The first step on the ladder

(written 7:45pm, Monday 8th)

On Saturday night, after a lengthy day’s house hunting, myself and my boyfriend began to wind down our evening at a time when most people in their mid twenties may be squeezing into their glad rags (or whatever the youths wear these days), pouring another alcoholic beverage of their choice and ordering a taxi to begin theirs.

These were our first tentative steps into the treacherous, emotional, tormenting world of the housing market. Saturday morning we had set off eagerly through torrential rain into the realms of suburban Plymouth to view an eclectic mix of properties chosen by my boyfriend and myself.

Our criteria aren’t all that easy to fill, if I’m honest. We need a three bedroomed, substantial property with a garden, walks easily accessible, all for about the cost of a postage stamp. Oh, and car parking would be useful seeing as my idea of parallel parking is abandoning the car a substantial walk away from a perfectly good, well located roadside spot that I had already attempted, and failed spectacularly, to back the car into and driven off, at best a little grouchy, at worst sobbing hysterically to find somewhere where I could park with relative ease.

The first property, adorned with a variety of interesting wall and ceiling textures, was abandoned for being too small. The agent, who it transpired had only been in the job since November, wasn’t exactly offering the hard sell, strongly advising us to consider the second property on our list over this one, and while showing us around kept saying ‘oooh that’s a bit dodgy’ about elements we were pointing out. A lovely but heavily ditsy Plymothian lass, although I can’t imagine she’s raking in the commission.

The second, equally featuring interesting ceiling textures, appeared to be inhabited, along with an aging owner and her worryingly youthful husband, with a large amount of china dolls. The house was violently sprayed with an array of pinks, and was uncomfortably similar to the dolls house that sat in one of the bedrooms. Another room was covered with fairies of all varieties, on the walls, on the bedclothes, on just about anything that remained stationary for too long. It looked like it had been vomited from the imagination of a severely disturbed Victorian children’s writer, the physical manifestation of gentle but can’t-put-your-finger-on-why-but-a-little-uncomfortable stories, the result of the consumption of a large amount of opium that in the cold light of day just didn’t seem to go away.

The third, embedded deeply within suburbia although with a nice view over, unsurprisingly, suburbia itself, wasn’t thankfully pink. However it did feature a disturbing amount of pine on the walls and deep furry carpet throughout that looked like several great bears had been skinned to produce, or at least were lying very still.

The latter two houses, despite their décor, had been loved, attended, cared for. I almost wanted to buy them just for those reasons. In the third house the elderly couple were so lovely I would have bought them too, although I think that might be illegal. I felt guilty as the estate agent told them we were looking for our first house, as they were downsizing.

We headed off for our fourth and final viewing. My boyfriend’s trump card. He’d had his heart set on it since he’d seen it, although the picture displayed it as a concrete monstrosity and only when we’d driven passed it last week was I more receptive to a viewing.

The estate agent, quiet, wispy, nervous, lead us in to the house, passed the garden, bin liners of rubbish garnishing the overgrown grass, a broken trike here and there to add colour.

I have tried to think how to describe this house. As we entered, cat food littered the floor, scattered around a scratching tower that had seen better days. The agent lead us through to the lounge where an overweight woman sat in a spaghetti strapped top, breasts confused with fat trying to gain an exit route from the confines of the limited amount of material, playing poker on her PC.

A cat was roaming the dining room table, staring at us suspiciously. I tried to make limp conversation which involved one of our questions on the list. Why was she moving? Her partner and her were splitting up. And she didn’t want to talk about it.

The ceiling shuddered under the weight of about a hundred children running across the landing upstairs. The picture frames, all so wonky I can hardly imagine how anyone couldn’t have done that deliberately, did nothing but draw our attention to the mould and dirt that was laden on the window sills.

The lady informed us that next door had finally got around to tidying his garden. This sounded like a positive sign so we stepped tentatively through the kitchen, sides adorned with food, cupboards open lazily, outside. Next door looked like the fallout of a nuclear war. Branches carpeted what may have been grass beneath. But at least it was all flat and progress had clearly been made (heaven only knows what it must have looked like before).

The garden belonging to the house we were viewing, however, wasn’t exactly looking all that peachy and seemed to have the same distinct black bin bag garnish that the front garden featured.

Upstairs, curtains displayed dirt almost proudly, windows collected mould as if they were saving it for a school science project. We waded through clothes, and a cat that we thought was a stuffed animal, to view the final bedroom, in which the uncalculated number of kids were behind.

Opening the door we were greeted with three sulky, sullen and vicious looking boys, possibly somewhere between the age of 8 and 12, although I tried not to make eye contact for worry that they’d hunt me down and kill me if they recognised me in the street, just to kill boredom. They continued to stare at their computer game, and we, briefly, surveyed the damp on the ceiling and the astonishing amount of writing all over every inch of the wallpaper, the wording of which I didn’t look too closely at but imagined it wasn’t poetry or Shakespeare quotations.

We left the house feeling a little bit shell shocked and somewhat unclean. The estate agent asked us, tentatively, nervously, what we thought of the property. She told us that they had sold the house to the current owners and the house had previously looked like a show home. I think I almost saw a tear.

And so today my boyfriend put an offer in for this house. Don’t try joining the dots, there aren’t any.