It’s been a fortnight since moving out of my house on Papdale. I was very careful not to bad-mouth it or complain about its flaws in my blog while I was still living there, mainly because maybe the owners would see my blog (or a neighbour would and get back to them). I know it was a long shot; the likelihood of anyone here in Scotland finding this blog is minimal, but still, I wanted them to like me and not want to evict me or anything.
But now, I’m out (and they’re selling the house, so what do they care?) so I do have a few issues to share with the group. Right off the bat, I rather resented that, back in Ontario, the landlord is responsible for yard maintenance, and here the tenant is. I was paying for lawns on both sides of the Atlantic being mowed. The water pressure was pathetic, and the hot water took forever. One wall in the kitchen was fuchsia and when I asked the property manager if I could paint it white, or grey, or cream, he said, “Oh, I don’t know. I would have to ask the owners.” Really? I just left it and eventually became blind to the intensity of it, and to be fair to the owners, when potential buyers were walking through the house, more than one of them said, “Ooh, what a lovely colour.” Maybe it’s a British thing – maybe decorating trends are very different here?
The bathroom was directly outside the living room, which meant that when guests were over, we all got to listen to them peeing. HATED that! The carpets were impossible to vacuum; I finally figured out that if you changed a second setting on the hoover to ‘min’, it was easier, but still a challenge. Oh, and the driveway had a ‘hole’, a built-in trench that was lined with paving stones and ran along the side of the house (why, why?), which was nerve-wracking to a neophyte driver trying to back in and back out. (Even my movers commented on it.)
What did I like about the house? The street was friendly(ish), and there were parks within 90 seconds no matter which direction we walked (I really appreciated that). It was built to withstand the weather – no matter how crazy the weather, I felt cozy, safe, & dry. I LOVED the in-floor heating (I do miss that). It was nice cooking facing out over the fields and watching the sun set.
It was exactly what I needed when I first arrived in Orkney, it was how I ended up meeting many of my new friends, and I was glad to have it.