WC vs. bathroom vs. ensuite

I think… we might be getting somewhere.

It’s been a bit of a frustrating week. First, T’s bank card was frozen because the Fraud Alert people, grateful though we are to them, thought there was ‘unusual activity’ on the card. Apparently, T is such a homebody that ‘unusual activity’ means ‘She spent money.’ We had to use D’s card for the hotel for T’s Conference, despite the fact that it was reserved on her card. Weird. (We have since written the bank an extensive and detailed letter informing them that the end of this month and onward is going to open up a whole new world of being alert, and to be prepared for actual monetary expenditures…)

Also, we had also decided to begin anew The Great Obsession, and start flat-hunting on-line, which meant hours of computer obsessing and peering at virtual tours and typing in postal codes into Google Earth to see how close or far a place is from the University. Reading the small print to determine the difference between a WC vs. an ‘ensuite’ vs. a bathroom vs. a shower room has also been an interesting part of the process. (An ensuite means a bathroom in a bedroom. A bathroom… could mean a room with a bath. Fear not, U.S. folk, we will have two bathrooms in the American sense, so visiting will be comfy for everyone!) We have also learned the difference between a double bedroom or a single bedroom, and a box room… and found out that most ‘lounges’ (formerly known as ‘living rooms’) have … doors. Even some of the kitchens we’ve seen have doors to close them off from the dining room and lounge. It’s definitely a different style.

A few of the ‘letting agents’ have been great to work with, replying reasonably to email and following through as if we were worth their time. We are quickly finding, however, that unlike with renting in the U.S., this letting business is best done via the telephone… which requires us getting up at five or so, trying to find brains and the ability to speak, and then listening carefully to extrapolate linguistic meaning from pleasant Scottish burrs, e-nun-ci-a-ting so as not to cause undue amusement (one lady was chuckling between every other word. Surely we don’t sound THAT flat-vowelled and nasal? She should hear Southerners or Midwesterners!). Anyway, after all of that effort? We have been put off a bit.

“Oh, well, Bridgeton is undergoing a redevelopment,” one estate negotiator informed us. “There are some areas…” When we asked her to elaborate, she said she couldn’t. Okay, then, why bring it up?

“We only deal with foreign letting for property sight-unseen over £5000,” another agent said. “It’s just not our policy. We had one American woman…” and we were treated to yet another story about a Loopy American who came and hated a property and raised a big stink/fuss/threatened tears/ threatened a lawsuit, etc., after not liking what they had chosen.

While we understood their policy, and the fact that there are Loopy Americans, we were frustrated, and almost considered just going and staying in a hotel and doing footwork when we arrived, but the idea of doing all of that then simply sent one of us who is more obsessive (ahem) into overdrive. With a long list of flats that looked acceptable, we simply phoned letting agents one after another, until — bingo. Someone who said it sounded perfectly reasonable to him to rent something before we arrived, and said he had no problem with helping us out. Good bless Graeme at Chattelle Estates — (which is apparently pronounced like Gray-eme, not Graham as we supposed); stay tuned for next week, we’ll let you know how it goes.

– D & T

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