House hunting - part two

My very dear readers,

You are an amazingly sweet lot! I never expected so many of you to respond so fast, tho' I did go popping into a few blogs to request opinions.. Thank you SOOOOO MUCH for the responses, and it helped so in clearing the cobwebs in my mind.

Almost all of you immediately zeroed in in a duplex not being suitable for a toddler. I guess it is a glaringly obvious thing, but it WAS such a cute house Sigh! Maybe for some lovey-dovey newly married couple to play running and catching on those stairs, perhaps.. SIGH! We said No to the brokers of that duplex yesterday.

We decided that we'd not commit to the apartment, so the husband didn't accompany me, but I went alone to the apt to meet the caretaker yesterday. It is precisely 11 km from my office, not too far actually..., but again, while I looked over the place, a vague sense of unrest stole over me. If it was so good, why was it going so cheap? The amenities are all quite nice actually, and it ought to have cost a bomb, but it didn't. Why? Maybe perverse thinking on my part, but really, why ?

Somehow the house didn't give off a good aura from inside. It was a two storey building and this and another on top of this were the only two flats facing south. Ok, so this one was unoccupied, but I was checking the flat above this one and that one's balconies too looked pretty sad. All the other homes in that complex were filled with pots and flowers and clothes hanging out and cycles and general homely messes, but not these two.

I dunno anything about the other flat on top, but regarding this one, the caretaker had told us that there was a bachelor who stayed there for just 6 months, and he went back to Delhi as he was transferred back, and since it was a company rented flat, the company stopped paying rent.

Now- tell me which bachelor takes up a 3 bedroomed HUGE flat? Even if he were planning to get married, he would surely look at a 2 bed place inititally?So he had to be married, but wasn't able to bring his family along. Which was sad.
And somehow, I keep wondering if the Co stopped paying rent because they sacked him and that was why he went back..? to Delhi? I'm not generally so morbid. I'm the eternal optimist, while the husband is the pessimist. But somehow this thought stole in and would get out from the recesses of my mind. The house seemed to have SOME unhappy history to it.

And I was reminded of one of the houses we'd stayed in on rent.
The owners had bought the house from a friend of theirs. These original owners were super rich, with plenty of property in their name. They built this one - a two storied house in a prominent residential area, for their son. But this house somehow proved not so lucky for them. They started losing their riches slowly. The parents passed away. The son lost in everything he invested in and gradually started living on loans. Finally the son went so bankrupt that he was forced to sell the house. To our landlords.

Who were doing quite ok for themselves tho' they weren't particularly well off. When they bought this house, they decided to give the ground floor on rent so they could use the extra income. Both of us were new to the place- them the owners- a family of four and us the tenants. But the lady used to tell me how they were finding it difficult to manage expenses which semed to just keep mounting. She could have been laying the base for a rent hike soon, but somehow I don't think she was, and we maintained the same rent for the whole year . When we moved in, I had just gotten a new job. A good one. The husband got himself an office car. This added to the discontent of the owners, who didn't have a car. I started getting bloody irritated and got increasingly so with the BIL, contributing to a lot of ill -will at times between the husband and me. Our landlord lost his mother while he was in that house. My new company shut shop after 6 months. And my father's kidney took a turn for the worse and I lost him while in that house.

We moved out after a year and a half. I keep thinking I'll go by that house one of these days, but I haven't so far. For while we still maintain extremely cordial relations with our houseowners prior to this house, in this house, our owners used to envy us even a pot we bought! Not a pleasant thing to happen. Though we invited them to our housewarming, they didn't come.

So you see, while I myself feel I'm stupid to believe about unhappy auras for houses, I DO believe in that.

So although I went to the apt last evening, thinking to pay a token advance of a 1000k to the caretaker which wouldn 't be a loss even if we stood to lose it, at the last minute I didn't pay him anything. I told him I would come tomorrow. Outside a swimming coaching class was on in full swing, and I was left thinking how much Sonny boy would have enjoyed staying there..

It was nice & breezy at 5 in the evening, there were children of his age, plenty of place for him to cycle (his current craze), walkways for us to walk, place to park two cars, a gym with enough equipment in it, a tennis court, it was close to his school (and to some 5 IT complexes), near enough to the main road, but yet secluded... quite idyllic, isn't it? But yet, something about it made me not quite happy.

The husband had already told me that if I wasn't happy, not to break my head over it and that there was no mad hurry to settle on a house. And then, last night I read all of your comments. Many of you advising me to wait before I committed in case I wasn't a 100% sure.
So its back to square one again.

Sonny boy says to us when we return late from office sometimes, "I waiting, waiting, waiting, WAITing for you!!" Like wise, we're back to searching, searching, searching, SEARCHing for a house.
Thanks a million for your comments which helped so much.

Awaiting my next home-to-be,
Yours warmly,
JLT.