Sorry that house already taken LA!

One thing that I didn’t want to do for a 3^rd time in less than a year in Singapore was hunting for another house. After the tough experience of living with an old South Indian family in a shared apartment with one single bedroom for myself, it was a refreshing change to move in with my house mates, but the whole experience of hunting for a house was not easy.

With less than 2 months to go before end of contract it was upto my housemate and me to look for a new accommodation. I was keen to find a place without an agent. After, all the hard work I do of searching houses on the internet, what should I pay an Agent for?? So I set out all the selection criteria – Budget, 2 bedrooms, at least one master bedroom, single bus journey to my office, locations, furnishing and ofcourse NO AGENT.

The Search: Religiously everyday for 2 months I used to search for houses on the internet. It started with a dedicated 1 hour a day. Initially it was only social websites which has more listings posted directly by the owners than the commercial websites. After one month of searching the conclusion was – Agents are more social when it comes to posting available rooms. Out of every 100 ads posted maximum 1 is from an owner and out of every 10 owner postings 9 are conmen! I think Singapore would be one of the few countries in Asia were services starting from application for driving licence to buying grocery, everything is available online. However, somehow nothing explains why people don’t want to publish their available house for rent on the internet but prefer to engage an agent. So after one month I removed a point from my list of criteria “NO AGENT”

Now both my housemate and I were daily spending a few hours searching on the net and sending emails and SMS to every ad which fit our criteria. The first thing I realized was that we don’t fit the conditions put by the owners. Only family, Only girls, No Indians, No cooking, No visitors and the most bizarre we heard was, No poster or idol of any God! Not that we are religious or have any idol or poster of God in our present house, but this condition was most outrageous. So from a simple house hunting exercise it had now turned into a marketing exercise where we had to sell our self as suitable tenants to get responses from agents and owners. My SMSes to agents now included “We are very clean, polite, educated and professional individuals. We also get maid service every week to clean the house!!” I think a few more years, and people will have to send their CV to the agents to be considered as suitable tenants. It would be funnier than profile postings on Indian matrimonial websites!

The viewings: Finally we started getting some positive responses from agents with only 4 weeks left to our deadline. We set off on a Saturday afternoon for viewing. The first place was good - a empty house, very clean, good flooring, nice kitchen, very much in budget, but no furnishing, no bed, no TV, etc. We decided to give it a pass and see the other places. We reached the second place 30 mins before time. As we reached the building we saw a crowd of 10 to 15 people, most of them in tie and wearing the agent’s batch. While we thought it must be a really good apartment, as so many people had turned up for the viewing. The fact was that none of them had seen the apartment even once. The practice is to provide the actual unit address just before opening the doors for viewing. By the time the viewing started there were almost a 100 people in the building lobby. As the doors opened, there was queue outside the elevator and it looked like participants of the Amazing Race! My agent gave a healthy suggestion to avoid elevator and walk up. What she really meant was –screw the elevator and just RUN to get there first! Just as we reached the 4^th floor, panting, the apartment surely took our breath away.. It was a stinking, dark, small, over stuffed, dilapidated apartment.. There was enough space for only 2 people to walk in a straight line. With the Singaporean culture of following a queue everywhere, the crowd automatically formed into a queue and it was like a two-way traffic of people walking in and out. We must have spent a total of 45 seconds inside the house to see it, and were almost pushed out of the house by the waiting crowd. The ordeal continued with the next few places that we saw. Every house had a crowd waiting. One of the worst places we saw was a house shared by 5 men. This house didn’t even have enough space for 2 people to walk. Each bedroom had 3 beds and a centre table with a zillion laptops, hard drives, head phones, mobile phones, wires, chargers and what not. The floor had a layer of dust and I really couldn’t identify the original colour of the walls. My agent gave me a sympathetic look, but all she said is, these are the kind of place that you can get in your preferred locations and your budget. I thought I would rather live on the streets of Singapore than living in these kind of houses. After spending 4 hours viewing pathetic places, we realized the first house we saw was a steal for the money and immediately called the agent. Guess what the agent replied.... “Sorry that house already taken LA”! It was taken in a matter of 4 hours. It was the most disturbing end of the day.. We of course ended up drinking over the day’s disappointment but, setting our expectations right and making further changes to our criteria – Budget, single bus to office, location, furnishing. Now the list was 4 walls, 1 roof, 2 bedrooms, 2 beds, 1 fridge, that’s it. But we just needed the house to be in good shape to live in!

