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Masturbating Drivers and No Room at the Inn
Entry 7 of 20 | show all | print this entry |
We had a hotel paid for the first two weeks. Our first choices of hotels weren't available; it seems there is an acute shortage of good hotels in Darwin in the dry season!
We ended up in the luxury 4 star Mantra Pandanas hotel. We thought we'd hit the big time, a quick search on the internet showed rooms at this place were going from $300 a night. The hotel was decent and we had a little kitchenette that was great for our needs, but for $300 a night we got cigarette butts in the pool, only for it then to be closed for a week once someone managed to smash some glass in it. We got a fire alarm system that didn't function correctly and would wake us at 6:30 in the morning and have us running into the hallway in our undies only to hear 'false alarm' over the intercom! We had another hotel being constructed next to ours as well as construction on the upper levels of our hotel. This produced some noise, but they were working on the level right outside our window and it certainly meant you didn't want to open your curtains in the morning dressed just in your boxers. We had a light fitting that kept falling out of the ceiling and when we got our room cleaned they would often not replace toilet paper, soap washing powder and we'd have to trot down to reception.
With just two weeks before we would have to start paying these exorbitant rates for ourselves we started looking for a rental immediately. I have to say the majority of the real estate people we dealt with are, to say the least, bloody useless! We quickly arranged to go and see multiple places; this was by appointment only at the time that suited the broker. We ended up falling in love with the first place we saw and filled in an application form immediately. It was an elevated house with a pool. Elevated houses are the traditional Darwin houses, one of the great advantages to them is they are cooler as airflows under the house. The place we liked also had a tropical jungle for a backyard. In the end, although we asked and asked it took over three weeks to even get a decision and we had found another place by then. The real estate guys kept saying there was only ourselves and another couple and we were the people he would be recommending to the owner, so why the wait was beyond us. We gave references on all three of the applications forms we submitted during our search and we know from communicating with our references that all but one of them was contacted. I believe these guys get an 8% commission, although I'm not sure what they actually do for their money.
It was buffoonery at it's finest, after we submitted one application I got a phone call two days later, it went something like this
Them: Oh we just called to let you know the last tenant killed himself in the house
Me: Really
Them: Are you still interested in renting the place?
Me: Mmm let me think about that for a second....perhaps not!
We went to some open houses and there would be 20 people there. Some places were charging top $ to be right next to a main road. Because of the heat a lot of the houses have louvre windows, they're great as they allow for a good airflow in the house. But they don't seal 100% and the houses aren't particularly sound proof, so to pay $500 per week for a not too modern house with lino on the floor when all you can hear all day is the noise of the traffic was not our idea of a great place to live.
I remember one house inspection we did where the young girl who was showing us around was clueless. Every question we asked she'd reply, ooh I'm not too sure about that, you'd better call the office! What were they paying her for!
We had heard stories from Perth a few years ago when there was a mining boom, people were stood outside rental houses bidding up the price. Luckily Darwin was not at that stage yet!
We considered buying but Australia sure ain't cheap. One way to measure how expensive houses are is to look at the ratio of average wage to house prices.
The Reserve Bank of Australia provide this graph
http://rba.gov.au/Speeches/2008/_Images/270308_so_graph7.gif
It shows how average house prices are close to 6 times average salaries in Australia as opposed to 3 times in the USA. Add to this many people have 30 year fixed rates at 5% in the USA and mortgage rates in Australia are around 9%. I think they are ready for a 'correction' over here!
We do have one saving grace from our potentially expensive housing. It turns out that because we have moved away from our place of primary residence we believe we are eligible for an allowance called LAFHA (Living Away from Home Allowance) - this will be a great benefit to us and basically allows us to take some of our rent, food and maybe a vehicle expense out of Erica's salary, pre-tax! I'll get into this more in the future, but it is potentially a huge savings and would be available the whole time we are temporary residents, potentially 4 years.
