outfoxes the boxes

An obsession with moving. That's all you're likely to get round here for a while...

Today we get serious about cleaning. Not that half-hearted maintenance-style cleaning that we normally do from week to week (or in many cases, to be honest, from month to month). No, this is push-boredom-to-the-limits, rediscover-actual-paint-colours, polishing-matte-surfaces cleaning, designed to extract our £1800 deposit out of our landLord.

And “Lord” it they do, round here apparently. Actually being allowed to rent a flat here is hard enough—usually involving extensive reference checks and proof of income and all sorts. But moving out. (land)Lord forbid you should want to move out during a “rent month”—as we found out, this would require you to pay an entire month's rent, or in some twisted thinking this would be “letting you off” half a month's rent. The system here is archaic. In this country, landLords hold the deposit (NZ translation: bond) on your flat, not an independent government agency. And it is de rigeur as a landLord to state that you have had to have a property commercially cleaned, and keep at least £200 of the tenants' deposit.

Well, this flat has no carpets—it's parquet flooring throughout—which might help. However, due to a refusal by two landLords over two years to do critical maintenance on the bathroom floor for what must be a hidden leak somewhere, the bathroom and toilet floors will now need to be ripped up (actually could be scooped up with a spoon, at this point). This is in no way our fault whatsoever, but no doubt he'll attempt to schtick us one. A friend from church, a partner in a city law firm, has offered to represent us for free, should it come to it.

First thing though, I'm going to collect everything we own from around the house, and put it all in our bedroom. Since theoretically we are supposed to be able to fit everything we still have here into our two hiking packs, this should not be a problem, right? So here's the time where I'll be discovering what awkward items managed to outfox the boxes...