italy

House-hunting

Things you learn about housing in Milan:

There aren't 'houses' as Malaysians know it. Most Milanese like to live in the city, where there are space constraints, so they live mostly in apartments. Not high-rise apartments as we know it either. The apartment blocks are usually only about 3 to 4 storeys, some with lifts and some without. Most of the apartments are located above retail space - for those facing onto the main street. The agency's office is actually a converted apartment, so it had a full bathroom in there with a tub - and one resident green inflatable crocodile. This is a photo of the street that the agency is on. The building is the reddish one in the middle of the row:

One entrance doesn't mean one house or apartment. Most entrances are great big wooden doors which are about 2 storeys high. I continually wondered how anyone is able to push open those doors - until I saw a lady going back to her apartment. Carved into the big doors are smaller doors that are 'human' size, but the smaller doors are so cleverly hidden within the big doors that it's almost impossible to tell! The big doors are more like their 'gates' - automated and for cars.

They prefer location to size. So, better to squeeze into a small apartment that's right in the middle of the city than to live further out, in more space. I've seen apartments so small that I felt claustrophobic - and I'm not usually even remotely claustrophobic. The smallest one that I was almost convinced to visit was only 230sqft! "But it's very nice and it's in the middle of the city" was what the guy told me when I asked him how big the apartment was!

A lot of Italians invest in property. So they live in one but rent out another three more apartments around the city. And apparently, Italian men aren't that different from Malaysian men after all! They live with their parents until they're 30 years old and are mommy's boys...this is a complaint that I heard from one of the girls in the office

I had to do my apartment-hunting on my own as Mum had gone back to KL by the time it was apparent that the agency weren't going to do that for me. I looked at tiny apartments, I looked at big spacious ones. I looked at older buildings, I looked at newer blocks. At first, I was quite apprehensive about house-hunting on my own, as I had visions of serial killers luring innocent young girls (that's me) to quiet, isolated places and then killing them. But after one or two visits, I started to relax and realise that no one's that interested in killing young innocent girls in quiet, isolated places.

I finally found the perfect apartment - it's a bit further from the city than the Milanese are used to, but it's new and spacious, and it's located on a nice street. My apartment is the one on the 3rd floor (the only one without any plants or pots on the balcony) - and most importantly, there's a LIFT to the 3rd floor!

This is the view from my balcony. Not a very big balcony, but enough to fit a clothes horse! Ha-ha...

I had to take a tram (tram stop is just 3 minutes walk from my apartment) and then a train (tram stop to train stop is another 2 minutes of very fast walking) to get to the office. The train stop that I get on and the one that I get off are on two different lines, so there's another 3 minutes of very fast walking to switch lines, and a further 3 minutes from the last train stop to the office. In total, it took me about 30 minutes to get from door-to-door. I thought it was pretty decent! But when my colleagues heard how far it was, they all shuddered. One of them said that it takes her 20 minutes to get to office. WALKING! There's no bloody way I was going to walk for 20 minutes to get to work. All the short-bursts of fast walking is enough for me thanks!

I had a small supermarket (in photo) just outside the tram stop and a gelateria in between the supermarket and my apartment. All that you need to live in Milan! :)

posted by feddupfish @ 9:14 PM