We did run into a bit of a major issue with the banks when we wanted to get some money transferred over- it turns out if either of us wanted to wire money from our US banks to our new Australia bank we would have to go into the US branch in person! This created a bit of a problem for us, we couldn't open our Aussie account until we got there, but we couldn't transfer unless we were in the USA! Luckily Erica's mum helped us out with a wire transfer as Erica had left some signed cheques in California!
We did do second and third trips to the mall to buy cell phones. In the end it was pretty difficult for us to sign up for a contract plan as we would need all sorts of proof of ID, including medical cards and bank statements that we didn't have yet! We ended up getting pre-paid phones that worked out well, they were with Telstra, as we got a lot better rural coverage and we knew Erica would be out in the bush quite a bit. Telstra is the old state owned telecommunication company over here and they have the best network coverage and best customer service (i.e. you speak with an Australian as opposed to some outsourced overseas office) but they are a lot more pricey than the other carriers. The online discussion boards I looked at to get more information like to spell them Tel$tra. We had to go phone shopping three times as the second time we went even the guy in the store didn't know all the ins and outs of the plans and couldn't answer our questions and he asked us to come back the next day when his mate was there who did know! Some things here seem over complicated, if the sales people don't know the plans there is a problem, but I get the feeling it's to confuse the consumer so a few extra charges can be slipped in here and there. I don't like companies who play that game.
Our second Monday in Darwin was also a public holiday - hurray, well not so soon, I just remembered I was still working for a US company. Doh! This one was called Picnic Day, but I get the feeling it wasn't really started for picnics, it was the gee-gee races at Fannie Bay, so it was an excuse for people to go and have a flutter. I did like the fact we had been here two weeks so far and we'd had two public holidays - I could see this could be a place I'd like to live!
We were busy house hunting on the Saturday, but on the Sunday we did do a quick walk around the botanical gardens. They were good but nothing compared to what you would see in Sydney. We did find this document detailing 50 things to do in Darwin
http://www.darcity.nt.gov.au/documents/50ThingstoDoinDarwinCity.pdf
Although I think 50 may have been a bit of a stretch to achieve for Darwin - here is the entry for 48.
'48. Throw a special party or celebration with a difference - hire out a hotel suite with a view and a balcony overlooking Darwin harbour, organise catering and perhaps even a string quartet to serenade the guests! Living the life of the rich and famous is possible and affordable in Darwin City!'
One of the great things we did that weekend was try out the deck chair cinema
http://www.deckchaircinema.com/
This is where you sit in a real beach deck chair and watch the film under the moonlight. It was a great experience and a good place to see the smaller independent films in Darwin. Like you should be able to do in a civilised country you can drink beer while watching the movie, but be sure to bring some extra pillows as they are certainly not the kindest seats on your derriere!
We did buy a newspaper that weekend for searching rental properties. The local rag is called Northern Territory News. I'm not sure if this reflects badly on the paper or the people of the territory or both, but the headline read 'Is this man a complete tosser! Driver filmed himself masturbating at 150km/h' and for those interested here is a little excerpt
'A TERRITORY man filmed himself speeding at 150km/h while masturbating at the wheel of his drug-laden car, a court heard.
His Holden SV6 was allegedly laden with 5kg of drugs, including two cannabis plants resting on the back seat, the court was told.
Brendon Alan Erhardt, 39, was granted bail so he could marry his girlfriend of six months before he goes to jail.
Prosecutor Sergeant Melinda Edwards said in court the father-of-three told police he "had masturbated while driving'' just before he was stopped for speeding on the 130km/h stretch of the Stuart Hwy.
"(He) also video recorded himself masturbating while travelling at a speed of 150km/h.'''
From this article it does look like the masturbating was only a secondary offence :-)
Due to the tightness and slowness in the rental market we did not have anywhere to live the day we were moving out of the hotel. As luck would have it we fell on our feet once again and a friend of a friend from university gave us a temporary room in an elevated house where we could pay by the week until we found a place.
Yet another score.
Moil here we come!
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| 7. | Masturbating Drivers and No Room at the Inn - Darwin, Australia Aug 05, 2008 |
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