Found a room!

I finally found a room at Bedok! I had wanted a room for so long and finally I found it. A friend saw an ad in the internet and told me about it. With her help, I immediately made arrangements to view the flat at Bedok, right after my work. When I arrived, I was shocked! The outside of the house was full of plants... obviously a plant lover, I thought!

This is a two bedroom flat owned by a Malay bachelor just across the road from the Bedok library. He had previously rented the common room out to a Chinese couple but they left recently. When I was there looking at the room, I noticed that he was receiving many inquiries about the room. The price he is asking for is quite reasonable, SGD500 per month. It was well kept considering that he is a bachelor!

I decided to take the room and told him that I will be sharing it with my sister. He then asked for SGD650 which is way off my budget. We finally got it down to SGD600 but this was still quite a sum for me. If I divide this amount between the both of us, we will be paying SGD300 each, SGD90 more than what we are paying for now. Thoughts ran through my mind like a train! Should I? Should I not?

I weigh the benefits... a room to ourselves, no queuing for bathrooms or washing machines, privacy, no more missing items, better sleep, ... The disadvantages... no friends to "gossip" with... so when my sister is at work, it will be just me or if I am at work, it will be just her! But it's only a 3 minutes walk to my current place which means I can still walk there to see my friends! What is more important? Privacy or friends... both are important but at this point in my life, privacy and a little peace is more important.

The owner seems a nice guy, a little introvert but he did not like heavy cooking (which I don't do anyway) and ask that I be considerate to his Muslim faith when cooking or eating pork in the house. That's fair!

I decided to go for it! I gave him a S$600 downpayment and decided not to think about it any longer. I know it will be painful when I think about it... and to think of it, my sister has not seen it yet! The deal was I move in on 1 May!

Looking for a room - 2

Some time back, I wrote about looking for a room to rent. Well, I am still looking. and getting more desperate by the moment!

Here is why! Just last week, my landlord announced that he had intention to cut our rent from SGD210 to SGD190 per month. Sounds like good news right? Well, however, he added that he is going to split the electricity bill to all of us. This, he said, is so that we will actually make an effort to save electricity. Looking at the previous month's bill, it will add between SGD30-40 each for each of us. This will bring our monthly rent to between SGD220 to 230, more than what we are paying now.

A few of the more vocal among us protested. All the landlord could tell us was, "If you don't like it, then find a new place to stay!"

I got so desperate I have been buying the papers everyday to look at the "rooms-to-let" page. In fact, I have been looking at it for more than two months now and yet I am unable to find a room. This is also partly because I hardly have the time to go view the room unless it is after work, and by then, when I get home, it is normally past 7pm.

Recently, I resorted to calling agents to help me look too but to no avail. I even posted up a sign at the Bedok bus stop stating my intention. I had several prank calls instead. I really do hope I find a room soon as this place I am staying at is getting really crowded and sometimes a little inconvenient.

Looking for a room!

During the Chinese New Year when both my sister and I had a chance to be together for 2 full days, we had some good talk and decided that maybe we should look for a place of our own to stay. Currently we both pay SGD220 each per bed to stay at the current place, and that means both of us are paying SGD440.

Some of my customers at work tell me that I can get a room in Singapore for about SGD500. That's SGD60 more a month but that means we have a room to ourselves. There will be no queuing to use the bathrooms, no disturbance when people come home late at night, not rowdy gambling and no more losing of things. Recently I lost one of my favorite jackets which I wear to work when the morning is cold, especially in the train.

You can see from the picture on the right that our rooms are getting really too crowded now. Two persons hardly have any room to move... and when my landlord and his buddies are gambling outside, sometimes we all have to cram ourselves just to escape the noise and stares.

That's my sister on the left and a room-mate on the right. With 4 double decker beds stacked close to each other and 8 to a room, we hardly have any private space we can call our own.

I had been browsing the papers and advertisement pasted at bus stops looking for rooms-to-let. I found two but unfortunately both do not allow any cooking, even when I told them I just need to make instant noodles every now and then! Preferably, I would still like a place near Bedok Central, but really anywhere near a train station is also fine... My sister works in Ang Mo Kio and I work in Buona Vista and we both take the train to work most of the time. My sister has recently started taking buses as there is a direct bus and it is cheaper too, although it takes about 15 minutes longer. But she reckon the savings is worth... each month, she will save an additional SGD15 per month just by taking buses instead of trains.

Well, if any of my readers know of any rooms-to-let close to my budget and near a train station, please do let me know. Maybe I have been reading the Chinese newspapers most of the time and I may have missed out many opportunities in the English newspapers or even on the internet.