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$925 / 3br - 111ft2 - Room for Habitation
41st ave, Vancouver, BC V5P
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One time I even witnessed a ridiculous altercation where one woman refused to clear the intersection until another woman got out of the way. Neither of them were in each other’s way, and both of them could have driven off at any time. Neither of them would stop honking about it.
Otherwise usually pretty quiet.
The rain falling from the many different textures onto just as many difficult surfaces outside the window, conversely, is as beautifully relaxing as a costly meditation tape and something I quite miss, having moved to a different room in the house with a much louder downpipe nearby.
There are two people living here, you would be the third.
There’s me, and then there’s the other guy. The other guy mostly keeps to himself but I sometimes get to enjoy the musical tones of his giggling about something or other in his room. I say sometimes, but he’s a pretty affable, good humoured guy so it’s actually pretty frequent. He doesn’t complain about me playing music in the house and his special friend is surprisingly quiet when she stays over- surprising given how much she talks when we’re all in the kitchen together. She’s nice, and he will eventually move to Europe. He works from home, so he’s here more often than not and tbh idk how anyone can spend that much time in their room, but he can, and it doesn’t even smell bad when he opens the door.
He could be a bit better about wiping down the surfaces in the kitchen but otherwise I have no complaints. You’d share a bathroom with a double vanity with him- so it’s almost like having two bathrooms in one place. He’s very tidy in the bathroom except for an occasional patch of water on the bench that I’ve put my phone in a few times when visiting the toilet. The shower has good water pressure and the shower screen reminds me of that scene in Honey I Shrunk the Kids where they go trekking across the lawn. Which I’ve always liked.
The other guy is me. Well, he’s the other guy I’m me. I’m not a guy. Unless we’re all guys. Like “hey guys”. But they taught me at Lonestar Steakhouse and Saloon in the early 2000s that you weren’t supposed to gender people and instead call everyone folks. I mistyped that and it came out dolls and now I want to call everyone doll.
Hm let’s see. I’m pretty tall. I’ve got some pretty strong opinions. Some people find that a bit intimidating. Other people find me to be exceptionally kind. One of my strong opinions is that this is my house. Well- technically it’s my landlady’s family’s house but I’m the first person to live here since her grandma died, and there’s still my landlady’s childhood handwriting on one of the walls in the Harry Potter Room. Yeahhhhh, I established the Harry Potter Room before it turned out JK Rowling is a bit of a dink, but we’ll talk about the Harry Potter Room later.
So. This is my house. I’ve lived here for 5 years. The whole house is furnished with my furniture, decorated by my hand. The plates and cups are mine, the pots and pans are mine, the portable dishwasher is mine, the responsibility for the cat litter is mine. The only name on the lease is mine, I pay the rent, and I promised to honour this home and the landlady’s family as if it were my own, with respect, dignity, and with the pride of a homeowner. And I do. So what can we infer from the previous passage?
We have a dishwasher, yippee!
We have a cat
The entire house is fully furnished and fully decorated.
I’m a bit particular about the way the house is treated and I’ll expect my things to be treated in the same manner.
You’ll understand when you get here, it’s *fully* decorated. So much so that at the community potluck events we sometimes host at the house (approx once a year at most) I’ve given out clues to a scavenger hunt and ppl have told me how much they loved finding all the little things and artworks here and there.
So, there isn’t a lot of room for your stuff. If you’ve got a favourite chair or a really meaningful piece of art that you simply must bring with you, I’m sure we can try to find a spot for it to wiggle into.
But otherwise, everything you need is already here.
I’ve found in the past I’ve done really well with hosting international travellers or students. I travelled for most of my 20s and the energy that travellers bring seems to jive with me pretty well, as well as the kind of communal living arrangement they seem to expect that isn’t really much of a thing here in Vancouver, where people seem to live with people because they can’t afford not to, but constantly resent their sounds and smells in the kitchen and their company.