The final hunt: With less than 2 weeks to pass, we were getting a little desperate for the house. We saw many more shit holes but also saw some good places and made an offer for them. In most cases someone outbid us and we again heard the golden words “Sorry that house already taken LA”. Most days ended in disappointment lead by those words. One of the agents called me about a viewing on a weekday afternoon. Considering the fact that it was a weekday afternoon, I expected less people to turn up and so that would mean more probability to get the place. When I reached there, I was shocked to see the huge crowd even on a weekday afternoon. It was the same race all over again. However, the house was fabulous. Good furnishing, high rise, good breeze, spacious rooms, everything that we needed. I decided I had to get the house at any cost. I made an offer higher than the owner’s expectation and even before my housemate could see the place. Then I saw something happening that had never happened before. The owner’s agent announced – People, whoever has made an offer below xxxx amount Please Leave! Then we were lined up like a criminal identification parade in front of the owner. After all the weeks of struggle, I had no ego left and stood in the line holding a sheepish smile, expecting the owner to like me! The agent introduced each one and mentioned their offer. When it came to me, I realized the agent added adjectives to our profile like he was over selling us..... highly educated........... working for big companies... uses maid service.. and of course they have offered a higher rental than others. Later I realized, my agent had an agreement with the owner’s agent so that they get the deal together. Finally the 2 months ordeal ended and we were picked as the suitable tenants over a huge competitive crowd. This time it was our turn NOT to hear the golden words but I am sure we were the reason that lead to a few others to hear it– “Sorry that house already taken LA!”

There is one rule of this house.. there are no rules!!

Working in the IT industry for all these years, I have always hung around with engineers. One of the things that engineers love to share is their experiences of living in a college hostel during their university years. There are always stories about being ragged by seniors, binge drinking, being caught while cheating in an exam and of course first girlfriends. It’s the happy life they lived before renouncing everything and submitting themselves to life in cubicles.

I have never really had a chance to live in hostel or live away from home while I was studying, infact I never got a chance to do it even when I started working. It’s only now at the age of 29, I have moved out of my home town for the first time and living in a new country. One of the most important parts of life away from home is made of people you live with. I have heard from friends how difficult life could be if you don’t get to live with the right kind of people. Fortunately, I got a chance to live with really cool people. Even though my experience doesn’t equate to life in a university hostel, but it’s still an awesome experience!

After living with an old South Indian couple for the first 4 months, I was desperately looking for a new place to live in. I didn’t care how far the place was from the city, or how far it was from office, or how was the neighbourhood. All I knew was I can’t live with a family again, and had to look for working professionals to live with. Luck favoured me and I got in touch with a friend's friend on facebook, who was to move back to India in a few weeks and was looking for someone to take his place in the house. The house was far from city, it would take more than an hour for me to travel to work and didn’t have much to do in the neighbourhood. However, the only thing that appealed to me is that he shared the house with 2 other Indian guys who were working professionals.

I decided to visit them on a weekend to see the place and also meet the guys. After struggling with the GPS to find the exact block I reached the door. I got the first sign of a bachelor’s house, the door bell didn’t work. There were flyers of laundry service, property agents, lock smiths, etc all over the outer grill that no one ever bothered to remove. I had already started to get a feeling that I have found my dream house! After multiple calls, the dude finally picked up the phone and opened the door. It was a Sunday afternoon and he still looked very hung-over and had just dragged himself out of the bed. The house was huge, with good interior and surprisingly clean. The kitchen had a few empty bottles of whiskey and the dustbin had a few empty cans of beer! That was the second sign that I was at the right place and should take the room. However, I was more interested in the people, than the house itself. He knocked on one of the rooms and I got to meet the first guy.

First sign of a Geek - He came out wearing a full sleeve shirt and shorts. I wasn’t surprised to know that he was in the IT industry. The story followed that they all studied together at the university, been in Singapore for many years and living together for past 3-4 years. House mate 1, looked like the guy who could spend hours in front of a computer and solve complex networking problems. He was introvert and didn’t bother to ask many questions. That’s definitely an easy guy to live with. In a while the other guy came home, and he walked in with a Chinese girl. Two things struck me – this guy has got a Chinese girlfriend and it’s cool to bring girls back HOME!!!!! I am sure at the right place!!!! House mate 2 looked a little more extrovert and inquired about my job and stuff. The first question he had to ask was – Do you smoke? Well, I am trying hard to quit, but I don’t mind my house mates smoke!!! I think in 10 minutes I had already decided to live with these guys, it was only upto them to accept me.

I got a call from them after a few days and they offered me the room. In a few weeks time I was ready to move in. One of the guys left for India and I took his room, so it was three of us sharing the house. When I moved in the house, I asked them if there were any rules of the house that I should follow.. I was told.. there is only one rule.. there are no rules!!!

