On the weekend that I arrived in London, I started looking up flatshares on the internet and making phone calls. By Sunday, I had two appointments. As you have read from last time, I didn’t have a map so was relying on getting good directions from my potential housemates.
The first one was with Anya. She had a slight accent, which I couldn’t quite identify and gave me a bit of trouble understanding her instructions.
‘Coming out of the station, turn left and follow the road until you get to an intersection. Cross the road, pass a church, keep walking until you see a red banner. We’re the building on the other side.’
It was dark and there was a five-way intersection as soon as I stepped out of the tube station. I knew immediately that it was hopeless. After calling Anya for more directions three times, she agreed to come out of the house and meet me at the McDonald’s outside the tube station.
The flat was neat and colourful. The area was nice. The rent was very cheap. Anya was very pleasant too, although that didn’t help because she was moving out.
Then I met the ‘head housemate’, Angelo. He seemed normal at first. Then he handed to me a piece of paper with a list of house rules. He lectured me about each one. ‘You must always double bolt the front door. Guests can’t stay longer than two nights.’ Okay, so he was a control freak. I could handle that. The rules seemed reasonable.
‘Tell me about yourself,’ he finally asked.
‘Well, I like cooking,’ I said brightly. ‘I’m happy to share a meal every now and then.’
Angelo barked out a laugh. ‘No, we don’t eat together. You know, eating’s not something we ‘do’ really. You just have to eat so we grab anything, eat out mostly. You know how it is.’
‘Okaaaay…’ I thought.
‘What kind of food do you cook?’
‘Chinese food, mainly.’
Angelo made a face. ‘I don’t like Chinese food. I had some once and I asked for no onion. When the food came, there was onion in it!’
I made a sympathetic noise.
‘I hate the smell of onions and garlic!’ he cried passionately.
‘Ah… Well, yes, there’s a lot of garlic and onion in Chinese food,’ I said. Anya was sitting beside me, still and quiet the whole time.
We talked some more about other things, then Angelo came back to the cooking.
‘If you cook, you’ll keep the kitchen clean, right?’
‘Of course,’ I assured him.
‘You have to,’ he said, ‘because this is a communal house and we need to share things.’
‘No problem.’
‘And when we cook, we have to wash up and put everything away before we start to eat.’
Now I was speechless. He already hated my cooking, wouldn’t eat with me and now was telling me to clean up while my food got cold?
At this point, I decided that I could not live here, no matter how cheap the rent was or how nice the room was. Angelo seemed satisfied, though.
‘I like you,’ he declared.
‘Great!’ I nodded.
‘Anya will call you when we decide who gets the room.’
They walked me to the door and I almost bolted out of the flat, already texting my next potential housemate because I was going to be late for my second appointment.
Later that night, I got a message from Anya, saying that another current housemate wanted to meet me. By then, I was able to text back to say that I had found a place to live. You can read about my second and last interview in my next blog post.
