Well that weekend went fast! (I have to remind myself that our weekends in Sydney are numbered. In the hundreds, sure, but still numbered.)
We spent Saturday morning looking for a new place to live, and why does this sound like a familiar refrain? Our lease was up this month and rather than “rolling over” (into a month-by-month tenancy), the real-estate agents have issued us a termination notice, “…to protect the owners.” If we re-signed for another twelve months, they explained, they’ll rescind it, and as a “sweetener” they’re offering $50 per week off our rent — which feels a somewhat hollow gesture, considering we’ve been paying $100 above the asking price for the last two years.
(We’re good tenants who always pay on time, look after the place, get a professional cleaner every fortnight and even got a gardener in! Ultimately we just want to save money for our own property but when we asked them to consider a rent reduction a few months ago, they weren’t so receptive: “…you’re obligated to continue under the terms of…” blah blah blah.)
Look, I get it: the owners think that it’ll be easy to get someone else in at the current price, and considering how expensive property in Sydney is maybe they will. My evolved sense of fairness, however, wants to imagine the house will sit empty for months; that the new tenants will be terrible people who party all night and trash the place; that the owners will rue the day they tried to hard-ball us. That’s what you get you greedy fools!
We counter-offered a $100/week reduction, and today settled on $60 off. Rent is still expensive, but at least we don’t have to move — and we’ve got another 12-months to embrace the minimalist lifestyle that we’ve been missing.
Anyway, Saturday: after an unfruitful inspection potluck and we were off to the Brickman AWESOME exhibition at the ICC. We picked up Harry and his mum Persephone along the way, and the two boys had an absolute blast running between the models, building things and mostly just getting into mischief. A “dip” in the fountain afterwards cooled their jets (a bit) but both the boys were still pretty revved up by the time we dropped Harry and his mother back at home.
On Sunday I went bouldering (which continues to be a whole lotta fun) and then Dee and Jules picked me up and we headed to a farmer’s market to buy some fruit and vegies for the week, and let J have a turn on the bouncy castle. In the afternoon we dropped the boy at a friend’s place and had a couple of hours to ourselves, which we spent looking for frozen yoghurt. Remember when there were frozen yoghurt places everywhere?? Not so anymore it seems.