It was a refreshing change after spending 4 torturous months with a family. I didn’t have to rush into my room after getting back at home and avoid annoying tamil soaps on TV. I didn’t have to worry about closing my room door a little hard. I didn’t have to bother about cleaning up the dishes immediately after dinner. I could come back at home and have my dinner in the hall room in front of the TV like it was my own house. Some time my housemates would join me to sit and watch TV together.

While I got to know them better, they also introduced me to their circle of friends. They have a big circle of friends from their university days. I met the group a couple of times for a few drinks on weekends and had an absolutely hilarious time listening to them recalling past events and revealing outright disgusting and embarrassing stories about each other. They kind of knew intrinsic details of each other’s binge drinking stories, visits to dodgy bars and the extreme stories involved loss of virginity!! The most hilarious was when they started bragging about who had the highest capacity to jerk off the most number of times in a single day!! I had never know men could be comfortable about talking such stuff.. These were guys who had lived together through their teenage years and now in their twenties, all of them earning a living, some of them married! They still share a strong friendship, but they also don’t let a chance slip to dig into each other’s embarrassing past...

It didn’t take me much time to learn the trends of the house. There were some typical bachelor’s house trends. A maid visited every 2 weeks to clean up the house and the day I had fist come to see the place was after the maid had just left. So I was deceived by the clean house. Sometimes there would be dishes in the sink for weeks, expecting it to be cleaned when the maid comes next. I have seen some shirts hanging in the drying area for 3 months straight, it’s been drying for so long that there could be cobwebs inside it.. I am not even sure if it’s their shirts or from a previous tenant. The dustbin would get full and overflowing, but no one would bother to empty it.. till I moved in :) I always eagerly wait for the maid’s visit.. However, there are some good trends too, which makes it easier to tolerate the not so good ones.. We live in complete faith and trust. The room doors are left open when we are not at home.. not that there are valuables to steal.. but the fact is that there is nothing to hide. At the same time I can be in my room the whole day with the door shut, and know for sure that I wouldn’t be bothered. One of the funny things is that when they have to say something to each other, they don’t knock on the door, but they text each other. I have got texts like “Dude, do you have some Maggie”. It’s also great fun to just sit on the couch and watch some movies on HBO and have beer together on weekends. It’s like the perfect blend of having a good time with house mates, but also getting enough privacy when needed..

Unfortunately, I know it’s just a temporary phase in life and will pass soon. One of the guy's got a promotion and got posted in the US for 3 years.. He moved out recently.. The other one has been in a steady relationship for a long time and has plans of marriage early next year.. It’s just a matter of time I would have to move again.. I am not sure where life’s gonna take me next. But my first experience of living with house mates has been a memorable one..

When is the next meetup?

Like any other techie who is about to move base, I did my homework well before moving into Singapore. I spent a good four weeks looking for places to stay, publishing ads on the internet, checking the street view of every possible lane that lead to my (to-be) office in Singapore. However I didn’t really do much research to know about the social life in Singapore. I have never really put in much effort in the past to build a social circle, as it just happened without much effort. I came here totally unprepared and paid the price for it in the initial few weeks. Nobody really entertains strangers here.

I credit myself to quite a few failed attempts of socializing. I joined a salsa class, started going to the community gym, talked to almost any neighbour I met in the lift, almost got bitten by the neighbour’s dog, nothing worked! Finally one of my friends suggested me to check out “meetup.com”. At first I thought it would be just another online dating website and I hadn’t got so desperate to signup for one. However, with all the free time that I had after work, I did sign-up for a few groups. Unexpectedly it has been one of my saviours in a country of strangers. In past five months now, I have become a regular face in some of the meetup group events and met a lot new people. I have managed to make some good friends and some friends for life, however it’s not really very common to bump into like minded people at these event. Sooner I realized, people who were genuinely at these events to meet new people were mostly expats who were in a similar situation like me, and had given up on other ways to build a social life. However, I also met a lot of people, who were there for some other agenda, and I have had the most hilarious experience with them. In the few meetups that I have attended I can guess the agenda of a person by the way they behave at a meetup. Let me introduce some of these people..

The Multi Level Marketing guys:
I am sure each one of my reader must have met one of these kinds of people some time in life. These are the people who show you dreams of Mercedes and BMWs and tells you that you have a useless job that would never let you achieve these. The only way to achieve these is by selling some exotic toothpaste or shampoo or some other products and trapping more of your friends to do the same. These are people alienated all their friends in a bid for the BMW and now in the hunt for new friends (read business partners). These are people who usually don’t buy a drink for a “drink and dinner” event. The usual conversation with these guys is like
Me: Hey! I am Anup.
Jack: Hey! I am really very glad to meet you. I am Jack.
Me: Same here. So Jack, what do you do?
Jack: I am a business man. I live in a condo in Tampines and I drive a Mercedes. My daughter goes to Raffles school and I have got 3 exotic pet dogs.
Me: Great! (Yeah right!! And you don’t have enough money to buy yourself a drink)
Jack: You would be surprised to know what my business is. I don’t even have an office.. I work from home.. But still I managed to be so successful.
Me: OKAAAYYY!!! (I think I know where he is getting.. run.. run for your life!!!!)
Jack: Don’t you want to know what I do?
Me: (I gulp down my drink even if it’s a full glass and try hard not to make a face.. and make the most obvious statement) I would love to know, but first let me get myself a drink.. Will get back to you in a while.. (And I run.. and just hope that I don’t bump into the guy again that evening)

