New apartment

Bahaha

I won't have internet at home until after my holiday, so I will probably put up some photos of the new place then - hopefully it will be in order by that time! The move went well, got it all done well within the time the truck was rented for. The 4 flights of stairs were rather unpleasant, but manageable. I was super grateful to have 2 guys from work helping! They took care of all the heavy stuff without a murmur, cheers!

The next day, I got an oven, fridge/freezer and washing machine delivered. I was super-impressed - they're all from a second-hand dealer, he delivered them the same day, came the first time, moved the washing machine and oven in, came back a second time after calling a third guy to help with the fridge (it is massive, and the stairs are really steep and narrow, especially the last flight) and then came back a THIRD time because the plug on the oven was too big for a normal socket, so he got a new plug and wired it all up. Took him 2 hours total, poor thing! I was so super grateful slash super embarrassed to be sitting there doing nothing while they were dying hauling this stuff up. Yes, I had paid for the delivery, but only 35 euros. Gave him a bottle of wine to assuage my middle-class guilt :)

The place is more or less in order, by which I mean it's still a complete tip, but obviously the whiteware's in, I've put together all the Ikea furniture (except for the door on a cupboard, which I can't figure out how the hinges go on for the life of me), and things are generally unpacked. Hopefully I'll get it sorted this weekend so that I can come back to a nice place after my holiday.

Yesterday I got a text from Geraldine - after I had moved out, she had finally offered me the one and only bit of assistance she deigned to give, the offer of the small TV I had had in my room. I went early in the morning to get it, partly because I woke up really early anyway, and partly to avoid her. I had some suspicions that this was a ploy to lure me back and ask me for money. Possibly that was paranoia, but here's her response to the text I sent to say thanks for the TV:

"No worries, glad someone can get some use out of it. However we need to see each other about the rent for June and July. And it would be good if you could clean your room (including the windows) before Saturday. I'll take care of all the rest and the torn wallpaper in your room. I am moving my cartons tonight so the room will be accessible from tomorrow. And you also need to give me the keys back before the inspection on Saturday morning"

N'importe quoi! Okay, I can understand about the rent, other than the fact that I've TOLD her already that I gave the cheques to the agent and she was sorting it out. She hasn't cashed them, but no way I'm giving G another set of cheques. And the agent told me to drop the keys off at her office, so that's what I'll be doing. But honest to god, can you believe she asked me to come back and clean, and acted like she was doing me a favour cleaning the rest of the apartment? Other than the fact that she knows it's her security deposit at stake (I didn't give one) so it doesn't really concern me, I always did 90% of the housework - I stopped bothering for the last couple of weeks and you could seriously see the difference. And the 'torn wallpaper' she mentions is the work of her cats, as she very well knows, not my fault at all. Besides, while it's true I didn't bother cleaning up after the move, it's an empty room, not a pigpen. Apart from the precious windows (which I cleaned in spring), all it needs is a vacuum. Honestly you'd think you'd be ashamed of mentioning that to someone who you got evicted from their home! I got a variety of amusing responses on facebook as to exactly how I should tell her where to go, but I think I'll just ignore it. If she's dumb enough to turn up at the inspection on Saturday without making provisions to clean the place, good luck to her. Honestly I am starting to think there's something not right about how she can't see the consequences of her actions or how someone else might see the situation!

Oh and PS OMG, EDF opened an account for me over the internet? I'm waiting to find out it's some sort of horrible trap or portent of the apocalypse or something, because I find it hard to believe that the giant company with a (near-)monopoly on France's energy infrastructure is capable of such quasi-efficiency (only took them 2 weeks to respond to the web request and everything!)