Almost there...

Almost there...

So, after a long day of driving we arrived late in the evening at the apartment we had arranged while still in BC.

We were tired, but it felt good to be at the end of our journey.

We were a bit shocked by what we found....

Let's just say it was not "as advertised".

No private entry, a whole lot of darkness and the air filled with dust and cat hair-particles...

We knew it was a basement walk-out,

but a window to the carport with view of the car tires was not quite cutting it...

We checked another room and opened the window curtains to find out that behind them was

nothing

Wall, to be exact.

Yup, fake curtains and no window.

We howled laughing.

Who does stuff like that??

After a night of sneezing and itchy eyes ( Cat allergies), and wafting smoke coming down through the vents fro our chain-smoking landlady,

we found ourselves in the free wireless zone at the local rec center

browsing KIJIJI ads for more rentals...

Not so easy to do if you just arrived, have a big dog and have to answer "No" to the

"So, do you have work?" question....

With such a low vacancy rate, good rentals are a rare find -

especially just before Christmas.

Finally we found something outside of town and had a quick look.

It was not clean, but they promised to clean it and that we could move in in 48 hours.

We were hopeful!

And desperate

 (never good to be desperate...)

In the meantime,

 back from the smoke-house to

Motel 6 and HGTV.

Minnie and Chatchi were so used our routine that they settled right in.

So we moved in 48 hrs later, and things looked up.

It was not really clean....

Okay, they DID NOT CLEAN IT

but we attributed that to tight time-frame.

It was a bit -VERY- run down, but we graciously overlooked that.

Did I mentioned that a beast with big teeth (not Minnie) had chewed up the toilet paper holder? And carpet?

The apartment was in a small town right on main-street.

And even though the trucks were bombing through, we had a sunny warm place to live.

Initially.

Until...

I think it started during the second night.

I was getting bit. 

Badly. 

Painfully.

At first we had no clue what it was. Then Minnie started to itch as well.

It got worse.

Way worse.

Pics on GOOGLE confirmed what I feared it was:

This place was crawling with fleas !!

Since the heat had been turned on (before we moved in it was vacant)

the hatching had begun.

Not pleasant if you have to sleep right on the floor on the carpet in flea paradise

 (since our furniture was still on it's way from BC)

We contacted our landlord right away who seemed very slow in moving things forward.

At the same time we were not crazy about the idea getting it fumed with pesticides given the tiny size of the place, inhaling toxins plus we were concerned about Chatchi etc.

But something needed to be done.

There was also a black mold issue in the kitchen under the sink and we quickly came to a point where we just wanted out.

It's not fun living in a place without furniture.

I mean, I can sleep on the hard floor....for weeks.

It's not great, but I can do it.

But knowing that I will be bitten every night was no fun at all.

Problem was, that we were obligated to give two months notice, had just signed on and also paid the first and the last.

Darn it.

Just when you think things cannot get any worse.

 Things got worse:

We found out that out mover was not able to meet our timeline,

but was delayed by about three weeks.

Initially we had given them a generous time frame to avoid exactly that.

The perceptive of three more weeks sleeping on the floor amongst these little bloodsuckers,

having no cooking gear (we eventually caved and bought a slow-cooker)

and no furniture was not too easy.

But what can you do?

The other piece of news he told us was that

somebody had broken into our moving container and several things/boxes were missing.

They could not tell us anything about the extensiveness of the damage.

Not knowing whether our office things/personal information had been stolen we quickly phoned banks and credit cards etc to make the necessary arrangements...

I think that day I was at my lowest point.

Christmas was literally just around the corner as well and things looked pretty grim. 

I felt like Mary and Josef "and there was no room in the Inn".

A kind soul had lend us two camping chairs and a shop radio, so we could listen to the radio (Christmas music) which was nice.

Simple pleasures, right?

Here is Chatchi enjoying a little sunlight:

I have to say that when we left BC I had grabbed some of our camping gear

(including the very important Bodum coffee pot) , cutlery, bowls, cups and the tea kettle.

"You never know, they might come in handy" I said to Steve

 who blogged about " his wife taking half the household along in the car"

or something like that. 

Right.

Blessed be the one who has a wife with foresight -haha ;)

Here we are eating baked potatoes with sour-cream in our living-dining room the (new bought) vacuum box serving as a dinner table

Compared to us Minnie slept like a queen:

So while looking for another place yet again 

we took time to get out and explore the countryside a bit.

It was not easy being alone, seeing all the brightly lit homes with Christmas cheer

 and us being strangers in a foreign land yet again...

We focused on the things we did have and to be grateful.

While I was in tears that one day, Steve said to me:

One day we will look back and laugh so hard about this situation.

Here we are on borrowed camping chairs, 

trying to cook a meal with a slow cooker, aluminum foil and a box of table salt 

sharing this place with hundreds of critters 

(not to mention the whole cleaning regime that went along with it)....

Such as smuggling your dogs flea infested bed in the middle of the night to a laundromat

 of secret destination not trying to get caught on camera....

One for the books!

So, was it easy?

No!

Did we loose heart?

Yup, a little bit .

Did we still think we did the right thing?

Yes, absolutely.

Just a few days before Christmas we moved into

another place downtown.

Just on the corner of Barrie and Raglan.

It was tiny, but clean.

No space for a tree, but we put up some lights.

(That's the upside: two days before Christmas everything is on sale!)

And:

No more fleas.

Fingers crossed.

Merry Christmas, everybody!