The weirdos:
Its difficult to define these kinds, because they can be weird in many ways. After the first few experiences, I realized I should avoid any person who doesn’t have a drink in their hand. It just proved they were not there with the single agenda of selling something, atleast not in the first meeting. However, that doesn’t filter out the weirdos. It’s difficult to categorize all the weirdos together. I have met people who can talk at a pitch that my ear drums could burst or laugh to scare the kids in the neighbourhood, or the worst kinds who dance in the weirdest form and I don’t want to be seen anywhere beside them, but they keep pulling me back on the dance floor. But some of the weirdos are just exceptional!

I once met a middle aged Chinese man at an event, and tried to have some small talk. Trying not to make it obvious that I was interested only in talking to the girls, I said Hi to him. At first anything I said to the Chinese man, the only response I got was a nod. The longer the question the longer he would nod. Where are you from? He nodded for 2 seconds. You know it’s really hot today, Do you think it’s going to rain later? He nodded for 5 seconds.. in 35 seconds I realized he didn’t understand a shit of what I said and he wouldn’t stop nodding. Well, I did my usual trick, gulped down my drink and said, Hold on.. I’ll be back in 2 mins. I ran to the bar, ordered a drink and was just looking around to see if there was anyone interesting to talk to. Just as I get the drink and turn around I see the weird Chinese guy standing right behind me waiting for me. I tried ignoring him and talking to other people, but he followed me to every table I went to. He wouldn’t talk, or try to be part of the conversation, but just NOD! Finally, I managed to introduce him to one of my other friend and disappear from there. Later I came to know, he was following my friend for the rest of the evening.

The bridegroom hunters:
Well I think it would be fair enough to suggest that most men who go for the meetup events are looking to hook-up. There is usually a crowd around the tables with good looking girls and if there is just one guy speaking to a girl then there is a crowd of men giving the guy bad looks or showing him thumb up! However, I have met women in meetup events who are not there just to hook-up, but to meet the man of their dream, get married and have children all in less than a year. These are girls who are worried about the biological clock and usually put up a lot of extra make up to look younger. However, there are also a lot of girls there with the same agenda but don’t make it so obvious till you talk to them. They usually have a lot of questions to ask, and I try to stop them before they go on to ask me about my family medical history. It’s like they are on the hunt for a father to their unborn children. I once had a one of the most memorable and funny conversation with one such girl
Me: (Smile)
She: Hi! What’s your name?
Me: (OK! That’s a bold girl) Hi! I am Anup. What’s yours?
She: Sarita. I am sure you are from India. Where are you from?
Me: Mumbai.
She: What do you do here?
Me: I am working for a telecom startup.. and How about u??...
She: What does your telecom statrup do?
Me: (Woow.. lots of question) Oh we are working on some new research prod…
She: Then why are you in Singapore?
Me: (Will she stop?) Well you know we are funded here..
She: How many sibilings do you have?
Me: (What?? Is that even relevant??) One elder brother
She: Is he married?
Me: Yeaa..She: Does he have kids?
Me: (Holly shit!! What is this girl upto? Is this an interview?) I take a while and don’t say anything, and instead of answer her question. I try to ask counter questions and then she starts speak.

In no time she has told me that she is Singaporean, but still holds Indian values! Her ex-boyfriend was an Australian. Her elder sister is married to an American and now its upto her to take ahead the family's Indian culture. At many occasions I tried to stop and move, but I failed. Finally, I used the same old technique, gulp down the drink and run to the bar. However, this time, to overcome the trauma, I gulped down the second drink too..

By the end of the evening if I am too drunk, it must have been a bad event. Well, I have had a lot more experience and met more kind of people than what I have just mentioned, and I am sure it would be enough content to write a book someday. However, with funny, hilarious, painful and annoying experiences all together, meetups still remain one of the best way for me to socialize in Singapore. I have met people from countries, of which I had never heard before. It’s embarrassing to ask them where their country is, but it’s a great experience of meeting people from different cultures and different regions. It’s also a great way of making friends for life. The only question I have after every meetup is.. When is the next meetup?