Renting

Currently, I rent a 2 bedroom, one bathroom terrace in the Inner West of Sydney.

I love living here. Renting has afforded me the ability to move out of my parent’s home at a young age and move in with my partner. It has enabled me the luxury of living close to the city at a young age and has enabled me the luxury of a 20 minute commute to work, as opposed to a 1 hour one (like it would be if I still lived with my parents).

However, renting is not all roses and rainbows.

Our terrace is 100+ years old. Whilst this would be ok if our terrace was renovated properly, the fact of the matter is...it isn’t. We have nice shiny floorboards and a nice new bathroom. Our kitchen is 50+ years old and so is the ridiculous oven that’s inside it. You may remember in the old days (perhaps your Grandparents had one) that the old gas stoves/ovens lit up with a flame at the back. Except, in the old days, the spark probably worked which reacted with the gas to create the flame. 

Ah the good old days, when the ovens actually worked. It is so old, that google doesn't even have a picture of it.

The other downside to renting? We can’t choose how big (or small!!) our hot water tank is. Lucky we don’t have a bath, because we would be filling it with hot water from the kettle. Our hot water tank rarely lasts a full shower. If I am lucky, I will have just enough time to wash my hair before it starts to go cold. Washing hair and shaving legs? Forget it. I guess the upside of that is I have learnt to think strategically and find ways I can get both done in the same day if need be. Either that or I am taking more showers.

There are as I mentioned above, also upsides to renting. Especially when our rental goes directly through our landlord (who owns about 7 terraces in a row.. can anyone say gold mine?). We have no real estate agent, which means any problems go direct to the land lord. Well actually, they go straight to his fix it man.

Rest assured, anything that breaks in our house is fixed within 24 hours. 48 at the absolute most.