Category: Renting

Fried Alive

After a romantic evening of candlelight and cards, we fell into bed and prayed to the electricity fairy for a constant supply. Our landlady returned the next day with the sheepish pixie spark in tow. He fessed up that he was to blame for the dodgy circuit board. It had been completely mis-wired and caused a whole series of intermittent power surges. It was good to know we could have been fried alive in our bed. He fiddled his final fiddle and all seemed well. Sockets and switches worked as they should, and this time, nothing blew up. Our landlady, worried we might move out in a huff, assured us that we were model tenants (if only she knew) and agreed to replace the extinct appliances. The modem transformer was quickly substituted, brand new circuit breakers were supplied and a new circuit board for the water heater was ordered. It’s just as well there was enough sun to supply the solar panels; otherwise I’d have been forced to use a bucket of cold water to flannel-wipe my pits and sponge down my important little places. Another cross to bear in a Moslem land.

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Hanife, our formidable landlady and the matriarch of an old, monied Bodrum family dropped by with produce from her prodigious garden. She regularly provides us with various treats such as just-picked fruit, freshly baked pastries and sticky honeyed dough balls. There’s an age old and noble tradition in Turkey that if a neighbour presents a gift of food on a plate you must respond in kind. A plate must never be returned empty. Our habit is to return the dish with the rent money. Canny Hanife doesn’t seem to mind judging by the smile of her face.

Water, Water Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink

We popped out into town for an americano in Kahve Dünyası, a top notch place to sip coffee and people watch. It’s located at the end of the small arcade of up-market shops along the promenade close to Bodrum marina. The coffee arrives with a chocolate tea spoon – for eating not for stirring. Although it’s a chain, Kahve Dünyası provides a superior brew to the Starbucks close by.

We sauntered back along the promenade replenished by the caffeine and the warming spring sunshine. Our upbeat mood plummeted when we walked into our house. The newly refitted kitchen had been transformed into a shallow paddling pool. Fortunately, the room is set slightly below the rest of the house and a step dammed the flood. The qualified water technician recommended by our landlady had poorly fitted a dodgy T junction which had cracked. We spent the evening mopping up the deluge. The next day we hurried down to Koçtaş to buy a replacement fitting and a wrench. Hey presto, now I’m a qualified water technician.

Blooming Bodrum

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We’ve found a gem of a dwelling right in the heart of Old Bodrum Town where charming white washed buildings huddle together cheek by jowl. Our new gaff is a newly constructed stone cottage built in fake traditional style with fine wooden floors and beamed ceilings. The thick caramel coloured stone walls shimmer in the evening sunshine. The well-stocked walled garden is putting in a flourishing spring performance that wouldn’t disgrace the Chelsea Flower Show. Our new lodgings are smaller, thicker set and less exposed than the old. We expect our winter bills to plummet.

Our new landlady is a tough broad from old Bodrum stock and bartered hard. After some robust bargaining we sealed the deal. She is delighted to have yabancılar as tenants. Apparently she doesn’t trust her compatriots to pay the rent.

Bohemian Bodrum

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I’m afraid overwintering in a minor Aegean resort can be a salutary lesson in benign boredom. My partner Liam and I have tired of the nosey over-familiarity of village life. We dodge past expat dives to avoid the sycophantic waiters and predictable punters who sulk if we don’t indulge them. We’ve drawn the conclusion that we crave anonymity and a little more buzz. We are London boys with our London ways after all. Prompted by our perfidious landlord we’ve decided to abandon our oversized house half way up a mini mountain with its matchless views and winter desolation. We shall seek solace and pleasure in bustling Bohemian Bodrum where alternative Turks go to escape from the crushing conformity of everyday life. The beauty of renting is we can up sticks when the mood takes us so we’re sodding off to Sodom. It’s güle güle to silence broken only by the call of crickets and spectacular sunsets and merhaba to 24 hour traffic, exorbitant lattes, barking dogs in surround sound and people, lots of them. I’ve purchased a pair of ear plugs.

The Perfidious Turk

Our fat perfidious landlord has unveiled his dastardly intention to evict us should he find a buyer for the house. This is in spite of our two year tenancy agreement and faultless payment history. We will jump before we are pushed. Our minds are now set on change and this is the opportunity to cast our net wider than sleepy Yalıkavak. We now know there is more to the Bodrum Peninsula than living in an igloo with a view on the edge of a ghost town populated by street dogs and feral felines. Besides, the vile Vikings are back for the spring and I don’t relish the prospect of enduring the whinging drivel from miserable Cnut or the sight of vapid Ragnild’s gravity ravaged baps. Despite the temporary bedlam, a Bodrum in shiny new livery looks promising.

