firstly moved in without having even seen the place at all, and boy was I in for a shock when it was my first day at my new place.
(AGAIN KIDS, please check out your places before you sign a lease or do anything of the like!)
At first when I just moved in, it was just my new housemate/acquaintance, Filzah, and I + another totally weird housemate (Edna just asked me to refer to her as a ‘character‘) who has an issue with hygiene. The house that we are living in currently, also in no way resembled the house that I moved into. Think dead spiders the size of your palm under a dusty couch, cockroach eggs in the carpets and a lingering odour every time you enter the house. Yup.
It didn’t take long for determination and a fear of cockroaches (just Filzah, I am the man of the house after all *coughs) to set in though.
Within a few weeks of us moving in, the hygiene level was already up to speed and within a few days of our old housemate moving out due to her graduation, and Edna moving in (complete God-given, didn’t really know her too before she moved in, but CAN’T DO WITHOUT HER NOW), our house started becoming a home.
I think for a house to become a home, one of the most important things is to have people who firstly 1) have the same living habits, 2) get along well, and 3) are willing to compromise. It is through these qualities that we managed to turn our cockroach infested apartment into a veritable home :’)
Soon, after we were done with our cleaning attempts and won the battle with cockroaches, we began remodeling our place by picking up old furniture and knick-knacks. Now instead of a dusty couch, we have a Xbox console, a plasma TV, fans (YES, FANS), coffee tables and the like (all scavenged from people btw)! The place no longer resembled the lame and dirty student apartment that it was. We also began inviting people over for little parties and… that sense of achievement that you get when people compliment your house…
In sum, I think that it really wasn’t easy for me to have found a home with my lovely housemates (I actually prefer to stay home than to go out nowadays…). It is totally great now living with people who know you well and sometimes, after a long hard day at university, it’s totally AWESOME knowing that you are going home to a nice place that is clean, comfortable, and can be fun when you need it to be. This house totally killed my “you have to constantly move to be growing in life” vibe.
So to those reading this and wondering how the hell are you guys going to be doing this, to be honest, it did really take a lot of hard work and maybe more than a stroke of luck. It also sucks when you realize that people have to move on in the end, and this awesomeness is just temporary (think graduations, moving away to other cities and etc.) But it is always a good experience living with people you’ve never known and finding them suddenly closer to you than you’d ever have thought.
So to those reading this again, you might probably be looking for a house, thinking of looking for a house or anything else… while there are many horror stories out there when it comes to looking for a place but I guess mine didn’t turn out too bad. So, all the best anyway to those wondering how to do this whole finding a nice place to live thing. May you be as lucky as me!
