Living in New York, I had moved twice, I don't remember the first time as I was only 19 months old, the second one was when I was going on 15, funny both those moves were in March, and so was the biggest one, moving here. When I was in high school and we moved, I got on the train in Ridgewood in the morning to go to school and when school was over my options were to take the bus or walk to Middle Village. It was a quick move I heard, but I didn't actually experience it. Moving to Australia I had the movers box and pack my stuff, a lot of things that I think now, why didn't I double and triple check the contents before the movers showed up, it would have cost me less money. Moving from Gordon Park to Kedron was not too bad as it's basically the same area, they have the same post code. My husband's family helped, my father-in-law has a ute and we used it to move all the furniture and some other things that we'd boxed. Altogether we had 4 cars helping move, my husbands' car, mine, the ute and their family car. The reason for this move is more complicated than the last one.
We left Gordon Park because the landlords' wouldn't allow a cat, this place does allow cats but it has noisy neighbours, that make noise at 4am, has no lights in the common areas after 10:15pm, people watching tv after 11pm so loudly that you'd think it was on the balcony with the volume at 50, the guy underneath us smokes on his balcony which enters our kitchen and bathroom areas, two houses near us have chicken coops and one of them decided to get themselves a rooster (oh joy - NOT!), the mailbox floods during heavy rainfall, the garage floods during heavy rainfall, the cooktop is electric and the oven is also electric and it has an exposed heating element making it very difficult to clean. It's only a block away from a noisy street, imagine Queens Blvd. In a complex of 10 units there are only 3 recycling bins which are collected fortnightly, my husband and I can easily fill one in a fortnight, plus the other tenants just throw boxes into the bins without crushing it. The whole complex is a dump and not worth $360 a week even though they wouldn't have increased our rent if we decided to stay.
So we found a place, back on the same street we lived on in Gordon Park, at first I was excited, it has gas cooking, but of all the places this kitchen is the smallest, and the most expensive so far. The first Gordon Park, started I believe at $335 a week and had a huge garage, nice sized kitchen with plenty of cupboard and pantry space and gas cooking, the Kedron unit had a huge kitchen with plenty of pantry and cupboard space at $360 at week and two car garage, this place doesn't have enough space for dry goods, much less for dishes and glassware at $375 a week, plus there's not enough counter space to prepare the meals, it's in a corner and not laid out well enough, the dishwasher is broken, it has to be if I put it to wash a normal wash and it takes more than 5 hours, there's definitely something wrong. There's no direct sunlight coming into the kitchen at all, only at the front door, the other two places had direct sunlight all day, I'm thinking this place along with being more expensive in rent is going to cost us more in electricity. We have to keep a lot of stuff in boxes in the garage, and it's a one car garage, so one car will always be on the street, a fact I hate when there's major storms.
And now for some positive things about this little dump. :) It's technically a townhouse, so, we have an upstairs and a downstairs,which other than a basement, I've never had an upstairs/downstairs. It has 3 toilets, one in the garage area, off the kitchen, then there are 2 upstairs, the first one is just as you get to the top of the stairs, that's where T's litter box is, then the shower/bath/sink is over to the right, the other toilet is in the ensuite and has a sink and shower stall in it too. This place is close enough to McDonald's that it only takes about 13 minutes to walk if you want to make that part of your morning exercise routine. The unit itself is two houses in from the street and decently quiet at all times. It has a small courtyard in the back if you want to cook a bbq or just sit out there, you won't catch any sun as the building next door blocks most of the sun. It has a small balcony off the bedroom but all you see is the other buildings balconies and garages. The people next door that share our wall, smoke.....seriously? We cannot catch a break with smokers, I cannot cook or be outside without being subjected to that awful stench. I met a cat on one of our first days here, and I found out his name is Carlos, he's so cute with his blue eyes, I also have seen a black medium length haired cat with a collar come sniffing at our door, I happened to look over to the door and I saw the flashlight eyes and walked over and it ran away. T is loving it here, he has a courtyard to walk through (supervised of course), he loves sticking his head in between the railings of the staircase, he loves running up those stairs, it's a novelty for him as he's never had that before. One thing for sure, he won't be falling out any windows here as they all have security screens on them and there's no real ledge for him to get a foot on. Maybe once we find a spot for everything I'll like it better, but for now all I like about it is the gas stove and the three toilets.