This is a place that I’ve made great effort to turn into a warm, welcoming, fun and fulfilling home. It’s got a great vibe. It’s got great amenities. I want great people to live here who want that. And travellers seem to appreciate that, with just the right blend of social energy and doing-their-own-thing-ness.
Oh, but we were supposed to be talking about me- the other guy. I’m 42. I work in film usually. I’m an “artist” the rest of the time. I do some odd jobs and some babysitting and some festival work, and I’ve been to every Shambhala since 2015 and most of the Basscoasts since.. 2018?
I make clothes and teach sewing lessons and I’d be at Burning Man again this year if it wasn’t for the Frito-haired dink whipping our southern neighbours into a frenzy of hate. I don’t watch the news or read the newspapers or sites and my mental health is much better for it. I try hard to make a positive impact on the part of the garden I can touch. -Thanks Jack Kornfield.
Um, what else?
We have laundry machines in the basement that we share with the downstairs neighbours. We also share a garbage and green bin with them and sometimes that’s a bit of a challenge because they’re not great at sorting their recycling. But we can be. Please be great at sorting your recycling.
There’s a bunch of awesome Chinese green grocers, an urgent care facility, a Lifelabs, and three places you can buy a BBQ duck right at the end of the street. There’s also London Drugs and a Tim’s less than 5 minutes walk away, depending on how fast you can walk, I guess. There’s a couple of really good restaurants in walking distance, and I spend on average $50 a week on groceries. Which is also awesome. Value Village is just up the street too, but I don’t love that one. If you ask nicely I’ll take you to my favourite one when I’m driving out that way.
All the bills and the internet and the TV streaming services in the lounge room and the cleaning supplies and the toilet paper are included in the price of the room.
We share things like tea and oils and vinegars and condiments and spices- and if you don’t want to share those things keep yours in your cupboard or on your shelf. If you use a lot of something or the last of something- have the decency to replace it. That’s how that works.
The house is pretty tidy and I’d like it to stay that way. But it’s not like hyper fixation tidy. There are often a couple of dishes by the sink (double kitchen sink) but they get done at least every day. When I go back to work I’ll spring for a cleaner to come every month or 3 weeks. But while I’m in between full time jobs we’re on a pretty loose cleaning schedule. It’s basically do it if it bothers you. And someone usually does. I recently mopped the kitchen so hard I got a stitch in my ribs. I wash all the napkins and teatowels, the other guy usually puts out the recycling and the compost, but I do that a lot too cos I can hear the truck coming in the morning, I put on the dishwasher and rearrange all the dishes how I like them after someone puts them away in the wrong spots. But I put the dishes away too, I wipe the counters several times a day and wipe the stove every time I do the dishes and I vacuum up the cat puke when that happens occasionally. If everyone does a little bit here and there it all gets done. It’s worked pretty well all these 10 years I’ve been managing share houses in Vancouver without a “cleaning roster” and I’m still friends with a lot of my former housemates and hopefully it will continue to work with you here.
This is getting pretty long. I did that on purpose. I’ve got another ad up with the “bare facts” listed and I’ll get a different kind of people responding to that ad. Probably I won’t choose any of them, if I’m honest. If you’ve read this far and have questions, I don’t blame you. Please reach out and I’ll be happy to answer them. Except “can you give me the address” or “is this still available.” I won’t be happy to answer those questions but I’ll probably get over it and still do it.
It’s right by Victoria and 41st. That’s all you’ll get until I’ve liked you sufficiently to invite you to come over and look at the room.
I’d like someone to move in who has an idea of staying long term. For sure the minimum time period is May 1st to September 1st or August 15th.
It will be totally inconvenient for me to have you move out any time during June or July or the start of August so don’t do it. Of course if your mom is dying and you have to leave suddenly or we figure out we genuinely can’t stand each other we can talk about it. But I think you’d know by now already if you genuinely can’t stand me, so there’d be little to no reason for you to move in, in the first place.