Premature eJackulation

It looks like we’ll soon be following our ex-neighbour Clement. Our smiley landlord called by unannounced dragging a Turkish family of three generations behind him. Liam was taking his morning ablutions and I was taking tea. The family were prospective buyers, and smiley Landlord wanted me to show them around the house. I refused. It was embarrassing and rather unpleasant. If he wants to sell the house from under us that is his prerogative. He will have to give us fair notice and we have no intention of acting as his unofficial, unpaid agents. That wiped the silly smile of his face.

There are plenty of little white boxes around to rent and we shall move. There’s an excellent chance that our landlord won’t be able to sell the house and it’ll remain empty indefinitely like most of the others. Myopic old goat.

Y Viva España

Liam loves a spreadsheet and a bit of research. He’s at his most content when fiddling with his formulas and colour coding his columns. I set him a challenge. I wanted to know the price differential for living our kind of life in Blighty, Spain and Turkey. Having worked out our major expenses – food, booze, travel to Blighty, rent, bills, healthcare etc, Liam set about the task with gusto and usual thoroughness. The analysis is remarkably detailed and the results are not at all what we expected.

Based on our spend in Turkey

  • We would spend a third more living in the UK than in Turkey (in the southeast of England, outside London). This is mostly due to higher rent levels.
  • Our average weekly grocery shop would be cheaper in the UK than in Turkey
  • Our average grocery shop would be cheaper still in Spain
  • Overall, we would spend a fifth less if we lived in Spain

These are headlines only and many factors are variable. Nevertheless, it makes an interesting read. What makes the most difference to our fiscal health is our income. As we don’t work we depend on our investments. British and Eurozone interest rates are negligible so we would have to supplement our income somehow, leading to an obvious and unpalatable conclusion. However, rates won’t remain low forever.

Of course, we don’t live in Turkey on cost grounds alone and we don’t intend to move on any time soon. We’ll keep an eye on it though. We don’t know where our doddering dotage will take us.

Buyers Beware

I stumbled upon the Horizon Sky Owner’s site* on Facebook where it seems some investors are in rebellious mood, railing against prolonged delays and rising costs. It was a chilly blast from the past. I had considered buying into the development about 4 years ago when I had a proper job, a decent wage, and a few pennies in the piggy bank. It was at a time when the prospect of moving to the sun was but a faraway fantasy so we fancied a part time slice of paradise as the next best thing. The development was heavily promoted in the London Evening Standard property supplement and I was seduced by Galliard Homes’ first-rate reputation for top-drawer builds. Liam and I attended a slick presentation in a swish West End hotel and talked at length to one of the persuasive, pretty reps. I was dangerously close to signing on the dotted line but, at the critical moment of my madness, I stepped outside, lit a reflective cigarette, regained my sanity and walked away. It was not to be.

I know little of the development these days except that it seems colossal in scale and ambition, located on an isolated slope near Iassos and late. Now we live in Turkey we know so much more. Our lives and means are utterly altered as is the dire economic landscape we all now inhabit. We rent and are thankful for the freedom to move as we please and when the mood takes us. We have been mercifully released from that inbred notion to own that Brits nurture in the womb. “There’s nothing safer than houses” my father used to say. Alas, this has a hollow ring nowadays.

Investing in Turkey no longer offers the rapid return it once did, nowhere does. We travel the length and breadth of the Bodrum Peninsula past half-built developments of little white boxes marching up hill and down dale. No-one seems to be buying and few are renting outside the height of summer. And yet the developers carry on regardless, promising pie in the sky, depressing the market and killing the goose.

* July 2011. The Horizon Sky Owner’s site on Facebook is no longer public.

* February 2013. Horizon Sky now has an open Facebook page that anyone can join.

Burning Rubber

We said our goodbyes to Marina the Shitting Kitten and closed the door on the holiday let for the last time. Weighed down by heavy suitcases and boxes of groceries, the under-powered hire car struggled to reach second base camp on Mount Tepe. The smell of burning rubber filled the air. Liam kept his eyes shut and I got out and ascended on foot.