The House Hunt...

The House Hunt Update

Below is the chronicle of my house hunt odyssey,  which took way too much of my time and energy  as I struggled to find a place that met Peace Corps standards, and would be covered by the PC housing allowance for Sirvan.    I did finally manage to find a place that fit the first criteria, but was well over the second.  Along the way, I saw the good, the bad, and the ugly.

 The first place I saw was one room, packed with furniture, but no table and chairs.  I would have to sink into one of the bottomless  armchairs, plate in hand if I wanted to eat.  It did have an air conditioner.  Asking price, 150 manat. 

When I turned it down the owner offered to show me another apartment.   It was two rooms, closer to the college, but one room looked as if there had been an explosion inside, with the paint and pieces of debris hanging off a whole wall.  One room appeared to have black mold on all the walls.  The light bulb in one room was hanging on a cord, and in the second room, there was no  light at all!  I took one look at the bathroom, but I couldn’t check it out a second time because there was no handle or door knob so I couldn’t  go into the bathroom..  This place was filthy, you couldn’t open the bathroom door, it  had no furniture, no screens,  and had a whole wall of debris coming down. Asking price, 130 manat.

The next place had two rooms, but no furniture. The bathroom wall was coming down, and there was a shovel full of cement debris that had recently given way. I thought about taking this place and trying to negotiate the price , but the owner decided to sell it instead. Asking price to rent 150 manat.

When I stopped in at a shoemaker’s shack to get some new holes put in my belt (the house hunt is good for something!) , he told me he had a house to rent.  I followed him way out into the country houses, farther from the college than I live now.    I found a cement building with no running water inside, and a shared toilet out in the yard.  The building shared the yard with another house and the whole place was littered with everyone’s stuff. Asking price  150 AZN.

A shop assistant also offered to rent me a country house. Although she said it wasn’t far from the college, I should have been suspicious when it took at least 10 minutes in a taxi to get there. It was in no way walking distance to the college.  There was a one room building in an overgrown yard, no furniture, with the toilet outside.  Asking price, 150 AZN.

Saturday a friend Leman and I started going building to building looking.  We found one apartment with two rooms, paint intact, furnished, close to the college, even air conditioned.  In other words, perfect.  This was  the  apartment I wanted.  Asking price, 150 AZN.  Haggling with the landlord in Baku didn’t help, and I had to walk away because the price was too high.  When I went back 2 days later, it had already been rented.

Sunday, Leman and I went hunting again, and this time it was painful.  There were few people around to ask, and no real good leads.   We eventually found a three room apartment, with a channel for the wastewater from the sink winding its way through the house.  There was no refrigerator, no heat source, and no sink in the bathroom,  but it was otherwise furnished.  Asking price 150 AZN .  I thought maybe I could make it work, but the landlord refused to come down in price or supply a refrigerator, so I had to walk way again. 

We also found a bare bones one room apartment, that had most everything except a skaf  for clothes or anything else. Books, clothes, papers etc  would be piled up or  strewn around the one room.  There was a lumpy dusty  stuffed monkey hanging in the corner and  I knew     I would end up in the same condition as the monkey if  said yes to this place.  Asking price 100 AZN.

Teachers at the college helped me look at two places this week.  One, was a “country house” that was really one room in a bungalow.  The bathroom and the kitchen were shared with students, and they were  in separate buildings. Asking price for this one room 150 AZN.

The second was in a great location, and the owner was such a kind and generous person.  The apartment was in good condition, but so small it didn’t have a chair or sofa to sit on.  It was either sit at the dining table or in bed.  There was no place to put a comfortable chair, or anything else.  I don’t think there was enough  space even to unroll a sleeping bag and  there was no running water or sink in the kitchen. All dishes and fruit and vegetables had to be washed in the bathroom next to the toilet. 130 AZN.

Finally going to visit my site mate,  I saw some people moving out of her building.  I immediately asked for the landlord’s phone number, and Konul, my tutor helped me make contact the next day.  The empty apartment had  three rooms, in  “normal”  for Azerbaijan condition,, asking price 150 AZN.   

I spent another day going building to building, with no success.  I decided to try negotiating for the last place I saw.  The landlady agreed to come down 10 AZN, so now I have to pay 140 a month, while Peace Corps only gives us 120.  The other 20 will have to come out of my living allowance which will limit what else I can do here.  My site mates all have to pay 130,  but Peace Corps has been sticking to the 120 figure.